In collaboration with ASU Gamage and the Gilder Lehrman Institute, the Abbett Family Foundation is pleased to support the Hamilton Education Program. The Gilder Lehrman Institute’s mission is to promote the knowledge and understanding of American history through educational programs and resources. The Hamilton Education Program (EduHam) was created to bring civics to life for high school students in response to a 2014 National Assessment of Educational Progress that measured only 1 in 10 students demonstrated knowledge proficiency in U.S. History.
The Hamilton Education Program is giving 250,000 low-income high school students and their teachers the chance to understand what it means to be an American, who we are as a country, and what their role can be in their communities. Students are using this knowledge to make critical connections between the past and present, and we hope will continue to do so throughout their lives.
We are excited to announce that the feedback from participants in this program has been extremely positive. According to an internal Gilder Lehrman survey, 99 percent of teachers said several months after their participation that the experience would have a lasting impact on their students, and 80 percent said the program changed the way they think about teaching American history.
Our experience with the program has been inspiring! We had the opportunity to attend the student performance of Hamilton which included performances and projects based on the student’s learning before the show itself. The goal was to immerse students in primary sources from the period, relying on Gilder Lehrman’s vast trove of more than 60,000 documents. Students would then use a writing process, including analysis of complex texts and creation of cogent arguments based on them and use the information they learned to generate their own projects. The curriculum also asks students to examine the tension between accuracy and historical integrity through close readings. The creativity, passion, and demonstration of understanding through their different art forms was compelling!
We want to thank ASU Gammage and Gilder Lehrman for providing students with such an amazing opportunity and unique learning experience. We are so grateful to be apart of it.
Here is an additional article that provides more information about EduHam:
