By Harlan Rose
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National History Day (NHD) has always been a middle and high school project, but the National History Club hopes to expand its range. With the intention of creating a love for history, the club brings the project to fourth and fifth grade students at three Mililani elementary schools.
“The purpose is to get students excited about doing history, actually doing history, which means identifying topics that they’re interested in and exploring and teaching them how to come to their own conclusions about topics,” said club adviser Amy Perruso.
The club, with its approximately 30 members, takes the NHD project to three of the elementary schools in Mililani, including Mililani Ike, Mililani Mauka and Mililani Waena. Each school focuses on a different category for the project; Ike focuses on display boards while both Mauka and Waena focus on websites. “Waena is very technologically oriented, so they’re definitely going to do websites again (and) I think Mauka is as well,” said Perruso, “Ike chose to do the boards because they wanted more (of a) hands-on tactile activity.”
The club meets weekly in Perruso’s classroom. At the beginning of each meeting, the members discuss what they plan to get done for the day; after which they are assigned an elementary school to visit. Members assigned to Waena bring the students to the high school due to their proximity. “With the Waena kids, we bring them to (H106), so they come here and work,” said Perruso, “We wanted them to feel like they’re having a high school experience.” Members assigned to Ike and Mauka travel to the schools and visit the students in their respective classes.
The club’s members strive to assist the students as they prepare for the district competition. The elementary students compete in the youth division. “From start to end, (we help them with) the whole NHD process, from creating that first paper, researching all (of) those books and finally creating that board,” said President Senior Joseph Tagorda. The members also help the students choose a topic that they would enjoy researching. “We want to help them (with something) they have passion for because if they don’t really have passion for anything it’s going to be a not so very good project,” said Tagorda.
Some members, like Vice President Senior Allysen Manding, intend to use past experiences in NHD in order to teach the elementary students. “I love working with little kids and I kind of wanted to teach what I learned in my experience to them,” Manding said, “I really, really hope to help them with formulating their thesis, understanding and having a deeper understanding of history (as) a whole and picturing up themes.”
However, at the same time the club is an opportunity for its members to learn from their experiences teaching the elementary students. “I would really hope this experience for us, as teenagers, (will) help our analysis because we’re aiding younger people with their analysis and I hope that it contributes to our education as well as theirs,” said Manding. Tagorda added, “I would like this club to create a legacy for other clubs; it’s good to help little kids out, and this is a great way to start it.”
The elementary schools usually hold a parent showcase after the competition. The showcase allows the students to display their projects and the work they put into them to their parents and friends. “It’s really at the parent showcase night that you see how proud students are of their work and how excited they are about their topics because they pick them themselves,” said Perruso, “They get very passionate about it, so it’s exciting.”
The members of the National History Club are looking forward to working with the elementary students and are excited to see the projects that the students will come up with for this year’s NHD competition.
