You know those teachers, the ones that you don’t think much of on the first day when you see their name on your schedule next to the number of the room that you remember taking English in your first semester? They’re the ones who teach that subject that you never tended to think about too much. After all, it’s just History, right?
But then classes start, and something you never thought would happen starts to actually happen: you sit there, fascinated. In awe. On the edge of your seat. The very thing that you never, in a million years, could imagine yourself falling in love with is the very thing that is captivating you.
Of course you’ve had History classes before. Of course you’ve learned a bunch of the same things. But there’s one important element that’s changed: the teacher. This teacher is bursting with passion and excitement- they can barely contain it, but you can feel it. There’s a smile on their face when they talk about the Compromise of 1790 and when you go out with some friends and somehow find yourself on the same topic, there is a smile on yours.
This kind teacher is one in a million, honestly. But I think that we’ve all at least had someone who’s had this effect on us.
That teacher for me was Lin-Manuel Miranda. Honestly.
Before Hamilton I hadn’t had a history class in ages and even then, I wasn’t exactly “captivated”. All too often I just found myself face to face with some teacher with a strong southern drawl, drowsily reciting from a powerpoint. So yeah, my history lessons before this were a little below par, to say the least.
But Hamilton. Hamilton. For me, that’s the life changing history lesson. Lin gave us something beautiful, something that tells what is really every American’s history through the perspective of Alexander Hamilton, probably the last founding father you could have expected. But that’s just it- Lin put the spotlight on a guy that most people only know for being secretary of the treasury and told us: Hey. This guy is more than that.
And just like any life changing teacher should be, he has passion for this stuff rushing through him like adrenaline. You can see it when he talks, in his performance on stage, and most prominently, in the writing itself. I remember seeing him at a talk at NYU during November of 2015. He said that those parts in the musical that make us cry? He cried ten times that amount when he was learning about it- at least. There was something in that that I recognized, something that until recently I didn’t really connect with- he didn’t just learn history, he felt it too.
This musical sparked something in me, an interest, a passion in history, which had been something I even overlooked throughout my life. But Lin, he was that teacher who helped me see in a new light. Hell, he’s the reason that I ended up becoming a history major in college.
So Lin, if by some daft chance you end up reading this: thank you.
