The BIG Idea is a personal entrepreneurship program focused on the development of student projects that will lead to a tangible work product. We also are involved in short term projects of service oriented work in the school and community. The BIG Idea teaches students to assess needs and then to address those needs in appropriate and effective ways. Students develop a project at school or in the community and attack it to the limit of resources and time. We discuss proposed projects in work groups designed to separate the great ideas. In the mix of academics that is a good public high school there is, for students, a crucial missing element, action. Productive, intelligent accomplishment is an essential ingredient of a dynamic life. The BIG Idea is about personal growth and fulfillment.
The capstone BIG Idea project for the past three years has been the development of a first class history museum on our campus. The Museum of the American Presidency is located in a room of the library at Clairemont High School. We have been open for three years and are in our fourth year of overall work and preparation. We display only authentic items. Though the twentieth century dominates the collection, we do have several items from the 18th century and hundreds from the 19th. We have so much quality material that we can completely change the museum display four times a year. There is no other museum facility anywhere that attempts to collect or display a comprehensive collection of those artifacts evocative of our premiere democratic tradition, the presidency. There is a significant need for these materials to be housed, cared for and displayed where they can make the broadest public impact. Priceless artifacts of American history lie moldering and forgotten or hoarded and hidden in private collections. Individuals certainly collect, but those items are seldom made available for public display. Students in most of the country have little access to America's museum, the Smithsonian, which houses the definitive collection of "American Political Life." Our museum already displays more presidential memorabilia than the Smithsonian and we are visited by more San Diego students. Our current number one concern is to make our collection available to a greater segment of the population. That is where our proposed project for funding comes into the picture.
Campaign 100 is the perfect project for us. Tightly focused, its scope is broad enough to have an impact that is much greater than we could ever have, even in a larger physical plant, in our corner of the country. We propose to bring together artifacts and interpretive materials in one hundred display boxes that would be distributed, free of charge, to State Departments of Education around the country.
The first pinback buttons came into existence in 1896 along with the introduction of celluloid. This brought campaigning with artifacts to the masses. Where before, personal campaigning was limited to much more expensive jewelry, canes or textiles, now access was open to all. In the same way that celluloid made buttons available to the people, we propose to assemble one hundred collections of these amazing buttons to send around the country to make America's rich history of campaigning the property of everyone. The display boxes themselves will be double depth artist's portfolio cases. Open for presentation, they will measure 42"X 60"X 100 years of American History. The use of portfolio cases will give up some measure of the security that similar size museum boxes would offer, but the weight and price savings will more than make up for that. The extra student labor to convert the cases to our purposes will not only be frugal, but will be welcome as a help to satisfy our creative urges.
Each box will contain fifty authentic campaign buttons, assorted small campaign items, interpretive signs and curricular material on the presidency, campaigning and the material culture of Americana. The buttons will be displayed in pairs for the two major contenders in each election from 1896 to 1996. The explanatory materials will give important and interesting facts along with dates and names for each election. The curricular materials will help teachers lead discussions on campaigning and how changes have resulted from modernization of attitudes toward politics, the rise of the electronic media, and the shift of population westward. In terms of material culture, presentations can focus on the waning of interest in owning personal images of presidents and candidates and how the tone of campaign artifacts has changed from awe and respect to challenge and animosity. A secondary outcome will be to interest a new generation of Americans in this fascinating hobby of collecting our political history.
Artifacts Bringing together an organized collection of 5,000 campaign buttons representing one hundred years of presidential elections will certainly be the largest part of the project, but relatively less expensive in terms of money. We have a strong four year track record of obtaining large donations from collectors and dealers of political Americana. Our donors have been extremely generous. We have received single shipment donations with as many as 25,000 pieces. We monthly receive donations in excess of 1,000 pieces and at least four times per year we receive a donation in excess of 5,000 pieces. These donations are almost exclusively modern material from the 1960's through the 1990's. Under the heading of "beggars can't be choosers", we are not able to put in "orders" for donations.
