Should Edgewood Middle School eighth-grade history teacher Dylan Ringler win the National History Day 2024 Patricia Behring Teacher of the Year Award for which he’s nominated, he knows what he’d do with the prize money.
“I think I definitely would set up some of it for some sort of National History Day (NHD) fund. I don’t quite know what that would look like, but that would be $10,000 I wouldn’t expect to have, so I would definitely like to use some here at Edgewood to kind of grow our history program as well, especially along the lines of being a STEM school. That project fits well with being a STEM school and having the necessary supplies would be great,” he said in an interview Monday afternoon.
On May 14, NHD announced the teachers honored as the 2024 Patricia Behring Teacher of the Year nominees. Each NHD affiliate may nominate one middle school teacher and one high school teacher per year for the award, which comes with a $10,000 cash prize.
All nominees receive $500.
He said he found out he was a nominee back in February, having been nominated by Lexi Gribble, coordinator for Indiana History Day, for the junior division (grades 6-8) Teacher of the Year. He will compete for the prestigious honor against representatives from all 50 states and territories.
“I was very shocked. We do the project, and I like the project a lot, but I know there’s a lot of teachers in the state that really go overboard with it. So I was kind of shocked with that as well, but in a good way,” he said, recalling his initial reaction when he learned he was nominated.
Asked why she selected Ringler, Gribble responded, via email, “We selected Dylan as our junior division nominee for the Behring Teacher of the Year Award because he has been participating in National History Day in Indiana for several years, with students competing at the state and national levels of competition. Dylan exemplifies how the program can be implemented in a variety of ways. He has used the program in his classroom teaching but has also hosted the program as an extracurricular club. Dylan’s support of his students and their learning is why he was our nominee for this year’s award.”
Ringler grew up in Syracuse, graduating from Wawasee High School in 2009. He went to what was then IPFW, but didn’t know what he wanted to study so he went into business.
Realizing business was not for him, he eventually found education “mainly after a history teacher that I had, Scott Lancaster - he was a big influence on my life, a history teacher, coach. And then I student-taught again at Wawasee and then I’ve been here the last eight years.”
As a student himself, Ringler said he was better at math, so it was strange he ended up a history teacher.
“I just like the stories. It’s probably been - the teachers that I have had, some of my college professors were just good storytellers and it was fascinating. It didn’t necessarily feel to me like I was learning, I was just enjoying being in those classrooms,” he said.
At Edgewood Middle School, he’s taught mostly eighth-grade history, with some seventh-grade history here and then as was needed.
Warsaw Community Schools has been involved in NHD long before Ringling joined the school system.
“It’s just kind of been a thing in Warsaw that teachers and admin have grasped onto, but probably my second year here was when I first did the entirety of the project. We’ve done it every year since,” he said. “We started out in the classroom and circumstances kind of got it away from doing it in the classroom, and (I) did more with the club after school.”
He invited students to join the club. Over the years, student interest has varied.
“Obviously, since we’re not doing it in the classroom, we don’t get as many competitors as when we have them do it in the classroom. They already have the project done so it’s easier to enter the competition. But asking kids to do it on their own and just with guidance from us, it’s a little bit tougher. We maybe get anywhere from 10 to 15 that are initially interested, and then it kind of dwindles down to maybe three or four groups total,” Ringler said.
Over the years, Edgewood and Warsaw students have taken their NHD projects as far as nationals in Maryland, even placing at nationals.
NHD is a nonprofit organization based in College Park that seeks to improve the teaching and learning of history. The National History Day Contest was established in 1974 and currently engages more than half a million students every year in conducting original research on historical topics of interest, according to a previously provided news release. Students present their research as a documentary, exhibit, paper, performance, or website. Projects compete first at the local and affiliate levels, where the top entries are invited to the National Contest at the University of Maryland at College Park.
“We have a good track record I think, just in Warsaw Schools. Lakeview has had good success as well,” Ringler said.
The awards ceremony will begin around 8 a.m. June 13 and will be livestreamed at nhd.org/awards-ceremony. Ringler also teaches summer school and won’t be able to make the awards ceremony in Maryland, but he plans to watch it online.
“This award is not just what I have done. It’s a culmination of Warsaw Community Schools and the teachers before me, and probably a deference shout-out to our librarian, Susan Eberhardt. She’s kind of been the glue that’s held it together over the years and always there to lend a helping hand, always there to help kids with their research, always there to proofread, to doublecheck, make sure their bibliographies are in good order. So she’s definitely just as deserving, if not more so, of this award as I am,” Ringler concluded.