Thread by @AmandaISeligman

Hey, #twitterstorians, it's National History Day season. Yesterday I got my first* contact from a student doing a @NationalHistory project. Let me say a few words about how we respond to the young people who approach professional historians for help this time of year. 1/18

*Excluding my 14 yo daughter, whose primary role is to ignore or ridicule my advice before quietly taking it a few days later. I still haven’t seen her perform her monologue about Sarah Bernhardt, but I expect I will. 2/18

Every year I hear complaints from colleagues about how middle school and high school students approach them and expect them to do their research work for them. Sometimes professors blame teachers for sending their students to them instead of helping them themselves. 3/18

Sometimes these complaints are in the vein of the “let’s not ask women to do more uncompensated labor” critique. Sometimes they are just annoyed at being asked to spend valuable time on a task with no clear professional benefit attached. 4/18

However, I would like to suggest that we historians respond enthusiastically and helpfully to the requests that come over the transom from younger students: cultivating children’s excitement about history is one of the keys to keeping history a viable and respected field. 5/18

NHD guidelines encourage (without requiring) oral history interviews with primary sources, not historians. But they do have a sample letter indicating how to approach an expert. nhd.org/guidelines-con…. 6/18

And you are an expert. You have produced scholarship and/or taught about the past. You almost certainly know far more than any student who finds you does. For some students, locating you in the first place is an actual research accomplishment. 7/18

Keep in mind that students in middle and high school are children and are not yet at the point where they can be hoped to be capable of research on the scale that you might expect even of college students (even if they are in an AP class). They’ve just never done it before. 8/18

One year I judged two high school students at the same session. They seemed like they came from different worlds. One of them from a fancy prep school belonged in college. The other, I found out later, had autism. Just making an NHD presentation was a huge accomplishment. 9/18

Unless they live with you, students have no idea how much work it takes to produce historical scholarship. I’ve personally seen the big eyes when I show children the stack of books I’ve written. They are still finding their way to writing a 1,000 word research paper. 10/18

You might have qualms about making every learning opportunity into a competition. That’s a real concern for me that I can’t answer. The competification of everything has ruined a good portion of my kids’ education. I encourage you to respond to student NHD queries anyway. 11/18

You do not have to answer their questions exactly as posed. If you are a professor, you already know this from class. If a student seems to want you to write 5 essay questions on the history of the global economy, invite them to have a conversation with you instead. 12/18

Answering a student request for your expertise is as much a part of your self-promotional work as accepting a radio interview or answering a call from a New York Times reporter. This is true of your work in particular and our collective work as historians as well. 13/18

In my case, I work at a public university in a state where the value of higher education in general and the humanities and history in particular have been under active siege for a decade. History enrollments are down nationally in a way that poses an existential threat. 14/18

When I talk to a local student about an NHD project, I am also talking to a potential applicant to my university; it’s a small thing I can do for recruitment. I am also talking to a future voter who will help elect the government that sets our budget and operating rules. 15/18

It can also be a really gratifying personal experience. One year I did an interview with a truly amazing MS student. She had read and understood my 200 page book! Then after I spoke with her, she was really motivated to make her project worthy of ME! I was so touched. 16/18

In short, the NHD student you talk to is an ambassador for history. To be sure, it’s a high-touch, labor intensive way to promote our field. But your response to a student this month can make the lifetime of difference in their feelings about history. 17/18

This tweetstorm brought to you by a historian working voluntarily on a Saturday morning instead of making pancakes for her children. Because history matters too (and one of those kids is still sleeping and the other is using the microwave herself). 18/18