On a recent Friday afternoon, 22 Waukegan High School students walked inside their seventh period history classroom.

As they took their seats, they joked and asked each other about their weekend plans; some laughed and others seemed busy with whatever items were in their backpacks.

Then the bell rang and their history teacher Mr. Bill began to speak. The buzz in the room died suddenly as the students watched 31-year-old Joshua Bill pace the classroom with a wooden pointer stick at hand while he reminded them about the Waukegan Historical Society’s schedule.

He reminded them of the address, too, for those who have had a hard time finding the building, he said.
He then turned off the lights and on a screen, appeared a historical picture with four seemingly unidentifiable men that all the students had a copy of at their desks.

“OK, you know how this works,” Bill said to his students.

How it works is that while Bill sits back at one side of the classroom, his students take the pointer stick and go up to the screen to point to something they notice.
One by one, the students point to what stands out to them about the picture in front of them — "The colored man being held down by the three white men is reaching for the American flag on the ground."

"Each man is facing a different direction." "The man in the middle is standing higher than the rest." "The men seem to be dressed differently, one dressed in richer garbs than the rest."
None of the students shows any apprehension when they share their observations. They just speak their mind. Then they're asked to give their opinion on what they think it all means.
This privilege is something the students seem to really enjoy.

"What I love about Mr. Bill's class is that he lets us interpret things our way. In his class, our views are important," said 16-year-old Janedelie Romero of Waukegan.
Presenting historical issues by using photos and copies of actual documents is how Bill said he invites his students to become historians and make up their own mind about what happened long ago.

This particular Friday, the photo before them is presenting a picture of a racist past in America. One of the men in the photo, the students later found, is the founder of the Ku Klux Klan.
Bill talks to them about the movie "Birth of a Nation" and of the days when the Irish were the token hated immigrant race because "people thought they were here to take our jobs," Bill said. "Does this sound familiar?" he asks his students.

That kind of teaching is what has earned Bill two prestigious awards recently — The Illinois History Teacher of the Year, in May 2012 and The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History 2012 National History Teacher of the Year Award in December.
Bill, a New Hampshire native and graduate of Lake Forest College, said that on the day of the National History Teacher of the Year Award ceremony, where he was presented with a $10,000 check by Caroline Kennedy in New York City, it wasn't meeting the well-known Kennedy that most struck him with awe.
It was that his mom and dad were able to be there to witness it.

"I don't get to see them much (they live in New Hampshire) and they never get to share this stuff with me. They had never been to a ceremony where I was recognized. That was pretty cool," said Bill, who lives in Waukegan.
Bill is considered to be a down-to-earth person by his peers and by his house principal, Alisha May.
May said he is "a quiet teacher who is humbled by the experience and the honor."
May said she's watched Bill in the classroom and has seen the steps he takes to teach his students to be interpreters of history.

"I try to make my students historians, and I don't just use that as a buzz word. That's really what I try to make them everyday. I think it's a really empowering approach for students to know that they have a voice and their own interpretation to history. They leave my class thinking like historians," Bill said.
May said Bill "takes a lot of time to prepare his lessons. He takes teaching very seriously."

Perhaps one of his most significant achievements is a revival relationship between the high school and the Waukegan Historical Society.
Most of his students have now become regulars at the society.

"We did have a partnership with the high school before, but Joshua has taken the initiative to really make it grow," said Ty Rohrer, curator of the Waukegan Historical Society Museum.
These days it's typical to see 30 to 40 of Bill's students at the museum conducting research for their homework and their projects.
"These kids are seeing actual documents here," Rohrer said. "They see how it is today, but now they can understand how it was back then, too. They learn what's unique about Waukegan."

Without Bill’s encouragement and enthusiasm, Rohrer said, only a few students would think to walk into the museum to learn about their town. The number of students visiting now is continually growing, he said.

The appreciation Bill gets from the high school staff and from the members of the historical society, of which he is now a board member, is one that truly pleases him. The real measure, though, is how much his students learn from him, he said.

"He doesn't let his comments guide our thoughts," said 17-year-old Hwangchan Yu. "Some teachers tend to shut down students. He teaches, but asks us our thoughts. It's not always him talking."
From his students, Bill said he's learned everything. Almost every time he teaches his students about a topic, he said he hears a point of view he would have never considered.

“My students are reading documents that I’m very familiar with, but it happens consistently that they’ll point out something that I would have never thought of. And it’s perfectly valid. That’s why I love history, because there’s not one way to see it. It’s about what you’re basing an argument off of, whether it’s a document or an image,” Bill said.

Ever since that first recognition in the spring, Bill has gotten much attention, with newspapers printing the story of the awarded educator on their pages.

He’s not someone comfortable in the spotlight, but he’s a little more used to the attention now and he said he was glad to be at the center of attention that December day in New York City as a representative of Waukegan High School and all history teachers who deserve to be recognized.

“It’s a big deal and I’m really touched by that, but I know I can be better. The award is awesome, but I don’t think I’m a level above anyone else. It’s just nice to see that a career that I’ve built in Waukegan has been recognized,” Bill said.