Teacher brings history to life
Published: October 11, 2005
John Adams of Columbia spent his birthday Monday waiting to hear whether he is the country’s best history teacher.
His students at White Knoll High School think he is.
“He never disappoints,” junior Stephanie Thompson said. “He makes history interesting. And that’s kind of hard to do because it’s just memorizing facts. I don’t think there is any (history) question he couldn’t answer.”
The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History and Preserve America will name the 2005 History Teacher of the Year on Friday. Adams is South Carolina’s nominee for the accolade, which grew out of a White House campaign to focus more attention on American history instruction.
How could someone named John Adams III not be a serious contender? (His middle name is Britt, not Quincy.)
“I get asked that a lot. Or students will say: ‘Wow, that’s cool to be a history teacher to be named that.’”
Adams last week re-created the crude battlefield surgery used to treat injured soldiers in the War of 1812.
As a student volunteer lay on a table draped with a blood-stained sheet, classmates groaned when Adams re-enacted an amputation. Groans turned to shrieks and laughter when he tossed a fake rubber hand and forearm aside.
More importantly, students peppered him with questions.
“I don’t do social studies well,” said senior Joshua Abbott, one of the more persistent inquisitors. “But he keeps me zoned in. His class goes by very quickly.”
After the battlefield surgery lesson about pain and suffering and unsanitary conditions, Adams said, somberly, “This is the history I want you to get.”
Adams, 34, has been a teacher for 10 years. He joined White Knoll High’s faculty four years ago and is in his first year as the school’s social studies chairman.
He is known for his bow ties. On a dare from his wife, he wore one to work a few years ago and found students were enamored of his neckwear. Today, he estimates he has 40 in his wardrobe; last week several students donned bow ties during a homecoming week spirit event.
His mother is an elementary school principal; a great-grandmother was a teacher, too.
He remembers the latter telling stories about Great Plains homesteading in the Dakotas during the late 19th century and living in a sod hut. At family gatherings, both grandfathers shared experiences about serving in World War II.
His parents described growing up in the tumultuous 1960s, when they opposed the Vietnam War and championed civil rights.
“History, to me, is all about the story,” he said.
His teaching approach is low-key — part Paul Harvey, the legendary broadcaster, and part documentary filmmaker Ken Burns.
“I try not to make (the day’s lesson) just a lecture. I like to think of my room as a laboratory rather than a classroom.”
Several weeks ago, he took his last-period history class to the school’s expansive lobby to show students how Revolutionary War-era soldiers marched into battle.
“It’s stuff like that that make his class special,” Thompson said.
“Ask him about that stump he has,” Abbott said.
Adams displays in his classroom a foot-tall section of a tree limb he said came from a weather-damaged tree under which Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas debated in 1858.
On classroom walls hang glossy photos of George C. Scott, Tom Hanks, Paul Newman and Robert Redford, who all played film roles inspired by historical events. At the start of the school year, he offers students extra credit if they can identify all the photos and movies.
“I’m always looking for ways to make history relevant.”
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