621 ratings
US History nerd
John F.
History isn't a list of dates — it's an argument about why things happened. Let's learn to argue well.
Education
Howard University
B.A. in History, M.A.T. in Secondary Education
Hometown
Richmond, Virginia
A note from John
“Students hate history when it's a memory test and love it when it's an argument.”
I teach the argument. We read sources like detectives, build causation chains, and practice writing the kind of thesis that makes a grader sit up. If you can argue about the past, the dates take care of themselves.
John’s story
John grew up ten minutes from Civil War battlefields and got hooked on the gap between the markers' version of events and what the documents actually said. He taught high school history for four years, coached a national-qualifying debate team, and found that the debate kids learned history twice as fast — so he started teaching everyone that way.
What students say
5.0 ★ · 621 ratings
“Got a 5 on APUSH. The HIPP drills felt like overkill until the DBQ, when I realized I could read any document in about forty seconds.”
“He makes you predict what happens next before he tells you. I started actually remembering things because I'd argued about them first.”
“My daughter went from 'history is boring' to citing primary sources at the dinner table. Her essay scores caught up with her reading within two months.”