(Kevin Shirley is professor of History at LaGrange College in LaGrange, Georgia. He is also Co-coordinator of NHD Georgia (along with Laura McCarty, Vice President, Georgia Humanities Council) and coordinator of the National History Day Mentoring Program at LaGrange College. A medievalist by training, he studied 12th century monastic and legal history at Florida Stat and cooe University earning his PhD in 1998.For more information visit the NHD Mentoring Program on the web at: www.lagrange.edu/nhd, ‘Like’ the program on Facebook at www.facebook.com/NHDatLaGrangeCollege and follow Dr. Shirley on Twitter @LCNHD. You can also learn about NHD at www.nhd.org as well as the Georgia Humanities Council www.georgiahumanities.org . If you have questions you can contact Dr. Shirley directly via email at kshirley@lagrange.edu or by phone at 706-880-8033.)
1. How
and/or when did you get you hooked on history?
I’ve always been drawn to current affairs and have
wanted to understand the ‘hows’ and ‘whys’ behind them. Growing up in Chicago during the 1960s, and
with a father serving multiple tours of duty in Vietnam, I was an avid watcher
of the evening news. From those nightly ‘introductions’
I found my way to (believe it or not) the family’s copy of the Encyclopedia
Britannica and its ‘Book of the Year’ series.
I was looking at the illustrations before I could read the text. I can
still recall how thrilled I was to get my first library card! We lived on the far south side of Chicago and
our neighborhood had a small store front branch of the public library. I loved going in there, seeing all the books,
wondering about everything they contained and when the day came I could
actually check them out with my card, well, I had arrived. I love libraries to this day.
2. What
role does history play or has it played in your personal life?
I love reading and studying about the past. It’s what I do. At this moment I am reading a history of
Apollo’s Oracle at Delphi, a history of Dwight Eisenhower’s command of Allied
forces 1943-1945, an article on the intricacies of 11th century
monastic scribes and I’m rereading the Bhagavad-Gita. I also love to visit museums and historic
sites. It’s always a personal highlight
of the National History Day Competition to visit the museums on the Mall in
Washington D.C. I love the Medieval and Renaissance
Halls in the National Gallery of Art. In
Atlanta, we have regularly taken students to both the Carlos and High Museums. It’s a joy to spend the day immersed in the
past.
3. How
is/How was history a part of your professional life/career?
I am very blessed to be a professional
historian. I’ve had the great fortune to
research and publish, travel and teach in my field for almost twenty
years. I’m one of four history
professors at LaGrange College which means I get to study and teach across a number
of fields and serve in a variety of roles.
I get to work with people who all share a passion for learning and
teaching. I do work that has an impact,
that makes a real difference in the lives of our students and our community. You know the old adage: ‘it’s not a job if
you love what you do,’ well I’m incredibly fortunate and grateful.
4. Why
is studying/knowing history important?
You know the standard answer is always that we study
the past to avoid repeating it but I think the study of history really facilitates
and deepens our understanding of self.
We can learn a great deal about our current state (as a society, as
people, as individuals) by studying the past.
You see, I don’t believe the basic human condition has changed that much
over the millennia. Technologies have
certainly, but not people. We grapple
with many of the same questions and problems today that our distant ancestors
did and by studying the way they answered the questions and resolved the
problems we can gain insight into where we’re at and how we handle them. History is a journey of discovery; discovery
of the world and ourselves.
5. What
is your favorite period or aspect of history to learn about and why?
I am interested in many areas of history but I am
especially drawn to Greco-Roman and Medieval history. One of the earliest stories I can remember
being captivated by was the ‘Trojan Horse’.
As I grew older I became fascinated with the work of classical
archaeology (I may yet return to school and earn an archaeology degree). There’s just something ‘magical’ about the
Athenian acropolis. As for my interest
in medieval history, it began when I read the back jacket of my copy of LOTR
(Lord of the Rings) and discovered that JRR Tolkien was a scholar of
Anglo-Saxon literature. I immediately wanted
to study what he had. From there I can’t
tell you when it happened but I became fascinated with medieval monasticism. As a religion graduate student I studied Late
Antique Christian spirituality, including the development of Benedictine
monasticism. I guess I have always
associated monasticism with the life of learning, the life of contemplation and
the mind.
6. How
did you get involved with National History Day?
I had never heard of National History Day before our
arrival in LaGrange. The history
department has co-hosted the West Georgia Regional Competition since the
mid-1980s, and we always provided not only facilities to house the competition
but judges as well. None the less, my first
real exposure to NHD and the impact it has on students was as a parent. In 2001 our oldest child participated in NHD
at her middle school. The competition
occurred in the school’s media center and I was struck by the quality and
diversity of the work. With our second
child we made our first visit to the state competition and with our third we
got to attend the national competition.
By the time I started participating in the national contest, first as a
parent and then as a judge, I had come to fully realize the transformative power
of NHD. I saw what NHD did for our
children, the development of creative and critical thinking skills, the way it
challenged them and the way they grew. I
came to fully realize that this program is changing the lives of thousands of
young people every year.
7. Why
should students and teachers participate in National History Day ?
National History Day is a history education program
that began as a way to get middle and high school students excited about the
study of history. The college faculty
who held the first ‘History Day’ were worried that that an appreciation for the
value of the humanities was being lost in an increasingly technological
world. That was almost 40 years ago. In today’s STEM dominated, project based
learning, Common Core and Performance based assessment environment, NHD is even
more appropriate. NHD certainly engages
students in the historical process and gives them an appreciation for the
complexities of the human experience but it does so much more. It is the perfect project based pedagogical tool
because it can literally be a yearlong project.
NHD culminates in a product that can be measured by any performance
based assessment rubric. In fact, the final
product can appear in one of five different forms: historical paper, exhibit, performance,
documentary or website. So, it certainly works within the context of
today’s educational environment.
Ultimately, however, students and teachers should do NHD for another,
more fundamental reason: NHD empowers
and transforms. Teachers are incredibly
dedicated folk. The general public does
not fully comprehend the demands and challenges teachers face every single
day. To be an educator in this country
today requires nothing short of a sense of vocation; a belief that they are
teaching in order to make a difference in the lives of their students. The
question then becomes what does ‘difference’ mean and how does she/he do it? Teachers are educators, facilitators,
mentors, counselors, advocates, and policeman all in one. NHD is the tool that transforms students from
within. Through the context of a
‘competition’ the program develops skills the students don’t even realize
they’re developing: reading and research
skills, critical thinking and analysis, communication skills (written and
oral). It’ll be years before most NHD
students fully realize and appreciate all the program, and the teacher who
sponsored them, actually did. Even more, NHD is a vehicle that allows
students to develop self-esteem and confidence.
They can achieve things they never, ever dreamed possible through this
program. Seeing it happen first hand,
well there’s nothing better!
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