Most of our large donations come from dealers who buy in quantity and are unable to make sales to dispose of the material. There are only a handful of dealers in political Americana in the country who are engaged in that as a full-time occupation. Putting together groups of one hundred of the campaign buttons of each of the major challengers for one hundred years of campaigning with cash purchases could easily cost $200,000. We can do it for $50,000, much of that in postage and telephone charges. Begging is our stock in trade. We can get donations and with judicious purchases make the collections a reality.
Display Materials Bringing together the physical materials needed for the display boxes is easier but expensive in terms of money. The portfolio cases will cost $150 each. The plexiglas, acid-free foam core board and spacers, paper and adhesives will cost about $50 each. At $200 each, they are one-quarter the price of similar size museum boxes. There is a strong possibility that a purchase of this size would effect for us a volume discount on materials or fabrication. My students and I would handle the assembly of the boxes. There are many good options for frugality without letting efficiency or quality suffer.
Interpretive Materials Development of interpretive and curricular materials would be where my students would get to work above the level of manual labor. A student review of available literature augmented by expert advice as to where we might look and what looks good after selection would be best. My experience in curriculum and standards development might even come in handy.
There are a number of reasons why a museum-school partnership can pay off for both institutions. A school's mandate is to teach, and one of the best lessons a teacher can impart is how a person might continue to learn on his or her own throughout a lifetime. Museums are a shrine to lifelong learning. They preserve and protect our history in ways that can be appreciated on many levels by those who visit. Our school has set as one of its four main goals, the fostering of students who are "responsible global citizens." There is little chance of becoming a citizen of the world without first living responsibly as a citizen of this country. Our Museum of the American Presidency helps students to take the full measure of the privilege and responsibility of citizenship. Our collection is dynamic and evocative of the honor, intelligence, charisma and humor with which these forty men have led our country over the past two hundred years. The creation of a quality museum display with the widest possible public access is the overriding goal of our program and all project participants. The display boxes of Campaign 100 would bring small portions of that dynamism to students all over the country. Since our on-campus museum would receive no funds from this grant, allow me to describe my self interest.
My students would get the best and richest experience. Able to work directly with the artifacts, they are actually touching and making decisions about the importance, conservation and display of hundred-year-old objects. This is certainly an unusual experience in our increasingly "virtual" society. Most of the objects that we work with are small miracles of serendipity. They are the mayflies of material culture. They were intended, both by those who caused them to be manufactured and those craftsmen who made them, to last through the run of a campaign. That small percentage of buttons which survived beyond the dustbins of a campaign lost, still faced assaults from light, heat, moisture and the ravages of time. A few of the buttons of winners and losers alike became talismanic objects, retained for their power to link average people with political greatness or the perception of history. Most objects that come to us are scarce, some are rare, a few are unique. They are reminders of the most dynamic part of our political process. They are the vehicle that we, so far removed from the heady days of Abraham Lincoln and William McKinley, can use to live that thrill vicariously.
That rush of history is the hook but it is also the catch. There may be dishes that are best served cold, but around seventeen-year-olds, history needs to come to the table hot and preferably in flames. Sensibilities dulled by Nintendo, chemistry and hormones are insulated to the comparably sedate pleasure of a textbook photo of Theodore Roosevelt in Yosemite. The story about the Teddy Bear works a bit as nostalgia and an example of early political "spin." Tales of National Parks and Rough Riders are no big thrill until they understand that more of Roosevelt's men died of food poisoning than of "lead" poisoning. Nothing in the realm of aural or textural history can compare to the amazement of a student creating a cacophony with a hand-carved rachet noisemaker emblazoned with "Roosevelt for President." Nearly one hundred years past its date of creation, it still makes more noise all by itself than you want to in a small room. Kinesthetic learning has obvious advantages for learners with limited attention spans or other disabilities. Hands-on means up-close and that means in focus and real. If a student can feel history in its artifacts it becomes a much smaller leap to get them to feel history in a more macro sense. That is great teaching any way you look at it.
Lectures and reading are the traditional routes to learning academic subjects. In the quest for knowledge and comprehension, short cuts are worse than useless. Historical artifacts, when skillfully employed, act as a goad to spur further interest and involvement in the study of history. Artifacts supplement rather than supplant. Our display boxes will be fine stand-alone mini museums but they will really work best as physical evidence that history lives in the details. They will fit beautifully into a discussion of the presidency, a presentation on campaigning or an examination of a particular president or campaign.
