On Thursday, Jan. 27, nine Academy high-schoolers joined students from various Kansas City schools at the annual Journey to Understanding program to discuss their religous backgrounds and individual beliefs.

The program is held each year at the Kauffman Foundation and is sponsored by the National Committee on Community and Justice. For the past four years now, students from five or six area public and private schools have gathered for this all day event to focus on religion, discuss religous misconceptions and create an understanding amongst Kansas City teenagers.

“The hope is to have students recognize commonalities in their religious faiths and moral beliefs,” said Dean of Students Todd Clauer, who has organized and supervised the Academy group for the past two years.

Many students have participated several times, and some have kept in touch with students whom they met at the program in past years.

Junior Hanna Sorkin didn’t go this year because she got sick. However, she has gone for the past two consecutive years. She met many interesting teenagers and has kept in touch with one student from Bishop Miage. Students enjoy coming back to the program because it enables them to build bridges between students who might have different faiths and thoughts.

Matthew Rissien, an Academy senior and a second-time participant in the program, said he applied their year because of his positive past experiences at Journey to Understanding.

“I applied because I really learned a lot about other religions last year,” Rissien said. “It was nice to learn how similar some religions truly are.”

Other participating students include seniors Jill Bratt and Lisa Rapschutz, juniors Brittany Lutzk, Jacquie Pener and Kaley Wajcman, sophomores Sasha Freidman and Paige Lowenstein and freshman Isaac Wilder.

Wilder said he participated in hopes of not only learning something new about different faiths, but also of teaching something new to a student from another school.

After morning prayers, the students went to the Kauffman Foundation to join the other schools. They were immediately seperated into groups with students from other schools to eat breakfast and meet each other. The students then shared their most “treasured objects” with each other before discussing common religious misconceptions.

During the misconceptions discussion, students of each religion gave a presentation on their religion, its core values and any common misconceptions related to their religion, before answering questions.

“I truly gained a better understanding of so many different religions during the discussions,” said Lowenstein. “I really hope our presentation on the Jewish religion taught others as much as their presentations taught me.”

The second half of the day was focused more on personal beliefs concerning issues such as abortion, separation of church and state, gay marriage, euthanasia and human cloning. “The administrators there made sure each person was granted the ability to voice his own opinion,” Lowenstein said. “They made it so that each voice was equally heard and everyone really respected each other’s opinions.”

The participating students said they gained a better understanding of religions and religious values as well as friendships. Students seemed to be glad they participated and most are excited to join the schools again for next year’s Journey to Understanding.