After School History

Will Fitzhugh

This spring each chapter chose its own “History Student of the Year,” who received—thanks to James Rees and George Washington’s Mount Vernon—a copy of David Hackett Fischer’s Washington’s Crossing (2004) as a National History Club prize.

In an editorial in the National History Club newsletter, James Rees, executive director of George Washington’s Mount Vernon talked about the crisis in history facing our schools, observing “in a recent survey of fourth graders, seven of ten students thought that Illinois, California or Texas were among the thirteen original colonies. Six of ten students had no idea why Pilgrims came to America, and only seven percent could identify what important event occurred in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776.”

Chapters of the National History Club have taken a wide variety of approaches to discovering the natural fascination of history. Some have constituted themselves as history honor societies, with membership qualifications of their own devising. Others have welcomed anyone with an interest in history (and their friends). Some of their names reveal a bit of that variety: The Cliosophic Society in Tennessee; The History Honor Society at Archbishop Coleman Carroll High School in Florida; B.B. Comer’s Time Travelers Club in Alabama; Santa Catalina School History Club in California; the Conrad Weiser History Club in Pennsylvania; Happy Hill Farm Academy in Texas; Lookout Mountain Homescholars in Tennessee; The Ben Franklin Honor Society at Plainedge High School in New York; The Gilbert Van Zandt History Club at Wilmington High School in Ohio; and the St. Martin History Honor Society in Mississippi are a few examples.

Their activities in history show a similar range. Some have heard presentations from such speakers as presidential adviser David Gergen, Nobel Prize winner Eli Wiesel, former presidential candidate George McGovern, and many others who have played a significant role in our recent history. In addition, many chapters have visited local universities, presidential libraries, state historical societies, and museums to discover the history resources available to them, including the U.S. Holocaust Historical Museum, the University of Colorado, the Ohio Freedom Center, and the New-York Historical Society, among many, many others.

The Club newsletter, which has two issues a year, has had columns by Lt. Col. Ward Scott, a Mahan Scholar at the Naval War College; Peter Gibbon, author of Call to Heroism; Jesus Garcia, President of the National Council for the Social Studies; and James Rees, director of George Washington’s Mount Vernon. The spring 2005 newsletter has a column by David Hackett Fischer of Brandeis University, winner of this year’s Pulitzer Prize in history.

In the spring 2004 issue of the Club newsletter, Jesus Garcia wrote: “Why do I value history and consider history a core discipline? Like many of the contributors to this column, I enjoyed social studies and history as a student and I can identify key individuals who taught me the importance of history and the other social sciences and the value of a broad and comprehensive view on issues. At home, my father, an immigrant from Mexico, skimmed my high school U.S. History textbook and commented on the lack of information covering the contributions of Mexicans and Mexican Americans to the development of the Southwest in the early 1900s, World War II, and agribusiness in the early 1950s. My father piqued my interest by referring to my textbook as the ‘official’ knowledge of the schools.”

We started the National History Club because we love history and we would like to encourage that love among our secondary students. We believe that peer influence can get students interested in history the way it gets them interested in baseball or 50 Cent. We think that our chapters can stimulate an interest in history in a number of ways that are not available in the usual history classroom, and we expect that such an interest will make history in the classroom more approachable and more valuable to students. We know that once students start to talk about history and to read history books, the chances decrease of their being as ignorant of history as too many of their peers these days are.

Of course, we also hope that as chapter members start to read history books they will consider doing more serious history research papers as well which will not only bring more and better submissions to The Concord Review and the National Writing Board, but will help them to get ready for the academic nonfiction reading lists and academic term papers that will face them in college, especially if they take any good history courses.

We are very encouraged with the number of chapters which have joined since 2002, and with the energy and enthusiasm which members are bringing to their quite varied approaches to the study and enjoyment of history after school. We expect to offer a great history book to the “History Student of the Year” at each chapter every year, and if we can get some funding as the number of chapters continues to grow, we will start planning for our first National History Club Convention before too long. For more information about the National History Club, visit <http://www.tcr.org> or email Will Fitzhugh at <fitzhugh@tcr.org> or Robert Nasson, Director, National History Club at: <nasson@tcr.org>.

Lynn Classical High
School History Club

Lynn Classical is a 1,400-student high school located in a city of strong middle class and immigrant neighborhoods. The students come from very diverse backgrounds and, after graduation, go on to further education at colleges like Yale and Harvard or local two-year colleges like North Shore Community College. Some students enter the workforce immediately after graduation or enter military service. With such diversity, it was surprising that there was no History Club until a group of students asked me if I would help them start one and be the advisor. We have just finished our third year.

I would say that our first goal is to have fun, followed closely by seeing history in action. We regularly join the reenactments of Paul Revere’s Midnight Ride in Lexington, the Boston Tea Party, and the Boston Massacre. In February, we host a birthday party for Washington and Lincoln for the fourth graders of the nearby elementary school. In addition to cake and cookies, we quiz the students on geography and U.S. history. In June, we walk the Boston Freedom Trail and later this year we will visit Harvard’s Fogg Art Museum and enjoy lunch at Mr. Bartley’s Burger Cottage. In the past, we hosted a speaker from the Holocaust Survivors’ Center and held lectures by some of our own faculty. We also regularly participate in Massachusetts History Day competition.

It has been a rewarding experience for me to share my love of history with students who are willing to give up a Friday night to watch how history was made. See us in action at the school’s website <http://www.lynnclassical.org/historyclub2.htm>.

Gayle G. Richardson