There are no similar materials available to students unless an individual teacher uses his or her private collection in their teaching. Assuming that an individual did do this, they would almost certainly not have a comprehensive collection of the 20th century nor would they have the informational or interpretive materials or the book.
Distribution of the boxes will be relatively simple as soon as student population numbers are determined. We may find, for example, that Boston needs two boxes and the rest of New England may only need one. New York, Chicago and Los Angeles may need three or four each while Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico may be able to share two. We may come to the conclusion that each state should automatically get one (even the Dakotas) and then the remaining fifty would be targeted for the largest urban populations. That would mean working jointly with State Departments of Education and City School Districts. Large city or unified districts would be the easiest because their mail channels are always open and "mail" is moved daily. Boxes could be moved around on a two week rotation schedule posted right on the box.
If Chicago were to receive three boxes, each of the twenty high schools in the metro area would have two weeks with the high school box. With thirty-nine middle schools the time at each site is cut to one week. The problem with elementary schools is that it would take more than two full school years for a box to make the rounds of all 112 elementary schools in the city of Chicago. The fourth Illinois box would be earmarked for all non-Chicago schools and would move more slowly around the state at the direction of the State Department of Education. California, with the most children in school, would be most consumptive of cases. Los Angeles Unified would need three. San Diego would need two and San Francisco could get by on one dedicated case. With one extra case for Northern California and one case for Southern California, that's eight cases just for our home state. With twelve for California and Illinois and forty-nine more for each of the remaining states and D.C., thirty-nine would be left as dedicated cases for population centers.
It would be incumbent upon the receiving agency (either the State Department of Education or the City School District) to agree as a condition of receipt of the display box, to arrange and adhere to a distribution schedule that gives the broadest possible dissemination to each case. That could be set up with a contact on the telephone and codified in a very short "contract" that could be mailed back and forth to set out the terms of the agreement and verify that the address works for shipment of the display.
As a part of the agreement to schedule and distribute the cases, receiving agencies would also agree to administer the assessment instrument and return copies to us at quarterly intervals. We could include envelopes with postage for a year's worth of assessment returns in the package that goes with the case on its original trip to the receiving agency.
The assessment instrument for each school site would be concerned with the numbers for accumulation of data about the success of dissemination and access: name of the school, how long the case stayed at that site, how many students came in contact with the case, how many teachers used it to facilitate a presentation or a discussion. Beyond the data, we would be interested in more detailed information about how the cases were used, impressions of their value as a teaching tool and suggestions for improvement in the interpretive or curricular material. We also need to know if the case spent its full two weeks on site in the custodian's office.
Teachers more than anyone are used to having to do an evaluation of every activity and piece of work that comes before them. The work of peers and colleagues, even those unknown to them, would be no exception. They would not only understand that the funding organization would require an evaluation, but would also be inclined to want to share their expertise and opinion. I would fully expect anecdotes about how the collection fit into their teaching to be forthcoming soon after the first cases are delivered.
In order to create a climate where as much useful information as possible could be passed back and forth, we would also include the project name and address and encourage correspondence with stories, suggestions and, naturally, donations. Every one who has ever come into contact with the reality of this project has been impressed with the scope and quality of the collection. They have been impressed with our ability to turn a sow's ear into a silk purse. The hobbyists and dealers with whom we have discussed this idea are convinced that it is a great project for the hobby to support on a national level. With a collecting organization of almost 9,000 members, it only takes a small percentage of active participants to make this project a reality. The old guys know that we have to work hard to interest a new generation in old history.
A great way to build interest and access would be to take a couple of cases to the annual conferences of two important professional organizations. Both the National Council on the Teaching of Social Science and the Organization of American Historians would be great venues for these display boxes. Not only could we expect a critical appraisal of the job we had done, but suggestions for improvement and building enthusiasm for the project as a whole. These conferences would also be fertile ground to develop sources of cost sharing funds to expand this project and improve our core museum collection.
