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Issue Date: September 9, 2007
What if George Washington (or Kennedy or Roosevelt) had been your schoolteacher?
How cool would it have been to have one of these former U.S. presidents as your teacher? Here are some of our favorites -- along with the classes they would have taught best.
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Attention, class: School is now in session. This year, Topic A will be the 2008 presidential election, so let's start with a history lesson on our chief executives. Did you ever consider how well their skills would have served them in a classroom? When Theodore Roosevelt stepped up to his "bully pulpit," for example, he showed how presidents serve as educators as well as administrators. For some, this came more naturally than for others. Case in point: Early in the last century, a young man from the Texas Hill Country borrowed $75 to enroll at what was called Southwest Texas State Teachers' College. Later, he taught Mexican-American children in Cotulla, Texas, where he pushed them to succeed in debating contests and spelling bees. And, like most teachers, Lyndon B. Johnson learned as much from his students as he taught them; what he took from that experience helped him shape the Great Society programs that made education a basic American right.
LBJ wasn't the only president who had the makings of a great instructor. To find out more, we enlisted Richard Norton Smith, who is a presidential historian at Virginia's George Mason University. He also has directed the libraries associated with presidents Lincoln, Hoover, Eisenhower, Ford and Reagan. This fall, he'll co-host a three-month C-SPAN series, "Presidential Libraries: History Uncovered," showcasing rarely (or never) seen films and other historical treasures newly unearthed at all 12 of the nation's federally operated presidential libraries. Exclusively for USA WEEKEND Magazine, Smith selected the following presidential dream team for a modern-day high school:
World history teacher: James Madison
Smith: "Long before the Constitutional Convention of 1787, Madison immersed himself in the study of foreign governments -- not only ancient Rome and Greece, but other civilizations and confederations, too. His contemporaries assumed that no republican form of government could succeed over so large a geographical area as the United States -- even the fairly compact, Atlantic-hugging nation known to the founders. Madison disagreed, and his erudition had a profound impact on the miracle workers of Philadelphia."
Gym teacher: Theodore Roosevelt
Smith: "A sickly youth, plagued by asthma, he resolved to remake his body through countless hours of grueling work on exercise equipment. At Harvard, he boxed. In later years, this author of "The Strenuous Life" relaxed vigorously while hiking, playing tennis and practicing judo. He helped to found the NCAA to promote college sports -- and sportsmanship."
English teacher: James Garfield
Smith: "After college, Garfield briefly taught classical languages. Books remained a favorite refuge whenever politics became unbearable. He was particularly fond of Jane Austen. During his short stay in the White House, Garfield installed a library with 3,000 volumes. Given his distaste for the modern literature of his day -- 'highly spiced with sensation,' he called it -- his students could expect a large dose of Miss Austen and her peers."
Newspaper adviser: Warren Harding
Smith: "Harding was all of 18 years old when he and two Ohio friends purchased the Marion Star for $450. Editor Harding gathered news and gossip, set type, wrote advertisements and cherished friendships with reporters."
Speech teacher: Woodrow Wilson
Smith: "Wilson was a president who led through words. What would you expect of a man who boasted perhaps the most extensive vocabulary of any president? As a boy, he worshiped orators such as William Gladstone. One of his first acts as president was to reinstate the 18th-century custom in which the chief executive delivered in person his annual message to Congress -- aka the State of the Union address."
Foreign language teacher: John Quincy Adams
Smith: "Fluent in seven languages, it was said that Adams could simultaneously write Latin with one hand and Greek with the other. As a Harvard professor of rhetoric and oratory, he vowed to teach 'reason, clothed with speech.' "
Football coach: Gerald Ford
Smith: "In high school, Ford played both center and linebacker. But it was as a center that he starred at the University of Michigan in the '30s. After graduation, he turned down offers to play professional football -- up to a reported $200 per game -- from the Green Bay Packers and Detroit Lions. He had his heart set on attending Yale Law School. To pay his way, he coached boxing as well as football."
Science teacher: Jimmy Carter
Smith: "An appreciation of science and technology came naturally to this trained nuclear engineer. At the U.S. Naval Academy, he finished an impressive 60th in his class of 820. He also was on the forefront of the Navy's nuclear submarine program."
American history teacher: Franklin D. Roosevelt
Smith: "FDR loved American history; he relished learning about it almost as much as he enjoyed making it. Seeing himself, his family and his presidency as integral parts of the American story, in 1941 he dedicated on the grounds of his Hyde Park, N.Y., estate the country's first federally operated presidential library. Roosevelt drew on historical examples to boost Depression-era morale and place the challenges of World War II in perspective."
Band director: Bill Clinton
Smith: "A leader of his high school band long before he played sax on Arsenio Hall's late-night TV show, the 42nd president grew up in a household filled with gospel music and the sounds of Elvis."
Debate coach: John F. Kennedy
Smith: "Television was his friend. With apologies to LBJ -- who, as a public-speaking teacher, led Sam Houston High in Houston to a district debate championship in 1931 -- Kennedy rewrote the rulebook with his masterful performance in the first-ever televised presidential debates in 1960, reinforced by his witty jousts at subsequent press conferences."
Geography teacher: George Washington
Smith: "Washington was a land surveyor and mapmaker long before he ran a plantation or governed a nation. At 16, Washington helped to survey Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. Washington's land speculation planted in him the seeds of a nation as broad as the continent."
This story's author, Richard Norton Smith, directed libraries associated with Lincoln, Hoover, Eisenhower, Ford and Reagan. This fall, Smith co-hosts a three-month C-SPAN series, "Presidential Libraries: History Uncovered."
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What it takes to lead, whether it's a classroom or a country
By Susan H. Fuhrman
Ask anyone what the most important and demanding job is in America, and many will answer "the president." But there are plenty who would say "a teacher."
Both answers are well-reasoned. And both jobs require the same skills to achieve success.
First, there are external talents: Each job requires answering to a large, varied and vocal constituency. You must think on your feet while working in consultation with others. You must function as a role model who is on constant public display and instill in others the fundamental behaviors of good citizenship.
Then there are the internal traits: Presidents and teachers must be receptive to new information while gathering evidence to make decisions based on facts rather than opinions.
For both presidents and teachers, challenges are constantly repeated. Negotiations -- whether with nations or individual students -- are carried on over extended periods, and today's failure could set the table for tomorrow's breakthrough. That's where the human capacity to connect remains so vital. Policies, curricula and other tools are all important, but if you can't connect with other human beings, then you probably should be sitting somewhere other than at the head of a classroom or in the Oval Office.
Susan H. Fuhrman is president of Teachers College, Columbia University.
Cover illustration by Robert Meganck for USA WEEKEND
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