History & Social Science

The history and social sciences program at The Hill is designed to introduce students to both the stories of the past and the practice of history as an intellectual discipline.

Students in a Hill School history class sitting at a Harkeness Table

The first objective of the Department is to present the panorama of the human past in all its richness and diversity so that the student will appreciate not only the realities of the human experience but also the degree to which the present and future are the products of that past. The second is to practice the intellectual disciplines inherent in historic inquiry, which include the mastery of a defined body of factual and analytic material, as well as developing the capacity to ask the kind of questions about determinism, contingency, evolution, decline, and progress with which historians constantly grapple. Students then learn how to go about seeking answers to such questions through the informed use of the myriad historical sources available for any given historical epoch or topic.

The study of history should foster a growing sense of wonder about the human adventure as well as the capacity to read with critical care, listen with respect and attention, speak with clarity and conviction, and finally to write with grace and power. Thus the scope of historical investigation at The Hill begins with our own history in this community, our “City on The Hill,” and ranges outward in time and space to incorporate the oldest known human societies, the evolution of the modern world, the development of Western culture, and the heritage of the particular American experience.

For more information, please contact Mr. Kevin Tkachuk, the McNally Chair of History & Social Sciences, at ktkachuk@thehill.org.

Case Method Teaching at The Hill

Dan McMains '98 teaches a history class at The Hill School

Starting in 2018, Senior Master Teacher of History & Social Sciences Daniel McMains '98 introduced a curriculum, from Harvard Business School, to teach his U.S. History classes using case studies. The Case Method Institute for Education and Democracy (CMI) seeks to teach students about the history of American democracy by placing them in the position of decision-makers throughout history. In class, students discuss and debate topics ranging from James Madison's proposals at the Constitutional Convention to Lincoln's decision whether to resupply Fort Sumter to Martin Luther King's decision to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Students "accelerate their academic heart rate" by engaging with difficult questions to better understand the complexity of history. Course evaluations consistently show how much Hill students enjoy this method of learning and how much they learn from it.

Case method teaching is a common practice in graduate professional schools, but The Hill was among the first high schools in the country to make this pedagogy central to its history classrooms. Currently, every U.S. History teacher uses Harvard Business School case studies in their classes. The CMI curriculum is currently being used by over 3000 teachers in all 50 states and has reached over 250,000 high school students. Mr. McMains has presented at national conferences on the case method, and The Hill's strong relationship with Harvard continues to provide us with the latest research on the effectiveness of the case method and the importance of education in American democracy.