July 9, 2013

FINEST HOUR 128, AUTUMN 2005

BY SUSAN SIGMAN

Ms. Sigman ([email protected]) is educational outreach coordinator for The Churchill Centre. Mr. Fitzhugh may be reached by email ([email protected]) or telephone: (978) 443-0022.

ABSTRACT
‘Vast and fearsome as the human scene has become, personal contact of the right people, in the right places, at the right time, may yet have a potent and valuable part to play in the cause of peace which is in our hearts.” —WSC, HOUSE OF COMMONS, 14 MARCH 1955

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Churchill’s thinking during his last major speech in Parliament informs The Churchill Centre’s preeminent cause: educating future generations in his wisdom, courage and leadership. How fortunate we were, then, when Virginia member Dan Borinsky brokered a personal contact with Will Fitzhugh, founder of The Concord Review: a unique and vital journal.

Will Fitzhugh wears many hats. A lover of history and “champion of the term paper” (Boston Globe), founder of the National History Club (2002) and the driving force behind the National Writing Board (1998), his endeavors meet synergistically beneath the broad umbrella he calls “Varsity Academics.”

For eighteen years The Concord Review, a quarterly journal of scholarly high school history essays, has published quality research papers by almost 700 high school students from thirty-four countries. Each year, the five best essays win $3000 Ralph Waldo Emerson Prizes.

Mr. Fitzhugh is tireless in his efforts to convince students, teachers and the educational establishment that reading “real” history rather than text books, plunging headlong into an interesting topic rather than superficially surveying the centuries—and writing the now-rare research paper— truly allows young people to “fall in love with history.” This is certainly a goal we all share.

Much in American high schools is a tail wagged by the College Board, an organization of 4700 schools, colleges, universities and educational organizations. Formed in 1900, originally to offer a common college entrance examination, this powerful testing organization influences what is taught by deciding what to test. With the College Board focused on the five-paragraph essay as part of the college entrance exam—and with high school seniors immersed in single-page college application essays—student research or term papers of twelve pages or more are rarely assigned.

Most college freshmen in the U.S. are unskilled in the process of writing term papers. This is also be true to a greater or lesser extent in other countries. We must suspend our powers of common sense to believe that, for the five-paragraph essay, facts don’t matter-—incredibly, they are not part of the grade for this new writing test!

A survey of high school history teachers commissioned by The Concord Review and conducted by the University of Connecticut in 2002 found that 81 percent never assign a paper of more than 5000 words. Worse, most high school writing instruction emphasizes “creative” writing, rather than the clear, logical, well-argued expository variety. How many of today’s students will acquire the skills to access and expound on good history writing—let alone on Winston Churchill?

Writing a term paper is just one path to Churchill, but one which Churchill himself, who was largely self-educated might savor. The Concord Review welcomes submissions from all over the world. Mr. Fitzhugh wants to encourage more submissions from students in Canada and Great Britain. Perhaps you might encourage your favorite student to send him a paper on Churchill or his life and times.

In 1988, Mr. Fitzhugh formed the National Writing Board, to allow promising secondary school students an opportunity to demonstrate their prowess by submitting a paper to be scored by the Board’s readers—just as aspiring athletes, actors and musicians offer demonstrations to convince their preferred college to accept them. The readers are outstanding history teachers and experts who review and evaluate essays in history and English, based on international standards set by The Concord Review.

This independent assessment yields a three-page report on each paper, with scores and comments sent to the author. Deans of Admission from seventy colleges have received these unique independent assessments, at the student authors’ request. No freshman remedial writing courses are required here!

You’ve heard, no doubt, of chess clubs, rocket clubs, debating clubs and math clubs. Well, relish the thought of 170 National History Club chapters at secondary schools in thirty-six states. Now, thanks to The Concord Review and Fitzhugh, there are groups where young people might discover Churchill and his infinite connections to modern civilization.

Perhaps you can encourage a history teacher or history student in your town to consider forming such a club. Refer to the website under “National History Club” to see if there are chapters in your area, or for information on forming one.

Many of Mr. Fitzhugh’s efforts are directed at those who may likely develop a Churchill interest. His organizations encourage and support the strengths Churchill himself possessed: a love and knowledge of history, an inquiring mind, a mastery of the written word. These remain the strengths of a good liberal arts education. And Fitzhugh’s contacts are teachers who believe in his mission.

David Driscoll, the Massachusetts Commissioner of Education, calls The Concord Review “a publication we need to promote” and a “strategic external partner”—something akin, I suspect, to being “the right people, in the right places, at the right time,” with “a potent and valuable part to play” in the cause not only of history, but of The Churchill Centre. For without students who can read, write and appreciate history, what will become of us?

A TOUCHSTONE FOR THE HIGH SCHOOL ESSAY

SUDBURY.MASS. 1987, Will Fitzhugh started the Concord Review, a scholarly publication that printed the best high school history research papers in America. His intent was simple: to recognize students who produced high-quality research, to show teachers and students what could be done, and to thereby raise the standard for high school writing.

