Read in today’s post about The Childish Professor, a new public history project by Dr. Holly N.S. White that helps make the exciting history of childhood more accessible to students, educators, and more!
At William & Mary, I teach a first-year required course that asks students to consider a series of “big picture questions” relevant to the modern day which I frame through the history of childhood. We consider what it means to be a child today, what it meant to be a child in the past, and whether the label of child is/was about protection or about control. We also explore how children are engaged as consumers of history. So, in addition to reading scholarship and looking at primary sources, my students play elementary-aged games like iCivics and read books by American Girl Doll.
Now, the questions that frame the class have always intrigued me, so much so that I’ve built my entire career around them. But, as academics, we’re often trained to engage with a limited audience who shares our own research interests. When, and if, we teach, it’s usually to history majors or at least those interested in history. However, most of my students are non-history majors, many aren’t even humanities majors. I’ve been blown away by how enthusiastic students are about learning history from children’s
perspectives and experiences. Through teaching these courses, I’ve realized that children’s history is an incredible entry point for many students who would otherwise skip history class all together.
My students’ enthusiasm and questions inspired me—not only to figure out a way to share children’s history with others but also to figure out how to make children’s history more accessible to children themselves. And so, with this goal of breaking down the unnecessary wall that separates academic scholars from K-12 teachers and public audiences, I’ve created The Childish Professor, a public-facing collaborative history project. I’m starting small with just an Instagram page for now, but I hope to grow it to other platforms by the end of the year.
So, what will you find if you follow The Childish Professor? I plan to not only introduce the topic of children’s history to the public but also showcase the process of finding children’s voices and agency in the past. We’ll build engaging and educational child-centered history resources for K-8 audiences; share undergraduate research projects centered around children’s history; and elevate new and emerging scholarship from the history of childhood and youth. Check out the page to follow, engage with others, and share children’s history with the wider world.
Dr. Holly N.S. White is an expert on the history of age and childhood in early America and teaches in the history department at William & Mary. She is the author of Constructing American Childhood: Age-Based Laws and the Illusion of Protection in the Early United States (pre-order here!) and is the co-editor of Engaging Children in Vast Early America. She currently serves as the co-editor of the Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth.
