Learning History: Mount Airy Students Beat State Competition
Reece heads to nationals, Moser earns special award
MOUNT AIRY-It started off as a class assignment. At Mount Airy Middle School, Beth Lowry assigned a research project to her 8th grade English class this year. Each student had to pick a subject dealing with either the civil rights movement or women’s suffrage, as well as develop an annotated bibliography to go with it. But some students got so invested, they wanted to take it a step farther. They wanted to do more research, refine their work and compete in the National History Day competition.
Thirteen students from Mount Airy Middle submitted work on the regional level. Out of that group, Abby Moser and Kinlee Reece went on to place in the top three in North Carolina earlier this month. Now Reece is headed to nationals after beating all other 8th grade submissions in the state.
“I wanted to win, but I didn’t expect to beat everyone in the whole state,” Reece said. “I’m definitely excited.”
National History Day is actually an organization set up in College Park, Maryland. The group’s goal is to encourage students in grades 6 through 12 to learn about history, to take a deeper look at subjects that might have got just a brief mention in their textbooks. Every year the group sets up regional, state and national competitions for essays, exhibits and film documentaries for each grade level, recognizing those who truly learned about their subject. And the national competition stretches a bit farther than the United States, with international schools from China, Korea and South Asia all competing as well. This year’s competition had the added pressure of being held in quarantine, meaning students had to search online and assemble everything without the help of a teacher nearby.
“I feel it’s even more impressive, when you consider they’ve done it without the support of a school day,” Lowry said. “It speaks to these young women’s commitment.”
Taking The First Step
Reece wrote her paper on civil rights, focusing on Brown vs. The Board of Education. The landmark 1954 Supreme Court case declared that U.S. state laws at the time that allowed racial segregation in public schools were unconstitutional. Her paper was titled “Brown v. Board of Education: The First Step in Breaking the School Color Barrier.”
“The civil rights movement is a big part of American history, but before this, I didn’t realize even after the court case, the schools didn’t comply,” Reece said. “It kept going. There’s a lot more to history than you ever think. You start looking at one thing and find it goes so much deeper than you would expect.”
Reece said she picked Brown vs. the Board of Education partly because she is in school and wanted to understand what it was like more than 60 years ago. And what she found caught her by surprise.
“I didn’t realize people didn’t all have access to the same types of education, or nurse’s offices or things we have now,” Reece said. “Some of the things I take for granted, other people never had.”
She pulled up old newspaper articles from the time period, researched the Supreme Court case itself and took a deep dive not just into what happened in court, but the events that followed. At each level, competitors are asked to tweak their work and make corrections as they advance. Reece said there were pros and cons to doing this all at home.
“In some aspects it’s easier, because I feel I have more time on my hands,” Reece said. “But in other ways it’s harder, because if I have a question, I can’t just walk up to Mrs. Lowry’s desk and ask.”
Suffering For Suffrage
Abby Moser also learned more about her topic. She picked the women’s suffrage movement and wrote an essay called “Suffering For Suffrage.” The movement, which started in the 1840s in the U.S., didn’t become a national law until 1920. Moser said that her Social Studies class had been discussing the 1920s at the time and she thought it would be interesting.
“I just thought it was really interesting [that] around 100 years ago, women weren’t able to vote,” Moser said. “It just seemed strange to me, because it just seems like it’s always been something we could do.”
She searched through old newspapers, looked up data and found letters about the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention, the first women’s rights convention held in America. She really wanted to go over the letters, to get a firsthand perspective of what it was like for some of the activists who took part. Overall, Moser found a story that stretched more than 70 years.
“It really made me realize there was a lot more to the women’s suffrage movement than a lot of people know,” Moser said. “It really was a more difficult time for women than a lot of people understand.”
Much like her classmate, Moser also found pros and cons with working on the project at home during quarantine.
“You do have more time and a more flexible schedule to get things done,” Moser said. “But you don’t have that routine you have at school and it sorta gets things out of wack.”
Her essay won both third place overall in the state competition and a special award for Best Women’s History topic. Moser said winning both caught her by surprise.
“I was really happy and surprised that I somehow managed to get third in the entire state,” Moser said. “Overall, it helped me get an idea of how to write a research paper. That’s something I’ve not done before and it prepares me for high school.”
Moving Forward to Nationals
Because of quarantine, this year’s regional and state competitions were done virtually. Students learned if they won on the state level earlier this month through an email and presentation. Lowry said she’s not just proud of the two girls for winning, but for doing it in a time like this where they had to do so much of the work at home.
“I can’t stress enough the intellect of these young ladies, because they’re doing this at home, somewhat in isolation,” Lowry said. “That makes me very proud as an educator.”
As for Reece, she now moves on to represent North Carolina at the 2020 National History Day 8th grade essay competition. According to the group’s website, the event is scheduled to take place June 14–20 and while they want to hold it in person, there’s a good chance the national event will be online as well. In the meantime, Reece said she’s taking the critiques given by the state judges and working to make her paper better.
“I’m excited and we’ll see what happens,” Reece said. “Hopefully I’ll win. It’s a big thing so you can’t expect anything out of it but it’s exciting.”
Brian Carlton is the editor for NWNC. He can be reached at brian.carlton38@gmail.com.
