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7 American Presidents Who Were Teachers First
By Suzi Parker, Takepart.com | February 17, 2014
Source: http://www.takepart.com/photos/famous-teachers-presidents/barack-obama

Barack Obama
Barack Obama taught constitutional law for 12 years at the University of Chicago Law School, beginning in 1992. Obama often joked with his students, preferred an informal style, and sprinkled pop culture references in his lectures. (Sounds like the same guy who dropped a Mad Men reference in his State of the Union address.) He was also known for asking his students to develop their own views, instead of forcing his on them. As with other presidents who taught, Obama's classroom experience sharpened his public speaking techniques and debate skills.

Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton briefly taught law in the mid-'70s at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville before launching his political career. Former students say he had a folksy manner and discussed political issues, especially Richard M. Nixon’s impeachment and Roe v. Wade. He asked tough questions of his students but was known to be lenient when it came to grades. The school was still in the early days of desegregation, and Clinton often advocated for black students who were still facing discrimination by other students and faculty members.

Lyndon B. Johnson
A Texan, Lyndon B. Johnson is the only American president to have an extensive background in education. Poor but committed to becoming a teacher, he borrowed $75 to make his tuition at Southwest Texas State Teachers College at San Marcos. He dropped out for a year when he was 20 to teach underprivileged children of Mexican descent in Cotulla, Texas. Presidential scholars say that he was a dedicated teacher who gave encouragement to his students but held high standards. He taught public speaking and debate at Texas high schools before heading to Washington as a congressional aide. He later said that his teaching experience influenced him when signing the Higher Education Act of 1965, which helped more low-income students attend college.

Grover Cleveland
At 16 years old, when he might have been thinking about girls and college, Grover Cleveland had no choice but to take a job after his father died suddenly. To support his mother and eight siblings, he and his brother became teachers at the New York Institute for the Blind in Manhattan. He was secretary to the school’s president and an assistant teacher of reading, writing, arithmetic, and geography. He left teaching in 1854, after only a year, and like so many other future White House occupants studied law.

James Garfield
Scholars say that James Garfield may have been the poorest man ever to become president. He earned $12 a month in 1849 teaching in rural classrooms in Ohio. Yes, $12 a month, but at least that included room and board. It's known that as a teacher, Garfield got into a violent fight with a student. Times have changed because he didn’t get fired, and instead his students respected him more after he showed them who was boss. After he graduated from Western Reserve Eclectic Institute, he returned as an instructor and administrator, but he didn’t like having to appease his colleagues to excel. He left academics and ran successfully for Congress before winning the presidency. But less than six months after he took the presidential oath, his term was cut short by an assassin. Today many American public schools are named after this president who died while serving the nation.

Millard Fillmore
Chalk it up to Cupid. When he was 19, Millard Fillmore attended a new school in New York, where he fell in love with his teacher, Abigail Powers, who was just two years his senior. He fell into teaching, thanks to Powers, and taught elementary school while clerking for a county judge. He and Powers married in 1826, and he worked as a lawyer before becoming the 13th president of the United States. His wife remained a teacher for many years.

John Adams
John Adams, the country’s second president, called his students “little runtlings.” Not exactly what you want in a teacher. He taught in a one-room schoolhouse in Worcester, Mass., when he was barely 20 years old and still figuring out what he wanted to do with his life. His parents wanted him to be a minister, and he pondered farming and a career in law. As a teacher, he taught a dozen co-ed students but was hardly dedicated. He allowed the smartest students to lead the classes while he wrote letters and read books. Egocentric, perhaps, Adams called himself the school’s dictator, writing, “I have several renowned generals but three feet high, and several deep, projecting politicians in petticoats.” Luckily for his students, Adams left teaching to study law before becoming president in 1797.

(End of article)

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"7 American Presidents Who Were Teachers First "

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