What NHD is NOT!

Welcome to another exciting episode of History Happens! 

In this episode, Miss Lesley and Mr Craig again dive into the captivating world of National History Day (NHD).

Get ready to embark on a journey that uncovers what NHD projects are NOT.  Join us as we discuss the critical distinctions between NHD projects and book reports, offering insights into how to craft a compelling historical thesis.

But that's not all – we'll also unveil the essence of NHD projects as multi-sided debates, where students learn to embrace diverse perspectives and navigate the intricacies of history. Learn the art of balanced storytelling, honest portrayal, and the magic of walking in the shoes of historical figures.

Get ready to elevate your NHD journey to new heights of historical exploration!

Transcript

And now for the NHS. Scholar first. Back to the 1st place gold medal. Any any age dollar for senior individual performance taking home the gold.

Welcome to history happens, the podcast that helps you understand and succeed at the National History Day contest with your host, Craig and Leslie Mathieu. Hello and welcome back to history. Happens where Miss Leslie and Mr. Craig try to help you with your NHD journey.

MHM.

And today it's kind of interesting because we're not talking about your NHD project, we're talking about what your NHD project is not.

Correct. Correct, yes. So. It I think it helps for students and parents and teachers to help their students not only pick a topic, but also how to deliver the message and their thesis.

And to help them focus their research to know what they're trying to find out about and what. Isn't as important to find out about.

Yep, so two things. Points. The first point I'm going to give you 2 points and then we'll talk about each one individually. So the first thing and HD is not your NHD project, is not. A book report. It is not a book report and it is not a book report. Did I say that it is not a book report, Craig?

So it's not a book report. I don't. So what you're trying to get across is that NHD?

Project.

Is not a book report, OK?

Right, right. Yeah, an HD project is not a book report. The second thing, NH your NHD project is not, it is not a one sided argument. Your NHD project is not a one sided argument.

One of the things that we stress and and HD stress and why we're again Big believers in National History Day is because they want to see perspectives. They want to see different angles, they want to know all sides of issues that you're going to. To get across so, but we'll come back to that. Let's go back to.

It's not a book report. OK, so. We've all done book reports before. Basically read a book and we summarize it. That is not what NHD your NHD project is. This is a research project where you pull information from a variety of primary and secondary sources, and then you put the that information together. In such a way that it proves a historical thesis, it proves a point that you're trying to make.

It is not just a restatement of historical facts and dates and figures. Unless. They are used to support the argument you're trying to make.

That is right. I was very good. Craig, have you? Done this before. Couple times couple of times is is this here 12 or 13?

I think it's probably going to be your 13, I think.

I think this is your 13 for us. Yep, absolutely. OK. So let's talk about a book report. So when you do book reports, you kind of give a summary to the main characters lives. Sometime you talk about where they grew up, maybe when they were born, when they died, who they married, where they go to school. That kind of stuff. In an NHD project, almost always we don't care. It doesn't matter. To have on an NHD project to waste words and waste times on saying Helen Keller was born in 1912. I don't really know what hello, I can't remember, but I just made that up. Was born in 1912. It is not relevant to your thesis. If you say Helen Keller. Became blind and deaf at the age of five after a viral infection. Then that's relevant. For and and and I'll tell you one of the things that is a telltale sign of this of a project being a book report is when people say, and I'm just going to go, I'm going to go with. Performance.

As we've seen it done in performances.

A lot is when someone in performance is playing that character and they say. And then I died. OK, no. First of all, it's not relevant to your thesis. And second of all, you can't say and then I die. That just doesn't make any sense. So and for exhibits and for documentaries, it it don't waste any words or any precious time.

I like to call it real estate. There's only so much real estate on your board and you don't want to waste that real estate with things that don't matter. I was just thinking like, like Bill Clinton as president had an impact and has done things, and you may have. A lot of really cool topic on on his presidency, but putting a picture of his childhood home. Doesn't matter to whatever whatever your topic is, I guarantee you whatever topic you have on President Clinton or President Lincoln or anything like that, their childhood home really doesn't have an impact, unless somehow that is showing the fact that this billionaire, you know, came from, you know, very.

That's right.

It doesn't matter where you went to college.

Ah.

From a four Packer.

Modest means or poor background or something like that. Likewise, it only matters when someone dies. If somehow they were assassinated. And that's what changed the history or something like that, then clearly that matters when they died. But.

Yes.

Right. If their death changed history and your thesis revolves around their death, for instance, the assassination of Martin Luther King Junior. So the assassination of President Kennedy. His funeral was the first time they broadcasted from multiple sites along the route. They had multiple they had correspondence for the same broadcast on multiple sites.

