HAMILTON Providing An Education For Teachers Creating Historic Curriculum

"Not only is this the music they love to listen to on their own free time, they're seeing faces that look like theirs telling American history," Los Angeles eighth-grade teacher Angelica Davila tells Newsweek.

"It's really challenging for them to relate to American history when their stories are not being told. With this musical and with the casting of the show in particular, they finally have a chance to see themselves in our country's history for the first time."

The musical she's talking about is, of course, Lin-Manuel Miranda's HAMILTON, which, without even a touring or regional performance hitting the boards yet, has become a national pop culture phenomenon thanks to the Internet, celebrity and presidential endorsements, and an original Broadway cast album whose popularity has exploded beyond the normal niche market of theatre albums.

There have been history-based musical on Broadway before; even ones that incorporated contemporary music, but Miranda's technique of using hip-hop and a diverse cast as parallels to the spirit of the white men of the late 18th and early 19th Centuries who had such a profound impact on American culture and our history has been unmatched in effectiveness.

School teachers, especially those who teach minority students, have noticed how its music and lyrics have sparked more creative interest in American history and have begun using HAMILTON as a part of their curriculum.

Jim Cullen chairs the history department at the Ethical Culture Fieldston School in the Bronx. He also may be the only New York City schoolteacher who's published a book on Bruce Springsteen.

After attending a performance last spring with a group of middle-schoolers, he was startled not only at how much he loved the show, but by the popularity of the cast album among students.

"They were singing these songs the way they might sing the latest release from Drake or Adele."

Realizing the material's value as a learning tool, he designed an entire course centered on Hamilton, the person, and HAMILTON, the musical. This fall he'll be teaching "Hamilton: A Musical Inquiry." 16-year-old students will be asked to sift through primary sources like George Washington's farewell address and showtunes like "One Last Time" and "Washington on Your Side" to compare and contrast.

"It brings history to the classroom in such an exciting and engaging way," says Patrick Sprinkle, who teaches U.S. history and public policy at the NYC Lab School for Collaborative Studies.

Sprinkle has used theatre to enhance his lessons before, such as playing selections from BLOODY BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON and taking students to see Bryan Cranston as Lyndon B. Johnson in ALL THE WAY, but he finds HAMILTON more effective because it's fashioned from hip-hop and rap and features actors of color.

The fact that the title character immigrated to America from the West Indies also creates a bond with students.

"Many of our students are first-generation or second-generation Americans," Sprinkle says. "The story speaks to them."

Miranda admits to being more than a little surprised with these developments, as he wasn't exactly a history nerd in school himself.

"I basically lived in the English and communications department. It's been kind of amazing to have my social studies teachers reach out."

"I get videos from 4-year-olds to college students ... of them performing songs from this show," he says. "They're learning songs they like and weirdly learning U.S. history in the process."

"As soon as I saw it, I knew I had to find a way to use it in class," says Molly O'Steen, a fourth-grade teacher at Rodeph Sholom School in Manhattan.

Some of the songs aren't age-appropriate, but O'Steen says the kids have latched on to the series of Brit-pop songs sung by the only white character, King George III.

Broadway prices will certainly keep most students from getting the full HAMILTON experience, though The Rockefeller Foundation in October committed $1.5 million to subsidize tickets for 20,000 New York City students. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History has been involved, creating a Hamilton-related curriculum as an online resource.

"That was the first [show] that didn't make me want to go to sleep when I was in it," says 16-year-old Pedro De Los Angeles, a student who saw HAMILTON with classmates at Democracy Prep in Harlem. "It just stuck in my head, and I found history interesting. If history class was like that every day, I'm pretty sure the Regents wouldn't be a problem." The student is an actor himself, and HAMILTON inspired him to perform in a school production of 9 TO 5.

"Once I saw Hamilton, I was like, Whoa-a musical is just on a whole 'nother level. I was like, Maybe I should try, even though I can't sing."

Click here for the full article.