The last place you're apt to find Westminster resident Bruce Lesh — a history, government and politics teacher and chairman of the social studies department at Franklin High School, inReisterstown — is standing in front of a class pontificating on history's broad themes or regurgitating names and dates.
"We have nearly a hundred years of data that tells us that that old model of teaching history just doesn't work," he said.
Lesh is the author of "Why Can't You Just Tell Us the Answer?: Transforming High School History Instruction," a recently-published textbook for teachers-in-training that will be used at Towson University and elsewhere.
He's also the winner of a 2011 Baltimore County Chamber of Commerce Excellence in Education Award.
"I try to teach (students) how to evaluate evidence and make, substantiate and articulate an argument," said Lesh, of Westminster, who has taught 18 years in the Baltimore County school system. "These are the kinds of things that have longevity. If they forget particular facts, they can always go 'Google' them."
One recent morning, Lesh was applying his methodology in his honors U.S. history and AP government and politics class at Franklin.
About 20 students sat facing each other, their desks arranged in a large rectangle. Before class, there was the usual banter about taking the day off or moving the class outside. When the buzzer sounded and Lesh closed the door and launched his Power Point-driven lesson, however, the bantering trailed off.
But the students' enthusiasm remained. The juniors were studying, discussing and debating the Equal Rights Amendment, which was passed by Congress in 1972 but fell three states short of the two-thirds needed for ratification. Each student had a little sign on his or her desk that said either "pro-ERA" or "anti-ERA."
Lesh kicked the lesson off by playing "I Am Woman," Helen Reddy's 1972 anthem. Then he displayed some vintage early 1970s comic book covers of super-heroines like Spider Woman, Mrs. Marvel, The Cat, Red Sonja, Mrs. Marvel and She Hulk.
"What do all these characters have in common?" he asked. "They have all taken on a manly role so that they can go out and fight evil, right?"
The homework was to watch clips from movies and TV shows of the era, such as "That Girl," "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," "Wonder Woman" and "The Bionic Woman" and report on how they reflect gender issues of their time.
Lesh later explained his objective — to get students to look at historic issues like the ERA "through the lens of times when they happened. … It's a way for them to understand that these are cultural expressions of that time period."
Next, the class segued into a lively debate of the Equal Rights Amendment. One young man posed a provocative, slightly tongue-in-cheek argument: "Women have 23 percent larger connections between the right and left hemispheres of their brains," he said. "Emotions play a larger part in their decision making."
There was another flurry of hands; this seemed to hit a nerve with some of the young women in the class.
"It's been proven for many years that our brains are not smaller than men's and we are physiologically stronger; we live longer," one of them countered.
"The center of the room is empty if you two guys just want to slug it out?" Lesh interjected, easing the tension with a grin.
Giving back
Between classes, Lesh recounted how he found his calling.
His father was a career Navy officer who later worked for Xerox; his mother, a preschool teacher. "That had a big influence, too — to not become a preschool teacher," he said with a laugh.
"I come from a family that by and large has always given back, by teaching or serving in the military," he added on a more serious note.
"I like the kids; I want to help them grow and have more opportunities in life," Lesh said. "And I love my subject matter. … History is the only subject where I get to help kids and talk about dead men."
Lesh got his undergraduate degree at Salisbury University and, in 1994, earned a master's in American history at Villanova University.
He is a co-founder and consulting director of the Center for History Education at theUniversity of Maryland, Baltimore County.
In 2002, he co-authored and received a $1 million grant from the Department of Education for a program called "Making Master Teachers in Baltimore County."
Under the program, he trained and mentored other teachers from 2006 to 2009.
He is also administering a U.S. Department of Education program called "History Labs," for which he also co-authored the grant. As part of the $1 million program, he has spent recent summers working on professional development with history teachers in Kansas, West Virginia, New Hampshire, Texas and elsewhere.
"Basically it's an expression of how I go about teaching history," he said of the program. "It includes examples of students' work and interviews with students. The kids are at the center of my book. It's about seeing the lessons through their eyes."
Franklin senior Nicole Lorber, 17, took Lesh's honors U.S. history course last year. She nominated him for the Chamber of Commerce Award.
"He always taught us how to study and analyze things," Lorber said. "Before that I'd never been taught specific ways of learning history, other than to just memorize dates. (But) he just made everything fun in the class. He made the lessons memorable."
Aside from the awards, grants and publications listed in his impressive resume, Lesh said the Chamber of Commerce honor holds a special place.
"The nice thing about it is that it came from a kid and it was completely unsolicited," he said quietly. "It caught me off guard."