Nathan Kastner
Co-Founder and Director of Humanities
nathan@kastnerhill.com
Born and raised in Rockville, Maryland, Nathan has had a passion for words since he was a child. First, as a fifth grader, he began working on a series of novels, only to abandon them in favor of playwriting. Finally, at the age of eleven, he settled on songwriting—a passion that would define him from then until now. Throughout high school he wrote hundreds of songs, performed with a band, recorded albums, and ultimately gained admission to New York University’s prestigious Tisch School of the Arts to be a part of the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music. During his time in New York, he continued to write, record, and perform. In addition to his studies in music, he enjoyed courses in political science, economics, philosophy, and literature. In May, 2016, Nathan graduated with a BFA in recorded music and political science.
After graduation, Nathan worked at political fundraising and lobbying firms in Washington, D.C. before finally settling down at Loudoun Test Prep, an award-winning tutoring company in Northern Virginia. At LTP, Nathan taught classes in English SAT and ACT prep, although his curriculum often deviated into subjects as diverse as U.S. foreign policy, lost generation literature, and existential absurdism. While students routinely saw their English scores increase dramatically, they also left his class having had meaningful intellectual conversations with their peers, something they often lacked in school. Nathan also taught students in essay writing, AP U.S. history, AP U.S. government, AP Comparative government, AP literature/language, music theory, and songwriting.
In the fall of 2019, Nathan and Owen Hill—his friend, colleague, and soon-to-be business partner—packed up and moved across the country to Austin, Texas, where Kastner Hill Learning was born only a few months later. At KHL, Nathan has brought the same excitement, enthusiasm, and intellectual curiosity that characterized his classes at LTP to a new group of students and a talented team of educators.
In all, Nathan has been tutoring for over a decade in a diverse array of humanities-related subjects. He enjoys few things more than conveying to students a passion for words and a love of learning. Nathan scored perfect 800s on both the reading and writing sections of the SATs (out of 2400), as well as 36s on the ACT reading and English sections.