Multiple locations.

Multiple locations, yes.

Interesting I did not. Know that.

I think when Macy did, Barbara Walters, I think that was in her audition book. And Barbara Walters audition book, if that's where I remember it from.

Hmm.

It's funny. Being parents of an HD kids who competed between the two of two of Macy and Max competed for for 10 years. It's funny how much we as parents remember either them putting in their script or taking out of the script or saying hey, could you, could you read this? What are they trying to say here? Or I don't understand the legal document. Can you kind of interpret this or can you can you read this script from the 1840s? What is this letter that James K Polk wrote?

Clearly, Miss Leslie and and I are big believers in in National History Day and it's because the life lessons that it teaches and part of that is developing a thesis where you're trying to prove something about history and we're going to get more into that and we'll have a whole podcast, probably multiple one thesis.

But.

But the thesis is you trying to prove something. That others might disagree with, and when they were born and where they lived in their hometown, where they went to school.

And they went to. School, who they went, who they married.

Often has so little to do with that, and So what we're trying to get across is that your research needs to focus in on things that help prove your point. You're trying to make.

And don't waste time and words on saying other than. Things. In fact, ARC standard rule of thumb for our students is that if you in the end if you take all of the sentences at either your original words and do one sentence per line. No more than half of them should be facts. Facts. Facts. The other half should be your analysis, interpretation, and causation analysis, interpretation, impact, causation. That's what. That's what half of your half of your sentences should be. And I would say that the higher up you get in this in this competition, once you start getting to. A senior level, if you are a junior or a senior in the high school division in the senior division. I would challenge you to have at least 70 or 75% be non factual statements, and I'm not saying that they should be false statements. What I'm saying is that those statements should be more about analysis, causation, impact implications. Interpretation. I would say that 75% of every line should be that in your project.

And if you if you don't know, maybe this is your first time joining us when Miss Leslie says our students, we want you to be our students too. We're not teachers. We're just a little obsessed with National History day and we like, we like helping we're coaches for free. We're not. We're not professional coaches. That doesn't mean we haven't had success and we can.

Yes.

What kind of dreams?

Yes.

Hopefully we'll have another podcast where we brag a little bit about our history and how we got here, but please reach out to us. We have an e-mail address askhistoryhappens@gmail.com. Askhistoryhappens@gmail.com and we have a website historyhappens.org where you can sign up and and make sure that we stay in communication with you and help you along the way. So we'd love for you to be one of our students as well so. Student be one of our students. If this is a parent or a teacher.

But we love parents. Contact as teachers, contact the students, contact us. We love it all.

Right.

OK, so I think I think we we beat that dead horse so.

Let me make make sure so it's not a book. Got it.

I do NH your NHD project is not a book report. Do not tell me when you were born. I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear when your character was born. I don't want to hear when they died. Unless it was an assassination. And it's part of your thesis. That's right. And then I died. We should. We should. Well, we should make a game out of that. On a Bing. We'll have to make bingo cards. If you know. Anytime somebody says I was born on this and then I died. And HD bingo cards. Hey, doctor. Gorn. Let's do bingo. Cards somehow.

Right.

You put that I bet you. I bet you miss Erika. Miss Erika Washington could. Could come up.

We'll write that idea down.

With that game.

That's right. So nationals will have HD bingo, they'll be fine.

Yes, ND bingo. Every time you had a you see a project that says Ruby Bridges you got to you got to mark that anytime you have a project and someone says. And then I died and then OK that could be so much fun. Anyway here we go. So there were two things when we started this podcast today we said there were two things that.

I did.

PhD project is not the first is a book report. The second thing it is not. This is not a one sided argument. This is not a debate. A1 sided debate. Many of the NHD competitors students actually participate in debate in their school. It is hard for them to transition to this project because they are so used to pounding out that one side. If you look at the judges. Rubrics. One of the things that students are required to do is provide multiple perspectives. So when you give a multiple perspective, when you give an opposing perspective, other people's perspective, your job is to stand in their shoes and give them a voice of what they were thinking and what they were doing and why they were doing things. Your job is not to condemn that person when it gets really. When it gets really hard is when those other perspectives may have nefarious intentions. Or or when we perceive them as not so nice people. And for me the easiest example to give is we can, well, we can talk about Hitler, just talk about Hitler. I think the majority of people have recognized that Hitler did some bad things. But if you're doing a topic that involves. World War Two naziism Hitler. Your job in your project is not to say Hitler was bad. Your job is to give the perspective of the allies of the United States. Give the perspective of Great Britain. Maybe give the perspective of the Italians after Mussolini goes down. But your job is also to give Hitler's perspective. What was he thinking? Do you think Hitler thought he was doing anything wrong? Answer that question to yourself. Do you think Hitler was justifying what he was doing? That's the message that you portray either in your performance or your documentary or your. On your exhibit board, it is really, really hard to do because it goes against all of our instincts. It really does.

