Austin Scholar #38: How To Teach Your Kid History (So They’ll Actually Learn It)
& How Hamilton Taught Me U.S. History
Hey, y'all!
I don’t enjoy studying history. At all.
I still managed to ace my most recent practice US History test—but the knowledge I used to get the answers right didn’t come from my textbooks.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
This week from Austin Scholar...
Austin’s Anecdote: How Hamilton Taught Me U.S. History
How To Teach Your Kid History (So They’ll Actually Learn It)
Scholar’s Sources: My Favorite Mediums For Studying History
On Halloween, I dressed up as Elle Woods. I tried to channel my “What, like it’s hard?” energy for the rest of the week, as we finished up the Liftoff Sidecar program.
Being a part of this program has reminded me that there are a ton of teenagers who are passionate about the same things I am. It’s given me such a sense of community that you can’t replicate anywhere else.
And since I’m writing this newsletter on Thursday, I haven’t seen the outcome of the World Series, but I’m definitely going to be watching to see if this insane trend of the Phillies winning the World Series right before an economic crisis continues. (Baseball can apparently predict the future?!)
Austin’s Anecdote: How Hamilton Taught Me U.S. History
As y'all know, I don't love history.
History textbooks are so dry, it's like they want me to be bored.
And I have such a hard time remembering specific names and dates, which makes history tests a nightmare.
But, as I talked about in my newsletter, The Incomplete Life of Johnson, not all history is miserable.
For example: in 5th grade, I listened to the opening chords of "Alexander Hamilton" for the first time. Starting that very moment, I was obsessed.
Musical theater has always been a significant part of my life, ever since the catchy songs and heart-wrenching ballads of Aladdin sank their claws into me after I saw it on Broadway in 2nd grade.
But Hamilton was my first "grown-up" musical, with raps, curse words, and serious topics, making it infinitely more attractive to 5th-grade me.
Within a week, I knew every single word to every single song.
My friends and I held auditions for our own productions of Hamilton, where we played the karaoke tracks and wore fancy dresses. (I, of course, as an older sister, was Angelica.)
We were obsessed.
Within a few months, I could name who wrote the Bill of Rights (James Madison) and who proposed a national bank (Alexander Hamilton) at the drop of a hat. (In rhyme, too!)
A few years later, after the Hamilton craze died down, my voice coach gave me a new song to learn: "Heart of Stone" from the musical, Six.
It started again.
Soon, I was belting about King Henry VIII's six wives in my sleep, feeling empowered about what women can accomplish when I sang the finale song, "Six."
And, of course, we cannot forget my books.
During the year I read 125 books (9th grade), I read quite a few historical fiction novels.
I was transported to 19th-century London and the role of women in the 19th century — and about one of history’s most brutal murderers — while I read Stalking Jack the Ripper.
I experienced the trials of Russia’s royal family and learned about their 20th-century culture and social views while I read Romanov.
Billy Pilgrim's fight with trauma and trying to comprehend what happened in the second World War taught me about both life during the war and life after it.
Finally, through watching movies such as Gladiator and The King's Man, I've been able to experience life as someone who lived in a different time period. I've been immersed in our Earth's story.
So, yes. From these musicals and novels and movies, I learned history.
I learned everything from the American Revolution, to the names of the first four presidents of the United States, to King Henry VIII's life and his impact on religion, to the causes and battles of World Wars I and II, to the Romanov family, to culture and life in the 19th and 20th centuries.
And let me tell you: I loved every second of it.
How To Teach Your Kid History (So They’ll Actually Learn It)
Textbooks make kids hate history.
Worse, textbooks make history boring.
They present daring escapades and fantastical controversies in an academic tone. Bravery and emotion get buried under SAT words.
Brilliant people and ideas receive small paragraphs, hidden in the midst of legal jargon.
Textbooks teach kids that history is simply words on a page.
It totally misses that history was alive.