If you’re a history buff, you may already know that Cleopatra had a fair amount of extravagance. Meanwhile, Henry VIII Tom Sandoval of his time. Tsar Nicholas II, on the other hand, had a hard time, well, choosing his battles.
All three of these historical royals are the subject of a viral video series, “Gen Z Teaches History,” created by Lauren Serra, a 10th grade history teacher. In it, a California educator takes on the role of her Gen Z teacher from the future, using a hilarious mix of opaque slang (if you’re a millennial or older) and Taylor Swift lyrics to create a world of history. Give an overview of a person or event.
“The positive compliments I sometimes hear from students and people on the internet are things like, ‘Oh my gosh, you made history so interesting,'” Serra explains. “And I always say, ‘History is interesting.’ I think other people are making it boring. I’m not making it interesting. I’m just telling you what happened.”
check us out Generation Z slang dictionary Under.
What started quietly on social media has garnered Cella millions of views on TikTok and Instagram, and praise from students and commenters who appreciate how much they learn from each post. it was done.
“Thank you for helping me get my PhD in 20th century history,” a Serra commenter wrote explanation About the Cold War era.
Behind this hilarious series is Ms. Serra’s true love of history and a desire to make it more accessible, just as her own teachers made it for her.
“I think they’re trying to prevent other people from accessing it,” she says. “I think others intentionally don’t want to talk about different sides of the story, they want it to be a simpler story, they intentionally use a vocabulary that only covers higher academia. We don’t want those types of people to have access to our curriculum, and that’s intentional, especially in social studies.”
How it all started
Sera loves a good story.
That’s why she studied history and journalism as an undergraduate, and why teaching history is appealing to her. Before that, Sera grew up hearing stories from her paternal Hawaiian grandparents. They also have Chinese and Puerto Rican ancestry, which Serra says is common. “Hapa” A mix of different backgrounds – about their life and family history. They shared stories about what they witnessed during the attack on Pearl Harbor and also entertained her about the history of Puerto Rico’s indigenous Taino people.
“Afterwards, all the elders from my mother’s family told me how their family came from Mexico,” Serra recalled. “From a really young age, I loved Liberty’s Kids and american girl series. I should have known I was going to be a history teacher. ”
Serra believes a lack of connection to the past is a barrier to students finding a love of history.
“A lot of this stuff happened 100, 200 years ago, and it can be very difficult to understand if you’re reading from primary sources,” Serra explains. “I loved history because I had teachers of all ages who would break down history and explain it to us in a way that we could understand. So this series is really an homage to that. ”
It was Serra’s students who encouraged her to start posting her history lessons online, and during the pandemic, she finally gave it a try.
“I thought, ‘No, I’m too old.’ No one does that,” Serra recalls thinking about the idea of using social media to teach lessons. “And they’re like, ‘No, girl, that’s right.’ You can actually learn a lot. People keep doing it to learn. So I started posting more and experimenting. I noticed that my education stories and history reels were getting a lot more response than my other posts.”
Her first viral hit was a Gen Z history lesson about the Russian Revolution, which received 1 million views on Instagram and then another 1 million views on TikTok. Serra said it was just luck, but her next video about the French Revolution got her 2 million views. Subsequent history videos continued to perform well.
Sera says most of her online audience is made up of people her age and older. She thinks they might not understand all the slang, but they’ll be drawn into the format and be pleasantly surprised when they finish the video knowing more than they started.
“Literally never understood World War I until now,” wrote one commenter on her most popular TikTok video to date.
Serra likes to “trick” people into learning when they think they are just looking at a funny social media post.
“Of course, that’s an oversimplification. The videos are one minute long, but they keep people interested,” she says. “I’m really just doing the same thing on TikTok and Reels that all good teachers do, which is connecting with students and breaking it down into language they can understand in a way that’s inclusive and maybe a little bit fun.” I’m just doing it.”
Fun can be hard to come by for teachers these days. Sera hopes her video will provide an example to fellow educators that despite the challenges of the profession, worry doesn’t always have to dominate.
“If you’re worried that you’re not trying hard enough, you probably are, because the best teachers I know are always trying to do what’s best for their students,” she says. Masu. “So if your heart is in it, 99 percent of the time, you’re probably already doing enough.”
behind the scenes
Cella’s Gen Z history video has some recurring elements. She is sitting behind her desk or podium, with her sunglasses on her head and an iced coffee in her hand.
Serra says he never intended for iced coffee to become a staple of the format, but there’s no going back. That’s because it marks a key moment in her video, when she shakes a cup of ice, swaps her hands, and introduces the story’s important context with a pointed “Meanwhile…” .
“It’s really embarrassing, but after a few takes, the ice melted and water came out. And I was like, ‘What are you doing?'” she says. “I was going to go buy something else, but then I got hooked on coffee. So now I put fake ice in my iced coffee.”
Sera was a student at the time. When she was in high school, she was a fan of comedy history shows like Drunk History and Epic Rap Battles of History. The series approached dry themes with a comedic perspective and gained widespread popularity.
But her influences now include her students, who give her new slang ideas and keep her up to date with the ever-evolving vocabulary of Gen Z and now Gen Alpha. .
The students’ candid conversations about the world inspired Serra’s character. Sera says that if she’s making fun of anyone, it’s herself, not her children.
“The way we were taught [history] It was very boring and dry and only told one side of the story, which Gen Z doesn’t talk about,” Serra said. “So that was the inspiration when they actually become history teachers. They really serve us tea and tell us what it’s like.”