On one level, he succeeded brilliantly. In 17 years, he has published 627 student papers in 57 issues of the quarterly, tackling some of history’s most challenging questions. In a 6,235-word paper, Rachel Hines of Montgomery High In Rockville, Md., asked: Did Chaim Rumkowski, the Jewish leader of Poland’s Lodz ghetto, do more good or harm by cooperating with the Nazis? Aaron Elhbond of Hunter High In New York City explored to what extent John Maynard Keynes’s economic ideas were truly revolutionary, and to what extent they were borrowed from others.

Jessica Leight of Cambridge Rindge and Latin in Massachusetts wanted to know why Anne Hutchinson suffered so much more at the hands of the Puritans than her brother-in-law, the Rev. John Wheelwright, when both attacked the leadership. Jennifer Shingleton of Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., questioned whether Abigail Adams really was a feminist, or was being taken out of 18th-century context by contemporary feminist historians!

Britta Waller of Roosevelt High in Kent, Ohio, wrote about the Ferris wheel. “Fascinating,” Mr. Fitzhugh says. “The guy who invented it died brokenhearted. I tell people, the topic doesn’t matter, it’s the quality that matters, so a kid learns the joy of scholarship. If you learn what it means to go in depth, you also realize when you’re being superficial.”

Some of America’s best-known historians — Arthur Schlesinger Jr., David McCullough, Shelby Foote — have praised the Review. And the published students — who often include their Review papers with their college applications —’ have prospered. Seventy-four went on to Harvard, 57 to Yale, 30 to Princeton.

And yet for much of the time, Mr. Fitzhugh has felt like a boatman on the Lewis and Clark expedition, paddling upstream on the Mississippi and making little headway. He fears the high school research paper is on the verge of extinction, shoved aside as students prepare for the five-paragraph essays now demanded on state tests, the SAT II and soon, the SAT. “I’m convinced the majority of high school students graduate without reading a non-ficton book cover to cover,” he says.

Mr. Fitzhugh is offended that the National Endowment for the Humanities sponsors a $5,000 history essay contest with a 1,200-word limit “I have kids writing brilliant 5,000-word papers, and they’re not eligible,” he says. He is saddened by a letter from the chairman of the history department at Boston Latin, that city’s premier high school. “Over the past 10 years, history teachers have largely stopped assigning the traditional term papers,” Walter Lambert, the chairman, wrote.

While much of the education establishment crows about how standardized testing and the SAT writing sample are raising standards, Mr. Fitzhugh is not alone in seeing a dumbing down. Ken Fox, a college counselor at Ladue Horton Watkins High in St Louis says that in test preparation courses, his students learn to write a generic five-paragraph essay that can be modified when they take the SAT. “They’re trained to write-to formula,” he says.

He has urged students to submit papers to the Review, and Robert Levin did — on the emancipation proclamation that John Fremont, a Union Army commander, issued in Missouri in 1861, two years before Lincoln’s took effect. “The big thing,” says Robert, who wrote the paper on his own time, “is I’ve been living here my whole life, interested in the Civil War, and never knew there was this whole huge deal of an emancipation proclamation in Missouri.”

“I loved breaking free from the writing formula they teach us. I think that hampers your writing,” he says.

Mr. Fitzhugh has been called elitist, but Bruce Gans, a professor to the Chicago community college system who teaches a course on writing research papers, says students need to begin in high school., Mr. Gans says English 101—which requires an eight-page paper with eight sources—is taught at Chicago’s seven community colleges and has the highest class dropout rate in the system. “Kids are terrified of that paper,” Mr. Gans says. “Will Fitzhugh is fighting by himself on this. I don’t know how he does it”

BARELY. After graduating from Harvard In 1962, Mr. Fitzhugh held several jobs, including teaching high school history nearby for 10 years. That was when he came to believe that if you asked more of students, they would respond. He started the Review with his “last $100,000,” a family inheritance, plus the cashed-in value of his teaching pension. “I’m stupid,” he says, “I thought people would subscribe.” After 17 years, he has 1,100 subscribers and requires a $40 fee when a paper is submitted. .

Twice he has stopped publishing when he rah out of money. Most foundations —145 at last count — have turned him down. His savior has been John Abele, co-founder of Boston Scientific; a medical equipment firm that has provided $185,000 a year, enabling Mr. Fitzhugh to move the Review out of his house and to hire an assistant. They have started a National History Club in hopes of broadening its constituency.

Each year, Mr. Fitzhugh offers four $3,000 awards, the Emerson prizes, for the best Review pieces. His dream is that the Emersons will do for high school history what the Intel research awards have done for science. But he never knows if he will be financed from year to year’ “John Abele has been wonderful,” he says, “but he had a stroke a few years ago. Thank God he recovered, but If something happens to him, we’ re history, so to speak.”

Mr. Fitzhugh lives with his wife, Sophia, a retired teacher, in the same house they bought for $43,000 in 1971. His Review salary is $36,000 — compared with $38,000 he made his last year teaching, 1988. “I’ll be 68 in August,” he says. “I’d like to retire after the 70th issue. What I need is to bring someone In before I fall over, but I don’t have the money. The problem is, it’s not a very prestigious job.”