LYNN — Kristen Tabacco sees history as one of the best ways to understand how the world works.
“I feel that history and civics, as disciplines, are important ways for understanding where we’ve come from, how government functions, and how decisions in the past affect how we live today,” she said.
Tabacco, a ninth-grade history teacher at Lynn Classical, has been nominated for the Hannah E. (Liz) MacGregor Teacher of the Year Award by National History Day. Each year, NHD confers the award on one senior high and middle school teacher each. And each of the 50 states nominates one teacher from both categories. Tabacco is Massachusetts’ senior high nominee.
“It seems trivial in light of everything we’re facing at the moment,” said Tabacco, who lives in Beverly. “But I’m thrilled to be nominated for this. The most exciting thing for me is that it’s another way to shine a light on the humanities.”
“Kristin is an amazing teacher and resource for our building,” said Classical principal Amy Dunn. “She is a teacher leader who brought this program into the building and has been creating amazing opportunities for her students and colleagues.”
MacGregor is the late sister of Dr. James Harris, the former president of the NHD Board of Trustees. Every nominee for the $10,000 award is a teacher who “demonstrates 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.”
Each nominee receives $500.
Pending any further interruptions to the overall school curriculum as a result of the COVID-19 virus and its ramifications, the overall winners will be announced June 18 at the National History Day National Contest Awards Ceremony, held at the University of Maryland.
Tabacco said that despite its name, National History Day “isn’t really a day. It’s a project similar to a science fair. You spend weeks, and months, building an argument based on a theme. This year, it was ‘Breaking Barriers in History.'”
Tobacco brought the idea to the Lynn Public Schools when the curriculum was being redesigned.
The history project “was one of the programs I came across when we were doing research.”
This is Tabacco’s second year of organizing the project. Her students presented several examples of breaking barriers. One of them was Dorothea Dix, an army nurse who was an American advocate on behalf of the indigent mentally ill. Dix lobbied state legislatures and Congress to create the first generation of American mental asylums.
Another student traced the origins of the Wilderness Act, which resulted in endangered animal species being protected.
A third project dealt with the reasons the Berlin Wall was erected, and the circumstances that led to its dismantling and the reunification of Germany.
“I’m happy to be nominated,” said Tabacco. “It shines a light on all my colleagues at Classical. We are all doing amazing things.”
And some of those things, she said, are taking place even at a time of long-distance learning.
“Like everyone else, we’ve had to go online,” she said. “Some of the things I plan on doing involve Zoom meetings with my students, and to give them the opportunity to do more current events.
“We do a lot of sourcing with historical documents,” she said. “And I’m big on adding trustworthy news sources and not just believing everything you see on the internet.”
“Kristin is an amazing teacher and resource for our building,” said Classical principal Amy Dunn. “She is a teacher leader who brought this program into the building and has been creating amazing opportunities for her students and colleagues.”