The institution of the presidency is never as great as when it reminds us of our own potential greatness. In our lifetimes that may not seem to happen with regularity. With the perspective of history, the presidency can often be the seat of glory for the holder of that office and the country. Providing a reflection of that glory for visitors to our museum has been the focus all along. We display no anti-president material. We try to show the positive side of the office and the men who held that office. Without any attempt at revisionism or pasteurization, we try to look at both sides of a given campaign without the negativity. This approach is practical because the overwhelming percentage of material available to us is positive. Most people who keep political mementoes do so because they were fond of the candidate involved. Other than some satirical cartoons from the 1880's and '90's, all our stuff is for a candidate rather than against.
These boxes will help teachers and students to meet national standards for American History at the fifth, eighth, and eleventh grades. Campaigns and elections, presidential decisions, government and the role of the media are all integral to learning the history of our country. The California State Frameworks for the teaching of History/Social Science are replete with pleas for the use of primary sources and artifacts to enrich the study of history. The San Diego Unified Standards for the teaching of American History, which I had a hand in developing, have a whole group of applied standards that deal with multimedia presentations augmented with materials from historical periods. These collections of ours will have a broad scope but a focus which can be narrowed to fit the lesson at hand. In the hands of a capable and flexible teacher, they will be fine tools, indeed.
When a box of buttons and other campaign mementoes comes to us it means that they were virtually worthless where they came from. Either they were duplicates in a personal collection or extras in a dealer's stock. Even though that first flush of new stuff is fun, at that point the items have only a superficial value to us and no value to anyone outside of our small project circle. How much value they ultimately take on is completely dependent on what we do to them after we open that box. The first sorting beyond the ooh and aah stage is of the "need 'em, got 'em" type. We get duplicates which we trade or sell in accordance with our collection policy. Once we have separated the useful pieces from the stuff to put into storage, then the real work begins. This is where materials begin to take on that unique, value-added quality that we give them.
Each piece will be arranged, by president, with all the other "raw" pieces from that president. If the piece is a three-dimensional or shelf display object, we need to decide if we have room in a case currently or if this piece should be combined with others in a shadowbox or focused display. If the piece is paper, size and graphic content become the two factors that determine whether we deal with that piece immediately. We are constantly asking for used frames and framing materials. A few of us have learned how to cut mats so that we can make our donated materials stretch as far as possible. Every summer, we make the rounds of our local framers, begging for donated framing services. Thus far, we have succeeded with more than two dozen framers in the county and at least ten of those have been repeat donors. Six months ago, one of my students was able to secure a paid apprenticeship at the shop of one of "our" framers. As his experience grows, he becomes more and more useful to our project. It would be better if he weren't a senior.
The aesthetics of framing and design are more than color selection and moulding choice. Our speciality is multiple object framing in what are technically shallow shadowboxes. These frames hold objects that represent one president but also tell a story through a unifying theme; seven Lincoln commemorative postcards from 1909 or twenty-three "I Like Ike" objects. We are working hard to replace all the cardboard Riker mounts (known as butterfly boxes) with wood frames. Interweaving design elements with history story telling is the key to our success.
Depicting the presidency in broad strokes and minute detail would be a daunting task for most educational institutions. Our school is particularly well poised to undertake such an endeavor. For the past five years, we have been deeply involved in a program of systemic restructuring to improve education. We have started a number of programs that have received national attention and one (the AVID program) that has become an accepted model in more than thirty states and ten other countries. We have been named a California Distinguished School and a Blue Ribbon School. Our administration has always fostered teacher-initiated projects to improve the minds and empower the futures of the students who fill our classrooms. When I wanted to start a Humanities Academy four years ago, my request was met with interest and then with schedule shifting that allowed me to collapse the time-in-seat requirement for history and English and teach an exciting filmstudy class as an integral part of our academy called The Company of Learners. Even though the school does not fund the museum, I enjoy the same encouragement from administrators and colleagues as in my academic pursuits.
