James Percoco

James A. Percoco is a nationally recognized history educator and author with more than three decades of classroom experience teaching United States and applied history, most notably at West Springfield High School in Springfield, Virginia. He has been honored as Outstanding Social Studies Teacher of the Year at the Walt Disney Company American Teacher Awards (1993) and was selected for the first USA TODAY All-USA Teacher Team (1998), earning a reputation for innovative, hands-on approaches that connect students directly with historic places, public memory, and primary sources. He has also served in roles such as Teacher-in-Residence with the Journey Through Hallowed Ground Partnership and the Civil War Trust, and as Director of Education for the Friends of the National World War II Memorial.

Percoco is the author of Take the Journey: Teaching American History Through Place-Based Learning, which showcases his place-based, community-centered methods for engaging students with American history. His classroom model and pedagogy are further detailed in his earlier books A Passion for the Past: Creative Teaching of U.S. History and Divided We Stand: Teaching About Conflict in U.S. History, as well as essays such as “Monuments and Memory on the Cusp of Commemorating America’s Civil War Sesquicentennial.” He has consulted for national institutions including the National Archives, the National