got history?

I am applying for the Elevate Prize because I believe that we need a world of changemakers to create a thriving, peaceful global society and sustainable economy and that we need a new approach to history education to get there.  

Our global civic health is suffering. Disinformation and tribalism are threatening the future of democracy, while authoritarian countries are on the rise.  A root cause of this is how we teach history. For far too long, history has been used as a tool to create national silos and to establish standards for leadership and economic growth that have hurt people and the planet. Young people experience it as boring and disempowering, and the salutary effect inspiring history can have is missed.

We see a future in which history is used to increase our capacity for humanity and to strengthen young people's sense of self, belonging, agency and community. In inspiring, project-based learning, we envision all young people experiencing that change is possible, and that they are stewards of one another and of the planet.

We would use the prize to make that future come true by expanding our work, which is strategically designed based on rigorous analysis of the system. 

Our purpose is to activate communities as incubators of changemakers who work towards advancing the SDGs.

Our vision is a world in which communities are learning labs in which engaging with history fuels engagement for a better future. Students are having fun and solidifying their own identity by doing individualized, project-based learning. They are connecting that identity with their community by exploring the threads that weave us together, creating tours in their cities, and running oral history projects.  They are practicing the art of discourse, holding public debates on difficult historical and current issues. They are guiding adults and peers through exhibits and historical sites with their voice on what is important.  Their teachers are well trained in multi-modal historical learning.  They see and capture the value of this learning, and because the effect on learners is so clear, they are getting more time and resources.  Museums partner with schools and incubate youth action, displaying the work young people create. Young people emerge from school ready to be engaged changemakers in a complex world.  That is what history learning should look like.

Our organization is a systems-change project activating networks, empowering youth and changing metrics to make this a reality.

We have a host of global problems to solve and democracy is struggling worldwide. The problem we are solving is that young people are not getting history and civic education in a way that prepares them as citizens for the future.  It is experienced as narrow, boring, and disempowering. 

We do three things to address this:

1) We build communities that change the purpose and the experience of history learning.  Concretely, this means we have created templates and co-creation labs that help museums become partners for schools in creating inspiring and engaging learning opportunities at a very low cost. Learning ecosystems were used to reinvigorate STEM education for the 21st century:  we have crafted a similar approach to history and civic education that we have piloted with great success.

2) We amplify youth voice.  We realized that young people are the strongest allies in calling for radical change in education, so we incubated a youth podcast and an advocacy and research movement that have already seen global impact and reach. 

3) Finally, we need to change what is measured, so we built an alliance of civic education providers, academics, and policymakers to reimagine assessment in support of human responsibility. 

In designing got history, I was informed not only by 15 years of working with Ashoka, but also by my personal mentors who wrote the books on creative destruction and disruptive innovation (Richard Foster and Clay Christensen).  

Our approach is radically new in that we are not designing new curricula, which is what every other history organization does.  We enable actors in the system to teach differently and to orient their work towards new goals:  enhancing the wellbeing of individuals, society, and the planet. We are aiming for a paradigm shift, and have zeroed in on the most strategic levers to achieve it. Our models: the "Networked Improvement Communities" established to improve healthcare, and the learning ecosystem model used to improve outcomes in STEM learning. 

Our focus on empowering youth is also unique. Our podcast, which for the first time united some of our country's most prominent historians with diverse youth in conversation, was recognized with a "NextWave" award by Spotify, selected as one of 5 from over 4000 submissions. 

Finally, we lead with love and are radically collaborative.  Our partnerships with leading networks and organizations around the world will allow us to rapidly scale. 

We are only 2 years into our work, so we do not yet have broad data on how we have impacted humanity, but we are guided by three key metrics: 

1) How many individual young people have you activated as changemakers towards a sustainable future?

2) How many young people have experienced learning that enhanced their sense of identity, belonging, agency and community?

3) How many organizations have you helped to shift their way of seeing history?

1) After 1 year of our youth work, we have 15 podcasters and 12 highly engaged youth council members.  They have become powerful advocates for themselves, for a better education system, and for a world reimagined.  They have reached and engaged over 1500 other youth with their survey and messages. 

2) Our conservative estimate is 1200.  We just started creating learning experiences last summer and are just now collecting how many teachers and museums used them and what the impact was.  The preliminary results are mindbogglingly positive ("This is the best project I have ever done in school!") 

3) We have activated over 45 museums, 18 social entrepreneurs, and 3 EdTech companies as partners, with a collective reach of over 125 million students.