Having worked as a teaching assistant and a student teacher in two of Clairemont's exemplary programs and having for the past eight years been the teacher for the Model United Nations program here, I know that students respond and learn when given the opportunity. We give them no choice about learning but many choices about how they can learn best. We are often able to take students out of lecture mode and help them absorb, process and produce in ways that suit their individual learning styles. Student production is at the heart of the Museum of the American Presidency. As the program director of The BIG Idea here at Clairemont, I have worked with students on many community and school service projects. The museum grew directly out of the use of my political collection as a teaching tool. The students developed that idea into our museum. This past year I was nominated as national History Teacher of the Year by our local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution and was a finalist for Teacher of the Year for the California League of High Schools. I was honored to win the Leavey Award for Excellence in Free Enterprise Education from the Freedoms Foundation this year. I received this national award as a result of my development of The BIG Idea and the museum.
Institutional Memberships and Our Not-For-Profit Affiliate
In an effort to maintain and improve the overall quality of our museum project we have joined the American Association of Museums and the American Political Items Collectors. The professional standards of the AAM are the highest and their publications have been our most useful texts from the outset. The APIC is the essential hobby organization for political Americana and their views on the undesirability of replicas and reproductions have been our watchwords.
The Clairemont High School Foundation was established as a 501(c)(3) organization in 1992. The initial focus of the group was to raise funds to continue one of Clairemont's exemplary programs, Model United Nations. The program had been funded by the School District for the previous fourteen years and was dropped in a drastic round of budget cutting. We were able to fund the program ourselves for four years. The Foundation has become essential to the running of all the "extra" programs and activities at Clairemont. Our Foundation provides scholarships to students for high school enrichment activities and for college. We support athletics and the band, dance and drama departments. We support our student leaders, journalists, public speakers and spirit teams.
The CHS Foundation is the umbrella under which the BIG Idea operates and does all its fundraising. The tax deductible gift aspect is the vehicle that garners multiple donations from collectors and dealers. The Foundation board is made up of ten staff members and parents elected to two year terms. The only board position that has "job requirements" is that of treasurer. He or she must be a CPA.
The current officers of the foundation are: President - Thad Pugmire, parent of three graduates and one current student; Secretary - Shelly High, parent of one CHS grad and one current student; Treasurer - Vern LoForti parent, of one CHS grad and one current student; Staff Liaison -Allan Peck, Principal Clairemont High School: Spring Fling Coordinator - Nina Mispagel, parent of one current student; PTSA/ Alumni Liaison - Elaine Turnbull, parent of two graduates and one current student: and Board Members - Ric High, Steve Turnbull, Jill Russell and Jim Fletcher.
We hold one major fundraiser each year, The Spring Fling Dinner/ Dance/ Auction and several small events including the Clairemont Classic Football game. We apply for grants where appropriate and accept gifts whenever possible.
The focal point of The BIG Idea is student action and production. Students are engaged in research, both academic and practical. Students have written and secured donations from individuals totaling over $150,000. Students did the work to clear and remodel the room in the school library. Students secured the contribution from Home Depot that enabled us to complete the remodel of our interim facility. The jobs of curator, conservator, framer, exhibition designer, fundraiser, speaker, docent and custodian are primarily student jobs.
We have received encouragement from political leaders and museum professionals. Gerald Ford and George Bush have sent personal donations. The curators of ten presidential libraries have sent detailed communications to students, and the curators of the White House collection and the Smithsonian's Political History Museum have sent reference materials and encouragement. The author of the definitive guide to collecting political Americana has sent his books and several thousand dollars in donations. The San Diego Museum of Art donated nine beautiful display cases that are the backbone of our remodeled room. Because of one generous donor in New York and a student letter of request, we are the repository of the Schwabacher collection, one of the top collections of Woodrow Wilson material in the west. Our local Kiwanis club has, for the past four years, sponsored our "Images of Lincoln" gallery. With donations from over two hundred collectors and dealers and some judicious purchases, we now have a collection representative of every president from Washington to Clinton. There are major holes in the collection. It will take a decade, thousands of dollars, and a concerted funding effort to bring together a stand-alone museum collection worthy of national note.
Our museum has been featured in three local papers, three local TV stations, the AP wire and on the Cox Cable System. We were featured in a thirty minute live tour on C-SPAN last year that generated great comment and donations.
We have a useful process and local teaching tool in place. Our desire for school children around the nation to better understand the political process and citizenship is genuine and possible. As a public school, we have a responsibility to earn and keep the public trust. Our goal of total education is lofty but purposeful. I hope that the idea appeals to you.