\u201cWheelbarrow\u201d
\n13 December 2013<\/p>\n
There is an old story about a worker, at one of the South African diamond mines, who would leave work once a week or so pushing a wheelbarrow full of sand. The guard would stop him and search the sand thoroughly, looking for any smuggled diamonds. When he found none, he would wave the worker through. This happened month after month, and finally the guard said, \u201cLook, I know you are smuggling something, and I know it isn\u2019t diamonds. If you tell me what it is, I won\u2019t say anything, but I really want to know.\u201d The worker smiled, and said, \u201cwheelbarrows.\u201d<\/p>\n
I think of this story when teachers find excuses for not letting their students see the exemplary history essays written by their high school peers for The Concord Review<\/em>. Often they feel they cannot give their students copies unless they can \u201cteach\u201d the contents. Or they already teach the topic of one of the essays they see in the issue. Or they don\u2019t know anything about one of the topics. Or they know more about the topic than the HS author does. Or they don\u2019t have time to teach one of the topics they see, or they don\u2019t think students have time to read one or more of the essays, or they worry about plagiarism, or something else. There are many reasons to keep this unique journal away from secondary students.<\/p>\n They are, to my mind, \u201csearching the sand.\u201d The most important reason to show their high school students the journal is to let them see the wheelbarrow itself, that is, to show them that there exists in the world a professional journal that takes the history research papers of high school students seriously enough to have published them on a quarterly basis for the last 21 years. Whether the students read all the essays, or one of them, or none of them, they will see that for some of their peers academic work is treated with respect. And that is a message worth letting through the guard post, whatever anyone may think about, or want to do something with, the diamonds inside.<\/p>\n Will Fitzhugh The Concord Review<\/em>\u2014Varsity Academics\u00ae<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cWheelbarrow\u201d 13 December 2013 There is an old story about a worker, at one of the South African diamond mines, who would leave work once a week or so pushing a wheelbarrow full of sand. The guard would stop him … Continue reading
\nThe Concord Review<\/em>
\nwww.tcr.org; fitzhugh@tcr.org
\nAnd of course some teachers are<\/strong> eager to show their students the work of their peers….<\/p>\n