History Teacher Creates “Millennial Museum” With Parents Help, Gen Alpha Kids Astounded

A history teacher collaborated with parents to create a millennial museum exhibit for her students. If you're a millennial and get panic attacks at the thought of feeling old, then her video may not be for you.

Malinda Nichols (@hipsterhistorywithmrsn) posted a video highlighting tech and bits of culture their mothers and fathers experienced.

In a caption for the video, Malinda writes: "This pop-up classroom exhibit TRULY had it all." She says that 6th graders initially seemed to have a handle on how the rotary phones worked. That is, until, they made a grave error.

"Thought they figured it out, but then they tried to 'press the middle button to make it go through.' What a learning moment," she penned.

Furthermore, she writes that her students were introduced to "VHS tapes" along with "folded heartthrob posters." She even made references to Jonathan Taylor Thomas and Devon Sawa.

Other trending pieces of nostalgia like Beanie Babies were also highlighted in the museum exhibit.

Moreover, the elementary school teacher's experiment appears to have connected the kids in her classroom with their parents.

That's because the folks who helped to provide these bits of elder millennial nostalgia visited the exhibit in order to give a little bit of background on the items in the museum display.

According to Malinda, this ended up making for a very memorable lesson for her students.

"Not sure they were ready for ancient artifacts of the previous century, but when their parents SURPRISED them and showed up TO EXPLAIN IT ALL (like Clarissa). Well, it wasn’t just a throwback … it was living tangible history. And it was hands down one of the very best days in my classroom EVER," she writes.

At the end of her video's caption, she urged folks interested in curating their own classroom exhibits to download a resource she compiled to help facilitate that (for free).

She says that it even sports instructions on how to create "the perfect AOL screen name and away message."

From the onset of the video, throngs of older products and technology can be seen. Everything from floppy disks, to disposable cameras, landline phones, and cassette tapes. Next, the video transitions to kids seated in a circle throwing a metal disc at a stack of cardboard ones.

If you're old enough, you probably remember these toys. "Where my Gen Alpha students learned how to play POGS," Melinda wrote.

Following this, her clip transitions to a shot of a Nokia bar phone with physical buttons. "And inexplicably ... pressed buttons ... on a phone."

Afterwards, the teacher displayed how she got into the millennial museum spirit with a "respect your elder millennials" t-shirt. The garment sports graphics of a Nintendo Game Boy, a bar phone, a cassette tape with an aux cord attachment, a pair of roller skates, and a graphic of the wagon from the popular game Oregon Trail.

As she continues to show off other details about her outfit, another text overlay populates the screen: "I secretly collaborated with Gen X/millennial parents to covertly send in 'historical artifacts' from their childhood."

Furthermore, she also held up some of these artifacts to the screen, which included a New Kids on the Block Lunch Box, an original gray Game Boy handheld, and an assortment of CDs. A Jock Jams compilation and Boyz II Men were featured front and center, as were several Beanie Babies.

Next, Malinda showed footage of the parents coming in and dishing information on the items they brought into class.

"They demonstrated Nintendos and VCRs and Discmen and answered all the questions!"

The educator also showed off some questions from students who wanted to know what life was like prior to the ubiquity of cell phones.

"How did you make plans with your friends before texting?" one asked.

Another questioned, "What commercials or jingles do you still remember from when you were younger?"

Towards the end of the clip, she shared how happy she was about the response to the history lesson. "This was easily one of the best days I've had as a history teacher. Pure joy."

Following the event, kids were given an "artifact analysis" where they had to draw the item they chose and dish out some information on it.

To round out the lesson, they were prompted to create their own screen name and pen an away message. Having parents there to demonstrate history in action appears to have resonated with students, judging by the in-depth sheet completed by one student Malinda featured in her clip.