Two teams will proudly represent Hernando County in Washington D.C. next month.
For many people, history is a boring subject – one of memorizing dates, people, and events that happened hundreds of years ago with no relevance to their daily lives. However, for those students who participated in the National History Day (www.nhd.org) projects at the school, district and state levels, the subject was both interesting and relevant.
Now, two teams of local students will be advancing to the international competition in Washington D.C. in June. They had to win their school and district history fairs initially and then place either first or second in the state history fair in order to make it to the final stage. The theme of this year’s NHD competition was “Taking a Stand in History.” The students found creative ways to express this theme.
Springstead High School sophomores Alvin Nguyen, Dylan Palmer and Amadeus Reif chose to design a website on the topic “Baltic Resistance – Taking a Stand against Soviet Occupation.” They picked that topic because Amadeus’ Lithuanian grandmother, Alma, witnessed the struggle as a young child and still remembers it vividly.
Also, according to their process paper explaining the website, “The idea of small nations taking a stand against a larger force intrigued us…We chose the Baltic Resistance. It was an unlikely story of three small, independent nations versus an enormous superpower. It was an interesting conflict that was not well known…”
The resistance took place off and on from 1940 until the 1950’s in Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia. It was virtually a lost cause from the start, but that did not deter the people from trying.
“How are you going to resist, with a few guns, against tanks and airplanes? It’s impossible,” Alma told the students.
Doing the research and creating the website was time consuming and challenging for the students. They had to write a process paper showing the background information. They also had to have an annotated bibliography citing their sources.
Alvin states, “We worked on the project for an average of thirty minutes to one hour per day and finished the project for the school-wide competition in two weeks.”
The students also needed to make it look good graphically. Amadeus did most of the writing, while Dylan and Alvin gave input and helped revise it. Finding information and pictures wasn’t easy because the Soviet Iron Curtain during that time prevented most of the information about the Partisans from reaching Western Europe and America.
Alvin, Dylan and Amadeus’ work was not over after they qualified for the state competition. They worked to “tweak” their project. “We chose more photos and changed around some of them to make the web site look better. We revised some text to make the wording more articulate,” Alvin continues.
When asked how he felt about qualifying for the international competition, the fourteen-year old replied, “I didn’t expect to win the state competition, so I feel pretty accomplished about that. I did feel our website was pretty good.”
To view Amadeus, Dylan and Alvin’s website go to 99969624.nhd.weebly.com. Do not type in www.
Weeki Wachee High School students Jasmine Jean-Marie, Victoria Pereira, Natalia Vargas and Madeline Jean-Marie chose a very different way of expressing the NHD theme. The four girls created a dance and entitled their project “Taking a Step in History: African Gumboot Dancing.”
Their project conveyed a struggle that took place from 1948 to the early 1990’s in South Africa and other countries on that continent. At the time, Apartheid was in effect which meant that the White minority was in control and enforced segregation and other forms of suppression. Gumboot dancing is a form of step dancing invented by black miners forced to work in coal and gold mines for little or no pay. They weren’t allowed to talk while they were working.
According to Jasmine Jean-Marie, “The mines used to flood. The workers would get sick and even die from illnesses associated with their work. The foremen issued rubber gum boots that came up to just below the miners’ knees for them to wear. When the boots came in contact with the concrete floor they made sounds. The miners invented a language by the sounds and rhythms made by the boots and this evolved into a dance.”
This project garnered the girls first place in their category (Group Performance) at the state level and they will also move on to the international history fair. Students from all fifty states and some foreign countries, such as South Korea, China, Canada and Mexico will compete.
The team thought of the idea a year ago and worked on it intermittently, while also being involved in other school activities. Their most concentrated work took place over the last six to eight months.
Jasmine continues, “We chose this topic because gumboot dancing shone a light on African American culture. It showed unity among the African people, that they made a stand for their rights.”
Mr. Damien Clark, the girls’ history teacher and project advisor states, “What makes me the happiest is that they found a topic that they were passionate about and were able to express themselves through it. They learned about history. Most importantly, they found something that moved them, brought them joy and that had heart.”
“Mr. Clark really encouraged us. He’s awesome. He worked with us the entire time. He read over our bibliography, our script and our process paper. Mr. Clark told us little things we could do to make it better and gave us ideas on where we could find more sources,” Jasmine comments.
For Jasmine, Victoria, Natalia and Madeline the choreography was the most challenging part of the project.
“None of us come from a step dancing background. We had to make it complicated enough to be interesting for the audience. We used You Tube to help us with that.”
Since the state competition, the team has been fine-tuning their dance.
“So that we have a better chance of winning the international competition we need to add more choreography to make the dance a little longer and bring it up to the maximum time allowed for a performance, which is ten minutes, ” Jasmine remarks.
Making it to the state competition is not an easy task and Hernando County public schools were well-represented.
Ms. Suzanne Miranda, Springstead High School history teacher and fair coordinator states, “Fifty-eight students from five different schools – Springstead and Weeki Wachee High Schools, Parrott Middle School and Challenger and Winding Waters K-8 (Kindergarten-8th Grade) Schools went to Tallahassee.”
These students went up against those from all over Florida. The reality of winning against such stiff competition hasn’t quite sunk in for Jasmine, Victoria, Natalia and Madeline.
“It’s really crazy. We still can’t believe we won,” Jasmine concludes.
Ms. Miranda remarks, “Five of our teams got prizes in the state competition. They were: 1st place – performance category, 2nd place – group websites, 3rd place- group exhibits, 6th place – group documentaries. William An won the African American award for his documentary on segregation in the South during the 1950’s and 1960’s.
Mr. Clark comments, “I think what these kids have shown is that you don’t have to go to a large school district or a private prep school to do great things, all you need is desire and a willingness to work.”