So one of the challenges with National History Day is that if you've listened to an earlier podcast of ours, we were going to tell you, pick something that's important to you. Well, if it's important to you, then you probably have an opinion about it. You have. You have feelings on it and maybe even strong feelings. And so you want to do a topic that relates to that. The challenge is that while you're going to be able to express your opinion in the projects and we're not suggesting that you can't have an opinion about things and you can't. Have that brought to light. You're still trying to prove a thesis, and you're going to have to use facts and and and research to back that up. And it can't just be your opinion on things.

Yep, it is not a pulpit pounding opportunity for you. This is not you trying to. To convince people that women should have the right to vote, OK, we do have the right to vote. That's right. And it was a great thing. But you're not trying to convince people that we should have always have had a right to vote and all men are are evil. And I'm exaggerating. Here. All men are evil. That's not the purpose of the of the NHD. Project and by the way. The job of a historian is to be objective. And to. Give multiple perspectives in an honest in an honest fashion, there's a lot of conversation that's happened in in the in the recent history or in in the past. In the past, in the recent years, in recent years where people who should have been reflecting history accurately decide to change his. And sometimes we get into the trouble. Well, it has led to the the trouble that we're in now, where history isn't always portrayed accurately, because people who should have been historians were actually expressing opinions. And I I can. I can give you an example that our son Max. You've heard that he did James K Polk well. James K Polk gets gets one. One paragraph in history books sometimes, which kind of which is. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. That that is right. People, many people, many historians have blamed him for igniting the Civil war because by expanding the United States, he added more slave states.

Kind of led to this whole idea of doing the project, but that's a whole nother story. That's a whole podcast there.

And and Max read several articles where people blamed him and said he caused it. But if you read his diary, you actually see that poke aligned with the union. That he was not pro slavery. He inherited one slave from his dad. But eventually set him free so so and that. That's kind of my my what I'm trying to say is that you're young historians. It is your job to give honest perspectives even when it's difficult, even when it doesn't fit a narrative, or even when. It may be it goes against your opinion. Quite frankly, we've seen we've seen some of our students do fantastic topics on their families, country of origin and where they had to honestly portray some things that that that weren't very kind weren't very nice in history. And quite frankly, if you do American history, there's going to be there's going to be a list of things that weren't very kind and weren't very nice, but an honest historical portrayal of that base. Gathered from your sources, that's what you will be. That's what you will be graded on or judged on.

And parents out there. Again, this is another yet another reason that we are so gung ho on National History Day is because this is a skill that, quite frankly, many adults these days, and certainly students could get better at. And so this this kind of forces. These young historians to look at things from different angles and try to understand what people were thinking, what their motives were, why they did it, and and how it ended up impacting things sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. And again, that doesn't mean we have to. And not have any opinion on things, but we do have to try and look at things honestly as to how different sides may or may. You know may have disagreed or how they came about.

And and I think it helps the students to understand that just because somebody disagrees with you doesn't doesn't necessarily.

Make them bad people.

Make them bad people or make it make them wrong for disagreeing. What is right for me might not be right for for Mr. Craig. Or.

I was going to say little inside seat sometimes Miss Leslie and Mr. Craig don't agree on things. And by sometimes that might be.

That's not true.

More than sometimes, but. That doesn't that.

We have been married, we have been married for almost 30 years, so whatever the level of disagreement is and the acceptance of multiple perspectives.

But there again, there was makes us, does it make us bad people just cause we disagree with each other. So there we go.

Work.

That's right. But it is a great it is a great skill that one of the best skills that that students who participate in NHD actually gain, and that is the ability to research, find the truth. And not be sucked into the the opinion that is stated loud and proud and and people take as fact. So anyway, so two things that NHD project is not #1 not a book report #2.

Yep. Not A1 sided argument.

There you go.

So but. NHD is a lot of things and we're going to get to more of those on more podcasts, so we hope you'll join us, give us a 5 star review, come and subscribe and reach out to us at our website, historyhappens.org or at an e-mail askhistoryhappens@gmail.com. We'll see you next time.

Bye.