The Young Historians Program at the Mount Vernon Hotel Museum and Garden
01 The Young Historians Program US-UK
British schools are able to use funds from the Turing Scheme to send entire classrooms to New York City for a week to prepare for their debates and learn alongside their American classmates. These visits enable US and UK students, teachers, schools and school leaders to deepen their learning and forge close ties. Our partner institution, the Mount Vernon Hotel Museum and Garden on East 61st Street provides a historic 18th Century museum, extensive knowledge of the colonial period and an extraordinary setting for learning in midtown Manhattan. The Young Historians Program US-UK was founded at MIT in 2001. It brings together schools in Great Britain and the United States for a year of shared inquiry into the history of British colonization in North America. At the end of the school year, students participate in a parliamentary-style debate on a legal, moral or ethical aspect of Colonial America. Causes of the American Revolution
02 The Curriculum of the Young Historians Program US-UK
A 22-Lesson Sequence That Runs from September until June
For further details of the Young Historians Program curriculum, please click here.
03 International Education for the 21st Century
04 Preparing Students for A Global Economy
Today’s students will grow up to work in a global economy. All young people deserve to prepare by participating in international education. Through the Young Historians Program US-UK, students study the identical curriculum with age mates in another country. They are assigned a penpal through whom they learn about everyday life overseas. The academic work of the Young Historians Program educates them about the past while a ff ording them diverse perspectives on it and experiences of it. In the process, students become more sophisticated historians, readers, writers and thinkers. They learn to debate and discuss historical events. They use a range of technologies to research, analyze, present and delve into the past. The world beyond their borders becomes at once much more familiar and accessible.
A student from the Bronx USA and a student from Cheshire UK analyze a document together in the gardens of the Mount Vernon Hotel Museum and Garden.
05 The Power of Debate
Debate is central to democracy. It helps us to see di ff erent sides of an argument and analyze language and events carefully. Although debates are fundamentally about disagreements, they encourage active listening skills and empathy.
The Young Historians Program provides strong support to our student debaters; from researching to identifying arguments, to writing, rewriting and editing their speeches to rehearsing their delivery.
Students invest time and effort in writing their debate speeches, revising them, editing them and rehearsing them.
British and American students debate the moral, ethical and legal aspects of the American Revolution. The Young Historians Program is open to students ages 10-14.
06 Developing the Next Generation of Great Speakers
Students find the experience of debate empowering; they notice they have grown as thinkers, writers and speakers. They witness the power of their own thoughts and voice.
Typically, students who have debated once, want to do so again.
Bronx students debate their British partner school on the proposition that “The American colonies had neither the legal nor the ethical right to separate from Great Britain.”
07 Debates Are Judged by Historians
It’s not every day that a world-class historian judges a debate held by 11 year olds…but we insist upon it. At the Young Historians Program, every debate is judged by a panel of leading history educators and at least one professor of history who teaches at a university. The rigor implied by this level of judge inspires all students to do their very best at the debate. It also gives us valuable data on how well our program supports the historical understanding and debating skills of our young scholars. “I was enormously impressed by the quality of the speeches,” remarked Professor Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy of the University of Virginia, who judged debates in the 2021-2022 season. He is the Saunders Director of the Robert H. Smith International Center for Je ff erson Studies at Monticello and the author of numerous award-winning books on the American Revolution. Speaking about our debate proposition, Professor O’Shaughnessy commented, “I thought the topic a great concept, especially involving a team from England.”
Professor Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy of the University of Virginia, is the Saunders Director of the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello.
08 The Mount Vernon Hotel Museum and Garden
A magnificent, historic setting
Situated on East 61st Street between First and York Avenues, the Mount Vernon Hotel Museum and Garden is a historic jewel and oasis amid the bustling city. Here, our British and American students learn alongside one another through formal parliamentary debates, dramatic readings of plays set in pivotal historical moments, informal discussions and touring a 1799 building that is still presented as the early 1800s “day hotel” that it once was.
09 Making Friends for Life When our British school partners are able to visit us in New York, we organize the events that bring the US and UK partner schools together for debate, museum visits, dramatic reading and just plain fun. The result is friendships between the British and American students that we hope last for life.
10 For More Information Please contact Heather Miller, the founder and director of the Young Historians Program US-UK, at heather@lepage-miller.com
The Young Historians Program US-UK
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