COLLEGE PARK, Md. (AP) – It wasn’t the typical trifold poster board display. High school freshman Alexandra Bui constructed a replica of a giant mail-order catalog from wooden slabs — an inventive, oversized way to convey her research on the impact of the Sears catalog on obtaining consumer goods black shoppers faced with discrimination in stores in the Jim Crow South.
Bui, from Temple, Texas, is one of half a million young scholars participating this year in National History Day, an annual campaign by a Maryland nonprofit that encourages students to take ownership of their history education and rigorously examine the past. to research. As the 2024 edition celebrates 50 years of championing evidence-based argumentation, participants say they find the work more relevant than ever.
As students face toxic falsehoods online and some Republican-led states like Florida want to limit historical analysis in the classroom, the competition aims to empower middle and high school students to delve deeper into topics of their own choosing.
“We can do our research. We can talk to experts. And we can find out the truth,” Bui told The Associated Press.
This year’s theme, “Turning Points in History,” asked students to explore ideas or events that led to change. More than 2,800 finalists reached the national competition after months of visiting libraries and studying primary sources. Participants lined the halls of the University of Maryland this week as they eagerly awaited the presentation of trifold exhibitions, documentaries or even theater performances. They rehearsed lines or chatted with their peers, sometimes carrying props around campus and tailoring period-appropriate costumes. The national winners will be announced on Thursday, although all students had already triumphed in various competitions to get there.
National History Day was created to strengthen history curricula beyond the “boring textbook” that students felt had “no meaning,” according to director Cathy Gorn. She now calls the mission a mission that strengthens democracy. Strong social studies education is an “antidote to conspiracy theories” and necessary for developing engaged citizens, she said.
Gorn finds the process particularly effective today, as many children want to understand the background of current events. The nonprofit “does not promote a particular agenda,” she emphasized, but instead guides students through their own questions. It provides classroom tools for teachers to help them navigate the Library of Congress, track oral histories, and annotate bibliographies, among other things.
“We don’t tell the kids how to interpret the past or what to interpret from the past, but how to create an interpretation and an argument based on the real research,” Gorn told AP.
“By learning that, they learn the importance of a historical perspective,” Gorn added. “And hopefully they learn to understand the past as part of the future.”
National History Day also launched a $15 million capital campaign, although Gorn said raising funds for history education is difficult.
The humanities have historically been underfunded in K-12 public education. But there is increasing recognition that high school graduates today must navigate a much more complex information environment than previous generations, said David Knight, a professor of education finance and policy at the University of Washington. Education policy is beginning to understand the increased need to, for example, educate young people about the difference between primary and secondary evidence.
According to the jury, the projects are an impetus for a lifelong search for knowledge that benefits all students, regardless of their future endeavors. One of the most important lessons is following the “rabbit hole,” said Robyn Gausman-Burnett, a doctoral candidate in geographic sciences at the University of Maryland. She said National History Day trains students to never stop looking for “that next piece of supporting evidence,” or “the other half of the story that isn’t easily found through the Google search.”
“There’s a lot of false information on the Internet these days,” said Macy Huish, a high school student from Logan, Utah. “So it is very important to be able to distinguish the small nuggets.”
“You may get sources that contradict your thesis,” says Hannah Jang, a student at an international school in South Korea. “That is also part of the process. You must have the ability to accept it. And you can also study the reason behind it.”
Many students interviewed by AP said their projects came from personal experiences. Three high school students living near Alabama State University investigated a nearly three-decade-long federal lawsuit that successfully challenged funding disparities between historically black schools and predominantly white schools in their home state.
The legal battle is part of their history, they said, and they wanted to learn more about their history.
Acclaimed documentary filmmaker Ken Burns tasked the finalists with defending American democracy. During a question-and-answer session with students, Burns said they should say “no” to “authoritarians” who want to return the public “to a superstitious peasantry.” Burns told AP he was optimistic to see so many students “questioning and diving deep into the archives and not accepting the limitations or the limitations.”
“We’re just trying to tell complicated stories about the United States,” he said. “It can only bode well in the age-old struggle between those who want to limit these things and those of us who think we have been set free by the truth.”
___
Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits is supported by the AP’s partnership with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.
