...In 1998 Linda Hooper and a group of parents and teachers in Whitwell sat down to talk about what kids were learning in school—and what they weren’t. There was one obvious gap: In a town that’s almost exclusively white and Protestant, Whitwell kids knew very little about other people. Hooper decided to send David Smith—history teacher, football coach, and assistant principal—to a workshop in Chattanooga on enrichment programs.

When Smith saw a presentation on the Holocaust, he knew that was what he wanted to explore.

“I could teach about hatred and what it cost,” he says.

When Smith brought the idea to Linda Hooper, he warned that studying the Holocaust would expose the children to disturbing images and stories. They agreed that the project would be a voluntary, once-a-week after-school activity for eighth-graders only. The first year, parents were required to attend with their kids...

...She began by reading aloud to the kids from Elie Wiesel’s Night, Anne Frank’s diary, and history books. Her students were having a hard time understanding the magnitude of the Holocaust. They never had seen 6 million of anything. The kids decided to collect 6 million paper clips.

Why paper clips?

“You needed to make it something you can walk past, something you can touch,” Roberts explains. Given the size of the school building, Hooper told the class that they had to pick something small.

The kids searched the Internet for inspiration and discovered that during World War II, Norwegians had worn paper clips on their collars to show their solidarity with Jews and their opposition to Nazism and anti-Semitism.

Another reason was what paper clips symbolized—holding things together...