The High School Teacher Who Wants Students to See Government as 'Just Another Dude'

When Lem Wheeles was 17 years old, he met then President Bill Clinton on the White House steps during a school trip to Washington, D.C. As he shook Clinton’s hand, “It just struck me, like, this is just another dude,” he said. “This is just another human being on the other side of that handshake.”

Lem Wheeles, a government and history teacher at A.J. Dimond High School in Anchorage, Alaska, is the 2024 high school teacher recipient of the American Civic Education Teacher Award from the Council for the Advancement of Civic Education (CACE). Wheeles teaches AP U.S. History, AP U.S. Government, and the government class that serves as his district’s graduation requirement. He is also a student government adviser and teaches at the same high school he graduated from.

Wheeles’ parents and older daughter also graduated from Dimond, and his younger daughter is a current student. Dimond, Wheeles said, can feel like the community hub of a small town, despite being one of eight neighborhood high schools in the state’s largest city (with a population of about 280,000). The school serves a diverse community with sizable Alaska Native and Asian American populations, and it houses a long-running Japanese immersion program.

Wheeles started out thinking he would pursue engineering, but a dynamic high school history teacher changed his trajectory. He became fascinated with the intricacies of history and government and wanted to help young people develop into leaders ready to participate in society.

Wheeles spoke with Chalkbeat about the coin toss that helps students understand the importance of voting, why he loves to teach about the Electoral College, and the reason he doesn’t make too many changes during a presidential election year.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Chalkbeat: What drew you to civics?

Lem Wheeles: I remember studying the Constitution in 10th grade and just being fascinated to really understand how our government is organized. And I’m fascinated by the fact that the framers of the Constitution came together under less-than-ideal circumstances when they met in Philadelphia. They’re meeting behind closed doors to avoid a lot of public pressure, but that means they’re meeting in a room for four months in the summer in Philadelphia with no air conditioning and no ventilation really. They’re in these terrible conditions and dealing with a real political crisis. And not only do they manage to come up with anything at all, but the Constitution that they wrote is still in effect today, almost 240 years later.

Young people don’t vote at high rates, and some surveys find young people don’t think voting is as important as other forms of activism. Do you see that in your students and how do you talk to them about the importance of voting?

I don’t encounter it that much, but I really do push them to consider why voting is important and I like to point to some elections that are good examples. We talk about the 2000 presidential election and Florida and how 537 votes out of 6 million votes decided the state of Florida. But even more so, I like to tell them about a State House election here in Alaska in 2006 where it ended up a tie.

I walk them through the whole process of the ceremonial coin toss that decided who was going to be the state representative. And they went to great lengths to have a special coin struck out of gold, because the gold rush in Alaska is so important, and they flipped it onto a seal or an otter pelt on the floor. It was very Alaskana from start to finish. I really hope to show my students how much their vote counts.

To that end, the Electoral College is always a popular topic. Going back to the 2000 election, people talk about Florida and how close it was. I show them the math and point out that just as much as Florida decided the presidential election, Alaska decided the presidential election. If the three votes that George W. Bush won had gone to Al Gore, the numbers flip [and Gore would have been president]. That really piques their fascination and helps them to engage more.

Do you do any things differently during a presidential election year? Are there certain lessons or activities you bring in?

I don’t make a huge amount of change, largely because I don’t want to shortchange the other seven semesters in a four year cycle. But I try to build in time to my lesson plans to talk about current events. I have at times watched portions of debates in class and or assigned that as homework.

I don’t want to spend our time debating the candidates or the issues as much as helping them understand the system and their place in it. When we talk about political beliefs and ideology, I always start off by telling them, “I don’t care what you believe.” And I say it really callously at first, and then follow it up with, what I care about is that you start thinking things through, that you can make up your own mind.

I really try to leave my own beliefs out of any of our conversations. I think that’s the ethical thing to do, and I don’t think that’s the