The National History Day queries have gotten out of hand. I say this as someone who: a) is an employee of a public institution and takes his obligations to the public very seriously; b) participated in and learned a great deal from the National History Day competition; c) likes working with anyone, including middle school and high school students, interested in the past.
All of that said, everyone in the profession now gets huge numbers of requests from students who want us to weigh in on topics about which we know very little. Worse still, these students want us to reply via e-mail.
Here’s a typical letter:
Dear Mr. Kelman:
My name is [redacted]. I’m a student at [redacted]. I’m participating in National History Day. As part of my assignment, I have to interview an expert about the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan. Please reply to these five questions.
[questions redacted to preserve the student’s confidentiality]
Thanks,
[redacted]
There’s something to annoy nearly everyone there, right? Regardless, what are we supposed to do about this kind of thing? My current policy is to beg off politely if I don’t know anything about the topic at hand, and to offer to do a phone interview if I do have the relevant expertise. But that makes me feel churlish in the first instance and somewhat creepy in the second.
Seriously, what’s a guilty Jew to do?
The Edge of the American West 
6 comments
January 14, 2015 at 8:04 am
Chris Smith
I’ve gotten to the point where I will ignore these requests if it’s transparently obvious that the student has just emailed the first person who came up in a Google search for “historian.” I think that students can learn, from the lack of response, that a query is unreasonable or lazy. If they’re polite, or if the student has actually done some research *before* googling, I’ll maybe respond. Otherwise, though, it’s “Plonk.” Let them figure out that the request is unreasonable and that such requests get ignored.
January 14, 2015 at 8:51 am
ari
I’m not there yet. My standard reply in the first instance is:
Dear So and So,
I’m afraid I’m not particularly knowledgeable about the history of the Ottoman empire. Good luck finding someone who knows more about this topic than I do.
Best,
Ari Kelman
It doesn’t take me more than a moment to compose that reply, and then I feel somewhat less crappy about turning my back on today’s youth.
January 14, 2015 at 2:25 pm
eric
“Plonk” is a good answer to many difficulties, if by plonk.
January 16, 2015 at 7:59 pm
Western Dave
Don’t blame me, my school doesn’t participate. And I’m always the one at the meeting with the outside expert who says “and these outside experts with copious amounts of free time are who?”
January 16, 2015 at 8:34 pm
ari
It hadn’t occurred to me to blame you. But now that you mention it, IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT!
February 3, 2015 at 6:34 pm
kevin
Yeah, I’m with Chris Smith. I’ve already gotten a dozen or more of these, and every one reads like the one in the post — a brusque request to answer a series of questions (14 in one this morning!) on a topic about which I know very little, if anything.
I used to answer the ones that were on point and polite, but I’ve given up on those too, because the basic exercise itself is a horrible idea. Emailing a random historian and asking him or her to do your homework for you isn’t history; it’s outsourcing.
And honestly, I’m not even sure this flood of lazy inquiries is even part of National History Day. Their website describes it as a competition in which “students choose historical topics related to a theme and conduct extensive primary and secondary research through libraries, archives, museums, oral history interviews and historic sites. After analyzing and interpreting their sources and drawing conclusions about their topics’ significance in history, students present their work in original papers, websites, exhibits, performances and documentaries” etc etc.
I suppose emailing an historian could conceivably be crammed under the “oral history” part of that description, but that’s not oral history. Again, it’s outsourcing. If you want an historian’s opinion on something, read a book by someone who actually researched the topic.