photos courtesy Edward Nevraumont
Fourth Grade History Buff Heads to National, International Competitions
At 18 months old, Everest Nevraumont decided she wanted to have a grown-up conversation at the dinner table with her parents about the French Revolution. “I liked pretending I was an adult. If we had a conversation [about an important historical event], I’d be more of an adult than an 18-month-old,” she says. Since then, Everest has been eager to learn all she could about history, everything from the French Revolution to U.S. presidents and founding fathers.
“It’s super interesting and there’s so much to know,” says 10-year-old Everest, a fourth grader at a gifted and talented private school, GT School.
That fascination grew when she traveled to Washington, D.C., last summer with her grandparents and visited the famous monuments honoring the leaders she had spent so much time reading about.
TESTING THOSE HISTORY SMARTS
While looking into local competitions that could nurture his daughter’s love for history, Edward came across the National History Bee Central Texas Regionals. Though nervous about her first-ever competition, Everest jumped at the chance to put her knowledge to the test. In November she competed against three other elementary students across the region at Liberate Arts and Science Academy in Austin, answering questions about topics ranging from Socratic philosophy to modern civil rights. She won the bee, earning a spot in the National Championships in Florida in May — and an even bigger challenge at the International Championships in France in July. “At first, I was really proud of myself and felt like the stress had been taken off me, but then I was like, I just got into nationals and internationals. That’ll be way harder than regionals!”
To get ready for both competitions, Everest has been competing in other regional history bees as well as school quiz bowls. She also uses advanced study techniques like spaced repetition (reviewing information at increasing intervals) and the memory palace method (associating facts with specific locations in a familiar place, like mentally placing a historical event in different rooms of a house). Beyond studying, Everest is most excited about the chance to compete against the best history buffs her age, not just in the country but around the world.
MAKING HISTORY
Seeing his daughter excel in history has been rewarding for Edward. “There’s nothing better as a parent than watching your kids do well, and she’s doing really well.” And it’s not just about memorizing names and dates, he adds, it’s about making useful connections. “I feel that something like history, understanding the world and the culture of the world and how it all fits together, that’s something really valuable, period, and knowing the amount she’s able to understand makes my heart warm.”
One of his favorite moments was when Everest asked, “Um, Dad, is Donald Trump a little bit like Andrew Jackson?” “I was like, where did that come from? Did someone tell you that? She was like, ‘No, I’ve been studying Andrew Jackson and it seems like a lot of the stuff that he was doing was very similar to what’s happening with Trump right now.’ ”
“Well it’s ‘cause they both had a spoils system,” Everest says matter-of-factly.
“They definitely both have a spoils system, that’s true,” her dad says with a laugh. “So sometimes people are like, ‘Oh, you’re just memorizing facts, like who’s the 32nd president, but what does that get you?’ But getting a bunch of those facts together and then being able to understand them – she has such a base of facts that’s allowing her to get to a level of understanding that’s just really cool.”
Another exciting part of her journey has been participating in a largely male-dominated competition. Edward notes, “There are very few girls who compete in history bees and so it’s good to see that stereotype challenged, like hey, girls can do this too.”
Fittingly, Everest has been studying famous women in history. Her dad told her, “If there’s a question about a famous woman coming up at nationals, you’d better get that question right!”