Watching my older son fail at the Maryland History Day competition on Saturday was one of the toughest things I’ve done as a parent.  He had paced through the hours between his presentation to the judges and announcement of the awards.  At the awards ceremony, his face was pale.  He clenched and unclenched his hands and jaw, and stared intently at the emcees while other awards were announced. When his name wasn’t called for either the first or second place in his category, his posture sagged and I could see that he was working hard to keep his emotions under control.  When we left the Retriever Athletic Center at UMBC, he stormed off ahead of me.  An hour later, I had never been prouder of him, even though he had failed to accomplish an important goal.

My son blundered into the National History Day competition by accident in sixth grade.  All we knew was that it was a compulsory school project that would be a big part of his grade.  He was dragging his feet on picking a topic the afternoon before it was due.

“What do you want to do the project on?” I asked him in exasperation.
He picked up a rubber chicken toy.  “Something with chickens,” he said.
“Fine,” I said.  “Let’s go to the Internet and look up chicken history.  Let’s have some fun with this.”

He found a book on the development of large-scale chicken farming on the Delmarva Peninsula.  He visited an agricultural museum in Delaware and a poultry farm on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.  He designed an exhibit board shaped like a chicken, and used some basic model railroad construction techniques to build a diorama.  I was surprised when he received an award for the project at his school.  Astounded when the project won cash prizes at the county and state competitions.  Charmed when I watched him run around the University of Maryland campus to trade state buttons with competitors from all over the United States and beyond.  Thrilled when I saw the impact of success in the History Day competition on his self-esteem.  He was thinking of himself as a success.  A winner.

Through two more years of History Day projects, both of which advanced to the national level of competition, I watched him grow academically and personally.  He chose more complex topics each year.  He tackled college-level source material, and his research and writing skills improved.  His analysis of challenging data became better.  He gained confidence by interviewing people for the projects.  He learned to use a hot-glue gun.  He began to meet interim deadlines with less urging (okay, less screaming) on my part.  Even his math grades came up, because succeeding at History Day convinced him that he was a good student and could master challenging material.  In eighth grade, even though he wants a career in science or medicine, he chose the History Day competition over the Science Fair when the deadlines were too close together for him to participate in both.  He finally won an award at nationals that year – “Best Entry from the State of Maryland.”

Freshman year is the last in which participation in History Day is mandatory for some students at my son’s high school.  I was glad that he would complete one final project.  Competing and succeeding in History Day had become a part of his identity as a student; success in the competition would help keep his self-esteem up during the transition to high school; and the extra work would help to prepare him for the greater workload in future AP classes.

“This is my last year,” he insisted.  “I’ll have too much homework next year.”

I thought he might be right:  he had put in more than a hundred hours on each of his first three History Day projects.  Like most fourteen-year-old boys, my son disdained parental input and advice.  I watched him forget or ignore most of what he had learned in the first three years of competition.  He created a very good project – but it was not up to the standard of the previous three.  I told myself over and over: This is his project.  He’s growing up; I won’t be around to offer advice and suggestions forever.  Sooner or later, he has to succeed or to fail on his own.  And on April 27th, at the 2013 Maryland History Day, his project did not advance to the national level of the competition.

“What did I do wrong?” he asked me on the way home.
“What do you think you did wrong?” I asked.

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For the next half-hour, he evaluated his own work.  He spent too much time on Xbox and TV, he said.  He used low-hanging fruit for source material, and was satisfied with it.  He had lacked the confidence to request an interview with someone who won a Nobel Prize.  He could have done a dynamic diorama instead of a static display.  He could have taken the advice of his seventh-grade social studies teacher, and made the project interactive.  He knew that standards in the senior division would be higher, and that he would be competing against upperclassmen, but he hadn’t made enough extra effort.

“I treated it like a junior division project,” he said.  “And I thought that because I went to nationals for three years in a row, I would automatically go again this year.  I was overconfident.”
“This probably isn’t the right day for me to tell you that sometimes you learn more from failing than you do from winning,” I said a few minutes later.
“No!” he replied.  “Absolutely this is not the right day for that!”

So instead, I told him about working at the U. S. Embassy in Moscow for an army colonel who had been selected for the rank of brigadier general, but whose promotion had been delayed for political reasons.

“What’s going to happen if your promotion never comes?” someone asked soon after his arrival.
“Sooner or later,” the colonel said, “the wheels fall off the wagon for everyone.  You have to have something to go to when that happens.  It doesn’t matter if I retire as a colonel, or as a general.  I have a life beyond the Army, and when I’m no longer serving I’m going to live that life.”

“It sounds like the wheels fell off your History Day wagon today,” I said.  “What are you going to do next?”
“I’m not sure,” he said.

“The way I see it,” I told him, “you have two choices.  You can put all this behind you and focus on your homework next year.  Or you can choose to put the wheels back on the wagon and head up the hill again.  You can do a project next year, even though it’s not mandatory.  You can learn from your mistakes, put in the work you’re capable of doing, and take another shot at the national competition.  But you don’t have to.  You’re growing up, and you can make more choices for yourself.  This is one of them.”

He was very quiet for a few minutes.
“What’s the theme for next year?” he asked.  He started to brainstorm some ideas for a project, a title, a diorama. He sat up straighter, and his eyes started to sparkle.
“I’m glad my project didn’t advance to nationals this year,” he said.
“You are?  Why?”
“Well, if I’d gone to nationals, this would probably have been the last year I participated in History Day.  But since I didn’t make it to nationals, I’m going to do it again. I’m not going to make the same mistakes next time.  I’m going to do a better job.  And I’m glad I’m going to do it again.”

My son may or may not do a History Day project next year, but as of today, the competition is part of his game plan for 2014.I would have been proud of him if his History Day project had advanced to the national competition this year.  But I’m more proud of what he accomplished when he failed to go.

