Hellwig’s Classes Break the Boring and Monotonous

In past history classes of mine, I’ve found the style of learning my teachers used to be boring and make the class monotonous. The notes and the projects and just the overall content involved never really piqued my interest. However, this year, my first year in high school, I was lucky enough to have Mr. Hellwig as my APUSH teacher. Hellwig always makes the class interesting and unlike in years past, I don’t often daze off and become bored. 

During the first trimester of this year, I wasn’t sure how much I was going to like APUSH, I was unsure if it was going to be too hard, or if I wouldn’t like the content. But Mr. Hellwig’s lectures going in-depth and giving stories while we take notes, really draws you in. On a couple occasions in class, Hellwig goes off on tangents on things he’s passionate about like Ulysses S. Grant, or the civil war. He also has some great stories from when he would do Civil War reenactments.

Notes are not the only thing we do in class, however. At the beginning of the year, I can recall multiple times we had made slideshows, or researched on something to present to the class. One of my most fond memories of the class is in the first trimester, Hellwig had our first-hour class do research on a market revolution invention. Then we would do a pretend “Shark Tank” episode where the rest of the class chose how much they would invest in the product we conducted research on. We got to pick our partners and we had a couple days to prepare our ideas and presentations. It’s one of the most memorable and fun things I have ever done inside the school.

To conclude on some of the greatness of the class, Hellwig often drops some of the most subtle but funny jokes about history. It doesn’t always land with the class but usually, if you understand the joke, it can be hilarious.