I was teaching fifth grade.
asserted
I → teach → grade
Fifteen minutes into the lesson, it was clear that I was losing my audience.
asserted
I → lose → audience
It was then that I had the epiphany.
asserted
I → have → epiphany
Make it a musical.
asserted
it → make → ?
Let them sing, dance, and debate their way through the most consequential summer in American history.
asserted
them → let → history
Armed with my history degree, my piano training and my lifelong interest in musical theater, I began writing the book and lyrics.
asserted
I → arm → book
I recruited my piano teacher, Bill Augustine, to write the music.
asserted
I → recruit → music
By April 1996, we had a draft.
asserted
we → have → draft
The principal approved a pilot program with my class of 30 students.
asserted
principal → approve → students
With Booster Club funds, I hired a choreographer from a local dance studio.
asserted
I → hire → studio
We rehearsed for 90 minutes on Thursday mornings.
asserted
We → rehearse → mornings
“Miracle in Philadelphia” had its first performance in early June 1996.
asserted
Miracle → have → June
It went over so well that, the next school year, the program was expanded to include all four fifth-grade classes, each with its own cast and its own performance date.
asserted
program → go → cast
Parents got involved, some helping with props, backdrops, costumes and the bake sale at intermission.
asserted
some → involve → intermission
Others who played instruments joined me in the show band.
asserted
who → play → band
The excitement and the learning generated by the performances made me wonder, “Why limit this kind of teaching to just one historical event?”
asserted
me → generate → event
Two years later, Bill and I wrote a second show, “Hello Louisiana,” about the Lewis and Clark expedition.
asserted
Bill → write → expedition
And two years after that, we wrote a third musical, “Water and Power,” about the industrial revolution in the cotton mills of Lowell, Massachusetts.
asserted
we → write → Lowell
For the Marquez fifth-graders, it was a school year unlike any other, one in which the music never stopped.
asserted
music → stop → which
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asserted
Sign → sign → inbox
To me and the other fifth-grade teachers, it seemed clear that the musicals helped our students absorb and retain a significant amount of content.
asserted
students → seem → content
Our instincts were validated in 2002 after a team of UCLA researchers found that, a full year after leaving fifth grade, Marquez students scored more than twice as high on a standardized US history test compared to sixth-graders from 72 other elementary schools — a gap that held up even after researchers controlled for the schools’ general academic test scores.
asserted
researchers → validate → scores
When I retired from full-time teaching in 2016, the Marquez parents wanted the Performing History program to continue.
asserted
program → retire → 2016
So, for the past 10 years (except during the COVID-19 pandemic) I’ve gone back to campus one day a week to help the kids with their songs and dialogue.
asserted
I → go → songs
In the spring of 2024, just two years shy of our 30th anniversary production, this story took an unexpected turn.
asserted
story → take → turn
I was summoned to a Zoom meeting with six administrators from the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD).
asserted
I → summon → District
Was LAUSD finally going to scale the program?
asserted
LAUSD → go → program
Were toe-tapping tunes about to resound from hundreds of Los Angeles classrooms?
asserted
tunes → tap → classrooms
Instead, I was questioned by curriculum specialists from the “American Indian/Alaskan Native and Indigenous Education Program.”
asserted
I → question → Program
Was I Native American, they wanted to know.
asserted
they → want → ?
“Did you consult with people within the tribal nations depicted in the ‘Hello Louisiana’ script?”
“No.”
“Does your script include references to tribal websites?”
asserted
script → consult → websites
Well, apparently, a woman from South Dakota had called the Marquez principal, said she had seen a YouTube video of a dance number from “Hello Louisiana,” and she was sure the costumes of our Lakota Sioux were not authentic.
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Instead of dealing with this matter in-house, the principal reported the complaint to the downtown office.
At the end of a 70-minute grilling, the chief interrogator asked me to submit all three scripts for review.
asserted
interrogator → call → review
Several months later, I heard from the current fifth-grade teachers that the administrators were demanding significant cuts and rewrites.
asserted
administrators → hear → cuts
“Are they going to tell me what they want changed and why?” I asked.
asserted
I → go → what
“No.”
I was not to be included in the rewrite process, because I was no longer employed by the school district.
asserted
I → include → district
My colleagues would do the rewriting.
asserted
colleagues → do → rewriting
Also, I was barred from the Marquez campus until the rewrites were approved.
asserted
rewrites → bar → campus
This process took so long that the class of 2026 had only enough time to perform two of the three shows.
asserted
class → take → shows
Missing out on “Water and Power” meant missing out on the struggle of the mill girls, one of the few documented girl-power episodes in early American history.
asserted
Missing → miss → history
But here the story takes another unexpected turn.
asserted
story → take → turn
…and 9 more, not listed.
