Quinn Hutchison felt all eyes on her as she walked into her history class on the first day of school.
“You look familiar…” a student called out to him as he passed by.
“Well,” he replied, “you may have seen me before.”
Hutchison, who will be a senior at Valley International Preparatory High School, is well known.
Not just in his class, but across the country.
Known for his YouTube channel “A Kid Explains History,” which now has nearly 30,000 subscribers, Hutchison spends his afternoons explaining history to young students.
Mirror | Courtesy of A Kid Explains History
“One of the things I love about this channel right now is the fact that I’ve made a big impact,” he said. “People all over the country are watching my videos. I never thought of it that way. When I was younger, it was just something I did for fun. But now I realize I’m entering the world of educating Gen Z.”
The original idea for his YouTube channel came when he was just eight years old.
“When I was eight years old, I asked my dad if I could start a channel and he said, ‘Sure, but not games. What else are you interested in?'” he says. “I chose history as a joke, but as I got older, my connection to history became more personal and deeper.”
Even as an adult, he continues his work of “children explaining history” and hopes to continue doing so in the future.
“I love doing this channel,” he says, “and I make time for it even though I’m busy. I want to continue doing it even after I graduate and I’m no longer the ‘kid who explains history.'”
Now, you could say that Mr. Hutchison is a history buff.
“You can tell me a number between 1 and 46 and I can tell you who was president,” he said. “You can tell me the election year and I can tell you who ran, who won and what happened.”
When tested on this trick, he could literally name every fact and side story for every year in American politics.
People will wonder how on earth he learned all this.
“I never really studied to learn these things,” he said. “I just read books and watched videos. I didn’t realize I had all these skills until about a year ago. Someone asked me to say the names of the presidents in order, so I tried it and realized I could do it. And pretty soon, I started testing myself. Now it’s just a party trick.”
But making videos isn’t all Hutchison spends his days doing.
“When I got to high school, I started doing speech and debate,” he says, “and just recently I went to the state championships and got fifth place in impromptu speech, which is basically a speech where you give a speech with 30 minutes of preparation.”
Additionally, Hutchison expands his historical knowledge through an alternate history story titled “The Triple Plague.”
“Triple Calamity is basically a retelling of history, except Lincoln, Johnson and Stewart don’t die. It’s a great brain teaser.”
As if Hutchison wasn’t busy enough, he also helps run CivicStars, a nonprofit founded by Jared Gonzalez and Van Nuys High School student Dwayne Famennia.
“CivicStars is a new organization dedicated to teaching civil rights to the youth of Los Angeles. Whether it’s politics or history, the goal is to teach young students and prepare them for the future.”
As we enter election season and Americans turn their attention to the country’s future, things seem bleak.
But Hutchison believes American politics is a complex system that young people can completely change.
“This is a major event in American political history,” he said. “If young people had voted, they could have changed most elections, probably for the better.”
His passion for young voters and knowledge of history led him to join CivicStars.
“Young people don’t vote. They just don’t vote. You can’t get them to vote right now. Politicians beg young people to vote, but they don’t care. ‘Oh, because it’s an election year?’ They’ll say, ‘Okay… but Stacey’s having a party down the street…’ and that’s it. People want to blame the presidential loss on young people not voting for them, but in fact they weren’t voting for anyone in the first place.
Although Hutchison is not yet of voting age, she aims to continue on a path that allows her to use her knowledge to spread awareness about causes she is passionate about.
“When I go to college, I want to major in political science. I also want to major in history. I want to keep my career open and I don’t want to commit to anything too young.”
A history degree typically leads one into education, but Hutchison wasn’t sure if it was the right path for him.
A history buff, Hutchinson is a fan of Mark Twain’s edited memoir of Ulysses S. Grant, “The Personal Reminiscences of Ulysses S. Grant.” (Courtesy of Quinn Hutchinson)
“I like education,” he said. “I like the idea of education. I think I’m a pretty good history teacher, but I don’t want to be in front of kids, or even high school students. So if I were to do anything in education, I’d be a professor.”
But one thing he knows for sure: he won’t be majoring in math.
“Math is just a chore,” he said. “I sit down and I don’t want to be there. It’s not exciting. Most people wouldn’t think history is the most interesting subject, but I think there’s a fundamental difference. And I’m sure I could be better at math if I tried harder, but I don’t really care, so I don’t feel like trying.”
Hutchison thinks math is extremely boring, but he finds history, particularly American history, more fascinating than anything else, even though some might consider it boring.
“My major is American history, but I like everything, especially politics and political history. I try to be knowledgeable about everything, but I find American history to be the most interesting and easiest to study.”
For readers who can’t imagine being so interested in anything, let alone dates and names from hundreds of years ago, Hutchison encourages them to look into their own history and learn how they fit into it all.
“In the end, history is like a very large, tangled forest. Each tree represents a date or an event, and from the center you just want to get out of the forest. But when you climb up to the top of the trees, you see how it’s all connected. The best way to enjoy history is to find out how you are connected to it. History is always about connections.”
The best way to start making these connections is to start with something small and niche that you really enjoy and expand from there.
“For example, take a musician that you really love and learn everything about that artist,” he said, “Then take a step back and look at how they impact society. And look at how people interpret that artist. If you’re interested in people and psychology, you have to be interested in history, because that’s what history is. Look at people and choices and how people made those choices.”
