A Lafayette High School teacher was recently nominated for the Harris History Teacher Award.
Derek Frieling was nominated for the award by the State Historical Society of Missouri, administrator of the National History Day program in Missouri.
Each of the 57 National History Day affiliates may nominate one middle school and one high school teacher for the $5,000 national awards and Frieling is the high school nominee from Missouri.
According to a National History Day press release, the awards are presented to “teachers who demonstrate a commitment to engaging students in historical learning through innovative use of primary sources, implementation of active learning strategies to foster historical thinking skills, and participation in the National History Day Contest.”
Frieling said the National History Day contest gives students the opportunity to compete in five different categories.
“(Those categories are) writing a paper, building a website, producing a documentary, building an exhibit and putting on a performance,” Frieling said. “Students compete against each other. Each year there’s a theme, this year is ‘Conflict and Compromise.’ They have to work the project around that theme, show the importance of their event or the people involved and how it relates to that time and why it’s still important today.”
Several students this year presented projects on the Salem Witch Trials and Frieling said two of his students made state finals with projects on the Tuskegee Airmen and the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire.
Frieling, also an adjunct professor at Missouri Western State University, said he’s not in it just to win contests, but to help students learn and apply history lessons to their lives.
“I really appreciate that people recognize my dedication to my students and the history profession,” Frieling said. “This is my 23rd year of teaching and I still find it important that students need to be able to relate historical events to their lives to make their own lives more important, more valid, and be able to learn those lessons so they can make better decisions in their own lives.”
Frieling said since the announcement of his nomination, he’s been hearing from former students and parents.
“Since the School District has put the announcement on their Twitter feed and on the website and everything, I’ve had a lot of people that have told me congratulations and posted stories about when they remember they were in my class or their kid was in my class… Can’t believe I had that sort of an impact. That’s been really cool to see those posts the last couple of days,” Frieling said.
The two national winners of the Harris History Teacher Award will be announced on National History Day on June 14th.
For more information about National History Day, click here.
Listen to the full interview with Derek Frieling below: