June 10, 2024
By Michelle Welk, Marketing & Communications Specialist
Listen to this week’s Hooray For Monday podcast to hear Michelle’s conversation with Eleanor Brosowsky, a 23-24 Real World History student, who shares her reflections on the course — and for an announcement from Cosby Hunt, Real World History creator and instructor.
Inspired Teaching’s Real World History program is consistently praised by student participants. They say it has enabled them to connect with peers they would otherwise never meet; helped them better understand the world and the communities around them; and sharpened their critical thinking, time management, and professionalism skills.
Real World History instructor and Director of Youth Programming at Inspired Teaching Cosby Hunt with Real World History students during a tour of Washington, DC cultural landmarks.
Quotes from students include:
“This is the best class of my junior year.”
“It is a much more in-depth and interactive history course than regular classes … and it’s taught by two very exuberant, professional, and overall excellent teachers who take time to form relationships with their pupils.”
“This class has shown me how meaningful connections to our neighbors, and especially our elderly community members, can be.”
In addition to being a credit-bearing course offered to DC high school students, Real World History was created to serve as a model of the Inspired Teaching Approach in action. For nearly a decade, feedback like that above has proven that the learning experience can be authentically engaging, academically rigorous, and joyful. And that is something that all educators can replicate for students everywhere.
In this week’s Hooray For Monday podcast, you can hear more about Real World History from current student, Eleanor Brosowsky, a 10th grader at School Without Walls in Washington, DC and finalist in the National History Day competition for her website on the Evian Conference. For high school students in DC that may be interested in taking the course in the 2024-2025 school year, more information and the application are available here.
Here are three ways to bring the lessons of Real World History into your classroom and activities to get you started:
Center Student Expertise
The Real World History curriculum includes participation in National History Day, a nationwide project-based contest for students in grades 6-12. Instructor Cosby Hunt gives students a theme — this year’s was “Turning Points in History”— but they are empowered to interpret and execute that prompt in whichever medium, with whatever historical focus, they choose.
Get Hands-On
From their oral history projects in the fall to 100-hour internships in the spring, Real World History students have ample opportunity to apply what they’ve learned in theory to what they’ll do in practice. Fully engaged students are engaged intellectually, emotionally and physically.
Celebrate the Learning Process
The oral histories students capture are archived at the DC Public Library; their work throughout the semester — researching, interviewing, editing, transcribing — lives on far beyond their time in the Real World History and serves an important role in recording DC history for the whole community to appreciate and learn from.
For additional insights, resources, and information on Inspired Teaching teacher and youth programming, subscribe to the Hooray For Monday newsletter!