His Story
Jim Percoco has taught history for more than thirty years, nearly all of them at West Springfield High School in Fairfax County, Virginia, where he arrived in 1980. He cites a high school teacher, Neal Adams, as the mentor who made him want to teach, and a 1975 trip to the Soviet Union with Adams as the moment he knew how he wanted to teach. “I’m not sure I chose to be a history teacher,” he says. “I sometimes wonder if history teaching chose me.”
Percoco believes history happened “out in the world,” so on the first day of U.S. history he points to the window. His students complete Individualized Field Trips to the National Gallery of Art, the National Portrait Gallery and the war memorials on the Mall, and they post their photographs on a bulletin board called Clio’s Corner. In class, a Reader’s Theatre troupe he calls “the Spirit of History Players” brings primary sources to life, and his classroom is filled with Abraham Lincoln memorabilia. Field trips take students to Gettysburg, Selma and Springfield, Illinois, where they act as battlefield historians.
Under his leadership, the U.S. history team’s pass rate on Virginia’s Standards of Learning test climbed from 94% to nearly 98%, with large gains for special needs, African-American, Latino and English-language students. He also holds Saturday review sessions before the test.
Beyond the Classroom
In 1991 Percoco created Applied History, a public history and museum course. Its students have contributed nearly 30,000 internship and volunteer hours at sites such as Ford’s Theatre, Arlington House, Gunston Hall, Mount Vernon and Manassas National Battlefield, and since 2002 the National Park Service has hired 25 of them as seasonal rangers. He has partnered with George Washington University’s museum education program since 1994 and has been History Educator-in-Residence at American University since 2004, teaching secondary social studies methods.
A Lincoln and Washington scholar, he is the author of three books, including Summers with Lincoln: Looking for the Man in the Monuments, and more than forty articles. He earned a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship in 1989, served on the board of the National Council for History Education and on the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission’s advisory group, led history delegations to China and Egypt, and speaks at Teaching American History grant workshops across the country. He was a Top Ten finalist for the National Teachers Hall of Fame the year before this nomination.
Philosophy Into Practice
Percoco takes his image from the writer Nikos Kazantzakis: teachers “are those who use themselves as bridges, over which they invite their students to cross.” He sees himself as a bridge between the past and his students’ present, and he hopes they will build bridges of their own.
He wants students to work like historians, to feel, touch and see the past “with fresh eyes,” and to leave understanding how their own lives are shaped by history. He is careful not to take himself too seriously, and he cheerfully plays the part of a “quirky history geek.”
“Enter the school of your life.”— Sign on the door of Percoco’s classroom
In His Own Words
“Authentic teaching of history is really rooted in leading young people on a voyage of discovery.”— James A. Percoco
“History did not happen inside the four walls of a classroom or between the covers of a book.”— James A. Percoco
“I find my passion here, it is good, now go find your passion and run with it.”— James A. Percoco
What Others Said
“If you step into Mr. Percoco’s classroom … and never had an interest in history, you will walk out inspired.”— Former student, now a National Park ranger
“Mr. Percoco is one of the most dedicated and creative individuals that I have ever met.”— Fairfax County School Board member
“Mr. Percoco is an outstanding teacher of American History.”— Principal, West Springfield High School
“His unique approach brought history alive for me and inspired me to pursue a career as a history teacher.”— Colleague and former student
“It is not only proper but necessary to honor teachers who excel, dedicate and inspire.”— Colleague, West Springfield High School