Trusting in the (Learning) Journey

Creating a large-scale endeavor like a National History Day project takes time. Going through the process for the first time can be overwhelming for teachers and students alike. It's critical to remember, though, that it is a journey.

These projects are rigorous and require many steps. Too often we expect immediate gratification--this is not the type of project that will offer quick results.  Students will be thinking, reflecting, pre-searching (to use a colleague's term), researching, selecting a topic in US History they are passionate about, locating primary and secondary sources, writing a research question, developing a thesis, grappling with this year's theme and applying it to their topic, writing digital note cards, keeping track of resources, developing a project, ensuring they place their topic in historical situational context, creating a process paper to reflect on their experience, and possibly back-tracking and at any point if they lose focus. 

Students will most likely "hit a wall" and develop frustration.

Teacher preparation and "front loading" will lessen these frustrations. Making sure we are breaking this journey up into small steps is essential, as is encouragement and feedback along the way. We are all taking a risk, but every single student will finish this project knowing that they really know how to study history and think like a historian. Every single student will examine their body of work and see how they climbed this mountain and, through tenacity and grit, achieved more than they thought possible today. We must help our students trust in their journey, knowing it's ok to be frustrated, that it's ok they don't know what the end results will look like yet. 

While searching for an appropriate quote I found one from a music artist I'm unfamiliar with (the students know of him, though). It's fitting for our learning this year: