Saturday, March 20, 2010

National History Day

I did a volunteer stint at the Heinz Museum this morning. It is National History Day (did you all know that?) and kids from all over the area did exhibits and projects in conjunction with that. I was in the room where local 7th and 8th graders had their exhibits on display and were being judged. (My role, by the way, was to play Barney Fife and make sure that ONLY the kids and the judges were in the room. No parents. No teachers.)

You'd be amazed at the work that these kids did. Projects on all sorts of topics. The development of computers, the polio vaccine, nuclear submarines, the history of photography, drive-thru eateries...you name it, they did it. One kid did a presentation on the guitarist Les Paul. Am 11 year old girl did one on Jackie Robinson.

Even more impressive was to overhear these kids describing their projects to the judges (a panel of three judges would visit each project one-on-one and have the kid describe his/her presentation and would ask questions of each kid.) To witness the poise of these kids as these adults were questioning them was amazing. Not something I could have done at age 11 or 12.

At the risk of sounding like a grumpy old man, it sure made you feel good about kids these days.

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