The History Day competition doesn’t just teach social studies content, analytical skills, and presentation.  It’s more than an opportunity for a student to succeed. It can teach life skills, like how to handle failure – and how to recover.

Sincerely,
      Jerri Bell, History Day Parent

Do you have a similar story to share?  Please leave a response below or on MHC’s Facebook Fan Page.  Our thanks to our History Day parent and her son for sharing their very personal reflections after the 2013 Maryland History Day competition. The 2013 History Day State Contest results will be posted here tomorrow. To learn how you can support MHC programs for students, click here. Want to discover more?  Read the September 2011 NY Times Magazine Education Article “What if the Secret to Success is Failure” by Paul Tough.

Each year, thousands of students statewide work diligently with their dedicated social studies teachers on projects for the Maryland History Day Competition. Often we hear from students, parents, and teachers, about the positive effect History Day has in the classroom and in student’s lives, teaching them important skills needed later in life and fostering discipline and critical thinking skills. As a result, many kids get a boost of self-confidence by completing a long-term, challenging task.

On March 26^th, we received this lovely thank you note from RaeLynne Snyder, a teacher at Patterson Park Public Charter School, who was recognized with the Central District History Day Teacher of the Year Award. We think her account easily demonstrates the power of History Day.

Thank you, RaeLynne, for allowing us to share your letter of thanks. Do you have a History Day story to share?  Please share your thoughts by commenting below, or send us an email at info@mdhc.org.  We’d love to hear from you.

Hello All-

I just wanted to take a moment to express my appreciation for all that you do to make History Day happen.  I want to share with you how much this competition has meant for me and my students.

It all started for these current eighth graders at the end of the 2011 school year. I sent home with their final report cards an invitation to the 2012 History Day competition. They received the theme and were asked to think about a topic they might be interested in for the fall.

When the students returned in September we walked over to the southeast anchor branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library system. They received a tour and database training by the youth librarian. The students learned how to look up books that pertained to their topics. Some topics were eliminated very quickly when the students saw how few books were available.  Some students found many books and hurriedly rushed out into the library holding the paper where they had scribbled down the name of the books that they were looking to find. They found out very quickly that it was actually that strange group of numbers that was going to be their ticket to success in the library. They came away from that day knowing how to go to the shelves and find a book using the system created by the Library of Congress.

Eventually it was our time to make it down to the main branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library. We had a tour and a training in the Periodical section. This was a hard day for the kids. How were these huge, dusty, green books (The Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature) going to be of any help to them? The print was small, they had to decipher strange abbreviations and they were forced to rely on the librarian to be able to find the material for them.  I came away from this day disheartened, until I found out later that a group had become quite obsessed with the Periodical department and had asked their parents to take them back there several times since our training.

It was the second trip back to the main branch where I really saw the difference in my students.  They had used the EPFL database from my classroom to look up books on their topics, so when we went to the library they already knew what they were looking to find in the shelves. The librarians were ready for us and we were ready for them. The students were set free, lists in hand to find the books they had looked up before coming. We took over the second floor, my class, all sitting peacefully, surround by dozens of books. They were combing through them, deciding which ones to keep and which ones to leave. The librarians were astonished. These are eighth graders? We were told that we were invited back anytime. Everybody felt accomplished that day, teachers, students and librarians. Every group came away with a stack of books.

A few days later the language arts teacher stops me in the hallway- “I just wanted you to know that during silent reading today- Jason was reading a book on Joseph McCarthy- I assume that has something to do with you.”

There were so many amazing moments along the way. Brandi contacted a professor from Georgetown University, on her own, and the professor agreed to meet her at our school for an interview.  Brandi conducted the interview and used it in her paper. Brandi now knows how to contact people in a professional manner, has conducted an important interview, has learned how to cite and use that interview in a paper. Does it get any better than that?

In a time when social studies instruction is being marginalized and treated like it is an unworthy child in the education system- it is very validating to see how much the children learn from this History Day process.  I not only know how important social studies instruction is, I can prove it. I have thirty children who have completed projects that rival anything that they have done in their middle school career. And, yes, they did it with their social studies teacher. Marquel stopped me on the way out of class one day. He said “Ms. Snyder, this project has been a pain in the butt, but man did I learn a lot.” And Brandi said on the day of the competition “Ms. Snyder, I had no idea how much fun today was going to be. This whole experience has been totally epic.”

I agree Brandi. I agree.

I feel I would be remiss if I did not mention my award before I go. I cannot possibly articulate how much it meant to be recognized in front of my students and my peers.  Thank you so much. It is deeply, deeply appreciated.

Sincerely,

RaeLynne Snyder
Middle School Social Studies
Patterson Park Public Charter School

How do we measure success in this country? Are you only considered successful if you have a high-paying, high-powered job? I’ve been talking with friends and co-workers about what success means since the recent Washington Post article about Cedric Jennings and what’s going on in his life 12 years after A Hope in the Unseen was first published. Hope–this year’s One Maryland One Book selection–chronicles Jenning’s journey from his high school in one of D.C.’s most dangerous neighborhoods to Brown University.

After we leave high school and go our separate ways, the places we end up professionally run the gamut. Some of us fulfill our childhood dreams and become firemen, lawyers, and fishermen. Others hop from job to job or decide to move in a completely different direction professionally after years of doing the same thing—finding themselves professionally as they come into their own personally. But the bottom line is that we each have our own path to walk, and who is to say what defines success for each of us?

So what do you think? Do we only equate success with the Bigs? Big house, big car, big bank account? Do we place enough value on the contribution one makes in enriching the lives of others through their work? How do you define personal success?

Andrea Lewis is the Project Manager for One Maryland One Book.