This summer, senior Eni Wintoki and sophomore Alice Pulsinelli journeyed to Washington D.C. for National History Day. Both students qualified for nationals with stellar projects: Pulsinelli did a performance about Jackie Robinson, and Wintoki created an exhibit on the March on Washington Movement.
NHD was not only a competition, but also a great learning opportunity. Pulsinelli says, “One of my favorite things that I did in D.C. was [going] to see Ken Burns speak, and he created many documentaries and movies about various aspects of history. I actually watched one of his baseball movies that Jackie Robinson was in … He gave a speech on how storytelling impacts our world that was just absolutely beautiful, and [it was] cool to hear the perspective of somebody professional in the field of studying history.”
Wintoki and Pulsinelli did not waste the opportunity to explore the city. “The day that the juniors performed, my dad and I went into D.C. We saw the Washington monument, we saw some government buildings, but the biggest thing that we did was we went to the National Air and Space Museum,” says Pulsinelli.
While being fascinated by Washington D.C., Pulsinelli kept her focus on the competition day, when she performed at the University of Maryland. “It was definitely the most nervous I ever felt to perform the piece … [But] the adrenaline helped me actually perform [well]. I didn’t have a ton of props, but I really felt like it was the best my voice and my emotion had ever been,” she notes. Despite having a sore throat at the time, she says, “I pretended I was not sick and talked like I wasn’t sick, and then I could kind of crash after that.” Pulsinelli also marks the friendly exchanges she has had with her competition: “The people who were going to go after me, they had gotten there early, and they were all set up and ready, so they just went ahead and watched my performance. And they were really nice about it; they told me, ‘Good job,’” she says.
However, Wintoki noted some very competitive projects: “There were a lot of huge, massive structures that people had somehow constructed and pasted their history project on there. Somehow there was a functioning book that somebody had made out of wood and hinges, and I just had my little trifold,” she says.
For those competitors to socialize, NHD organized a dance. Wintoki remembers her rather cringeworthy experience, saying, “It was exactly what you’d expect if you put a bunch of people who have been nationally recognized for a history project and then played Taylor Swift in a dimly lit gym with Coca Cola. It was really awkward. People were staying in their little school or state groups … Alice and I didn’t really know anyone, so we just walked around and left.”
In spite of the awkwardness, NHD saw the most wonderful moment of Wintoki’s trip. Wintoki was chosen to present her exhibit at the Smithsonian, where people came to admire the students’ hard work. Wintoki shares some insights, saying, “There are no windows in the museum, and we were there from when it opened to when it closed, like, nine to five, so I didn’t really see the sun much that day. We just had to stay by our projects the whole time, and that meant a lot of scrolling on my phone.” Wintoki also shares a thrilling encounter with a historical witness of her project: “I met this one woman who said that she had been a part of the 1964 march on Washington Republic … She told the story about how all her friends were saying they weren’t gonna come to work and they were gonna go march. She was sort of peer pressured into it.”
Delighted by this momentous experience, the NHD participants have plenty of advice for their fellow students. Eighth grader Mia Federico, who entered the district competition with a paper on Coco Chanel, gives some tips, saying, “Be compassionate. What you write about, it will be lots of fun.”
Likewise, Pulsinelli says, “Pick something you’re interested in. Even if it doesn’t feel like it’s going to make a great History Day project, it is a better project because you like it.”
Wintoki also points out the importance of competing: “You should compete because … you never know how far you can take it.”
Faculty member Sonja Czarnecki is certainly proud of their work: “The most exciting part is watching students exceed their own expectations and be appreciated and have judges [and] adults who they don’t even know be wowed by their work.”
