'The Duped Generation' took second place at state

One of the things that has me disturbed is the lack of knowledge youth and young people have about our American heritage. They are not familiar with our history. Too many do not know who was our first president. They may not even know our current president, vice president, or many others in our government.

Many of the students in our country are not being taught history or government.

They can even graduate from some colleges without any courses in these subjects. It is no wonder that many college graduates are illiterate on these subjects. No wonder they do not have any appreciation for our heritage and the sacrifices that have made our country what it is today.

It is not that I liked history when I was young. I never understood why I needed to know the dates of when battles were held or for other occasions in history. As a matter of fact, I still think that there are other things in histor that are as important as learning about the different wars and the battles, such as the industrial revolution and the changes that have occurred in agriculture.

My mother did not like history and she was always telling us that she did not like it when she was a student. Perhaps that had some influence on me and was a factor leading to my not liking it too well. I found it often dry and now refer it to as boring.

We went to Conway, Ark., two weekends. The major reason to go at that time was to watch our oldest grandchild, Heather, in a group performance at the State History Contest for History Day. She is in the ninth grade at Conway High School East. They have two high schools, each with two grade levels, and there are about 1,200 to 1,400 students in each high school.

She is 14 years old.

Heather and two of her friends started working on their performance last summer when they came up with a subject. Last year these three girls won first place in the junior division in the state contest and received the opportunity to go to national at Washington, D.C. This year they were in the senior division, where there is a greater competion, even though there may not be as many participants.

The team that received first place was also from the same school and the same grade, Conway High School East ninth graders.

Heather's team placed first in the regional contest and this other team came in second. I tried to explain to them that judging a contest of this type is subjective and the outcome could vary according to the opinions of judges assigned to the event, which was a highly competitive match. The main thing is that Heather's group qualified to go to the national competition this year and hopefully will earn high honors there.

They will be going to the national event in June.

Heather was in a musical play this last weekend. Wish we could have seen it, but we are fortunate to have watched their performance for History Day.

Heather said putting on the play was fun and she wants to do that again in the future.

The contests at state included group performance, individual performance, displays, essays, and perhaps another event or two. There were both a junior division and a senior division for each event.

The students had to develop their own script and props.

Those in the senior division received little assistance from the teachers. In the junior division last year, she and her group worked on the presentation during school. This year they had to do it on their own time. Prior to the state contest, they worked on their performance every evening to arrive home about 10 o'clock.

They turned in a document for each of the three judges, that was about 40 pages in length. This document included their script, how they developed the subject, and documented their resources and references.

They were asked questions by the judges after their performance, which meant they had to be well acquainted with the subject.

The Arkansas State Contest was held at Central Arkansas University. We went into the room with others to watch the three girls perform and then went to the awards presentation that afternoon. We knew they did well, but were kept in suspense until it was announced that they received second place. They were thrilled and so were we.

Their performance was titled, "The Duped Generation -- Hitler Propaganda and Its Influence on Germany's Youth."

The father of one of the other girls came from Germany. That was helpful in obtaining authentic props and information. They presented much information about the rise and fall of Hitler and the feelings and effects it had on those in Germany. They went behind screens they had built to make rapid changes in clothing and come out as different characters, such as teachers, students, nurses or other characters.

Much information about Germany was presented in only a few minutes. It is good for young people of today to realize some of the events that occurred during World War II and how people were affected, including the Jews.

When I was in the ninth grade, there is no way I would have done anything like that. I would have thought it was a foolish thing to do. I did not have the talent to develop that type of presentation (I still don't).

During the presentations, they announced the subjects alone with the presentation to the winners. The variety of history subjects presented was absolutely amazing. It gives me more faith in young people's having knowledge of history.

A few months ago, I read that there were some youth from this area, who were involved in a history contest.

Young people who will become involved in events of this type should have more publicity -- at least as much as a sporting event might receive.

When the senior group performance in the national contest is held I will be pulling for that one team from Arkansas.