History Class Ought to Take a Lesson From TikTok

by Sarah Behjet, 16 | Youth250 Content Corps

“First came the Battles of Lexington and Concord, and you can’t forget about Bunker Hill…”

My middle school self was trapped in yet another history lecture, this one about a timeline of the American Revolution’s battles. Instead of feigning engagement in class, I glanced outside at the swaying pine trees and red cardinals chirping. As the history lesson continued, I doodled on the corner of my college-ruled notebook in an attempt to make time go faster.

My experience is hardly an outlier. A 2023 study reveals that only 28% of middle school students are interested in learning more about history. There’s hardly anything entrancing about chronology, made worse by the need to memorize battle names without learning the significance attached to each one.

Then, something happened that changed my view. I was scrolling away on Instagram, past clothing ads and my friends’ summer photos, when the account @historycoolkids caught my eye with a post about an old prediction for what phones could be and do. I clicked to learn more, and the post taught me that a 1953 San Francisco businessman prophesied the telephone’s future uses, correctly speculating that it could be handheld and translate between languages. I was hooked. Was there more out there that might connect to my world today? Or stories that could surprise me? I spent hours going down rabbit holes on Wikipedia, Instagram, and TikTok discovering new topics. These questions, accompanied by photos and artifacts, fueled more and more searches.

Social media’s purpose took on a new meaning after my endless searches. It enabled me to do so much more than just doomscroll; it opened my eyes to topics that made history personal, and critically, surprising. A world sans rote memorization and outdated textbooks existed, and I’d just found it. History wasn’t a set of facts, or a class with all the answers — it was the tool to discover more questions and unknown stories.

Broadening my horizons about the past, even on a five-inch screen, made me realize how static historical information in the classroom is. I knew exactly what to expect going in to my U.S. history class: the same “classic” stories we’re usually taught about the wars, presidents and major events. It’s like watching a movie you’ve seen before; you might get more of the details this time, but the element of surprise is nonexistent.

Yet, as an American with Assyrian and Armenian roots, I happened to know there was more to history, because my ancestors lived it. In class, I only learned about the economic and governmental intricacies of the Ottoman Empire — never about the 1915 Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek genocides perpetrated by the same empire. I only heard about the “extinct” Assyrians of Mesopotamia — never that Assyrians still exist worldwide. It’s been well argued that omitting minority perspectives from world and American history is a fast track to making students feel left out. But what people don’t realize is it’s also a fast track to boredom. Tiktok, with all of its flaws, fuels an addictive way to search and find new, unexpected information. History teachers could take a lesson from this.

I would be lying if I said that my out-of-school history escapades fully quelled the monotony of history class. However, they add layers to what I learn in school, making textbook information something of an unlocked treasure chest. If it’s unrealistic for schools to ditch pre-existing history curriculum, we can at least encourage students to use out-of-school resources– yes, even TikTok, Youtube and Instagram — to supplement classroom instruction.

I’m still gazing outside classroom windows and mindlessly doodling in notebooks, hoping for something interesting to happen. But with new tools under my belt, I know that when I learn about the Statue of Liberty, I can go look up a more interesting question: Does the Liberty Bell actually have a spelling mistake in its inscription? In making inquiries beyond the history class curriculum, every “Hmm…” turns into a “No way!”, adding excitement to the learning journey.

Sarah Behjet is a 16-year-old junior at Northwest Catholic High School in Farmington, CT.