The National History Day Mystery
Story by Jeremy Nam, Ian Lee, Brian (Eung Joon) Lee
Edited by Junie Kah
Design by Helaine Lee
Edited by Junie Kah
Design by Helaine Lee
In 1974, National History Day was founded as a local academic program in the states. Participants from grades 6-12 compete with one another. Each individual or group presenting a report of a historical event in some form of presentation (ie. exhibit, website, documentary, etc). Since then, the competition has grown on a tremendous scale. From tens of participants to hundreds of thousands of them. A great idea in Cleveland, Ohio turned into an international opportunity from kids around the world to appreciate history. And in 2011, it came to Korea for the first time, with Seoul International School hosting the third one in 2014.
This year, however, was much different for all the Koreans involved in the competition. The team placing in first for each category would get a chance to fly to Maryland in the summer to compete in the national round, where only the best of the best participated. This encouraged the teams to work harder in order to win a chance to be part of this prestigious event. For months they spent their precious time, money, and sleep to prepare for the day. On February 14th, early morning at Hankuk Academy of Foreign Studies, the big competition took place. Over a hundred teams participated and at the end of the day, a ceremony awarded the winning teams medals, certificates, and of course tickets to the nationals. For middle school, the biggest category was the exhibits, and the winning team consisted of Michelle Lee, Yejune Park, and Sean Lee, all 8th graders at SIS. Needless to say they were ecstatic. However, misfortune struck for this team, as well as every other middle school winner in SIS. They were blocked from travelling to Maryland, and they couldn’t compete in the nationals. But, in the end, there was nothing that could be done. Only one teacher was allowed to escort the teams to Maryland but because the high school teams were a priority, the middle schoolers had to be sacrificed. We attempted to interview a few of the involved teachers or administrators about the issue such as Mr. Teiman, Mr. Schwartz and Mr. Piscioneri, but all of them were either busy or unknowledgeable on the subject. Hopefully, next year winners will have a little more luck and represent SIS middle school in the NHD middle school finals. |
A judge asks questions about a particular contestant’s exhibit at the national competition in Maryland. At this time, the best from hundreds of countries and states meet to share their knowledge of history.
[Photograph from UWGB] This poster represents many of the major events throughout history and the places where the NHD competition is held.
[Photograph by Jeremy Nam] Winning participants Michelle Lee (8) and Yejune Park (8) (participant Sean Lee not shown) stand by their exhibit, confident about their chances to win tickets to the national competition in Maryland.
[Photograph by Jeremy Nam] |