History Fair Hullabaloo

I'm sitting in a nice room at Thanksgiving Point, the kind that you would expect to have a reception or a wedding luncheon. I am surrounded by eighth graders who are buzzing with excitement and making the final preparations to their costumes, props, and lines for their History Fair performance, and I am a judge. I honestly could not ask for a better day, getting to learn about history from junior high students!  Probably a history teacher's dream, if only all of our students were this excited about history. The performances begin, and the first one blows me away. I could never imagine eighth graders creating something so astounding!  I don't know if I could create something that accurate and entertaining. The first group did a performance centered on the Battle of Guadalcanal, a famous battle in WWII that turned the tide of WWII in the Pacific. These students had perfect costumes, accurate lines, and all got into their parts!  I got chills just watching it.  I love seeing secondary students get into history and discover parts of history they think are important.  I think those are the good parts of being a history teacher!

http://blog.aopa.org/flighttraining/?tag=women-air-force-service-pilots

The last performance we saw, actually brought me to tears, it was about the WASP's also in WWIII.  The WASP was Women Air force Service Pilots, a section of the Air force that gave some women assignments usually ferrying supplies, aircraft, and even helping with target practice for the male pilots. That's actually one of the things the performance talked about, that the women pilots often had to do dangerous things to help the male pilots, and some women even died doing these things. (That was the part I cried at). I was so impressed with all the work that these students had put into their performances and each one amazed me.    

Earlier in the day I was sitting at the judges orientation and my friend Emma and I were looking through the history fair buttons, to pick a good one to wear, and I heard a voice say "Don't take all the good ones." I looked over and it was my AP World History teacher Mr. Hall. I'm sure I looked at him in amazement then said in a very high pitched voice "Mr. Hall!!!"  He looked at me like he recognized me, and then said "you look familiar but I can't remember you name."  I told him who I was, using my maiden name of course, then briefly described how he would know me. I talked to him a little bit and told him about my internship at Payson Junior. It's fun to tell former history teachers that you are going to do the exact same thing that they do.  Also, I love living in Utah, you never know who you're going to see.

Let's Go Utah!

In the second round of judging I did documentaries. We were sitting in the room waiting for the students to file in and present their documentary. As we were waiting I noticed something in the corner that does seem very appropriate to a history fair. It was the TARDIS!!! Yep, that's right folks The Doctor decided to make an appearance at the Utah State History Fair...well not quite. The students in the previous round of performances had used the TARDIS as their "time machine"(even though it is so much more than that, it's Time And Relative Dimensions In Space). When the students with the TARDIS came to take it home, I asked them "So is your TARDIS bigger on the inside."  They all smiled and one boy said "I wish!"  The saddest part is that their judges weren't familiar with Doctor Who and so the reference was entirely lost on them, that just proves we need more Whovians in the world!!!