Back to school
ISSUE NO. 14
Hello!
The trading card voting results blew me away! Thank you to everyone who participated. It was such a thrill to read the answers and I want to create cards for (nearly) all of the submissions. Until then, I’m prioritizing the winner …
[ drumroll, please ]
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT!
Stay tuned for more details.
In the meantime, we’re headed back to school.
I’ve already mentioned that Andrew Johnson never went to school. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Tommy earned the most advanced degree. Keep on scrolling to learn more.
Thanks for being here!
Presidential Doodler
PS That pencil up at the top? I’m tying it in here because, well… school supplies. The doodle is from reading about Calvin Coolidge. In an effort to save money, his Pencil Policy allotted government officials one pencil at a time. That pencil needed to be used down to the very end or returned before employees could snag a replacement. If you recall, Coolidge was accused of saving at the spigot and wasting at the bunghole. As a reminder, that’s not as funny as it sounds.
Tommy couldn’t read until he was 9
Born Thomas Woodrow Wilson, Woodrow went by Tommy until his early 20s.
He earned a PhD, making him the most highly educated POTUS. He was also the only professional academic.
He didn’t learn his letters until he was nine years old and was twelve before he could read well. His vision may have been part of the problem. It’s possible he a developmental disorder. After his stroke, he started using his left hand and wrote with the same neat handwriting with little practice. There’s speculation that he may have been ambidextrous, which can go hand in hand (pun not intended) with speech and writing delays.
As a teacher, shaved his mustache so his students could tell when he was joking.
He wondered if Lincoln would have been as successful if he’d have gone to college, which is interesting coming from a college president.
Theodore Roosevelt helped him get into office! Not on purpose, but by splitting his party’s ticket. (In that election, the current President Taft ran against Woodrow Wilson. And past president Theodore Roosevelt. And Eugene Debs.)
Grover and Francis Cleveland lived at Princeton while Woodrow Wilson was a professor there.
Grover Cleveland didn’t have a college education himself. He had to abandon that dream when his father died unexpectedly. Instead, he was an assistant teacher at New York Institute for the Blind in Manhattan.
Speaking of Grover Cleveland, shoutout to The Grover Cleveland Art Appreciation Society for suggesting this topic.
Etc.
A bunch of presidents taught before becoming president. Here’s a brief and incomplete list:
Millard Fillmore taught elementary school for a bit while clerking.
James Garfield was a teacher and principal. He taught ancient languages, geometry, and penmanship.
Before seeking fortune in Kansas, Chester Arthur was a teacher and principal.
Lyndon Baines Johnson said of his time teaching underprivileged children in Texas: “I think it was then that I made up my mind that this nation could never rest while the door to knowledge remained closed to any American.”
Benjamin Harrison is the reason schools fly the flag.
John Quincy Adams believed the most essential part of education is to “teach a child to think.”
Speaking of education…
After I read The Remarkable Education of John Quincy Adams by Phyllis Lee Levin I amended the rules that govern my project. The book barely even mentions that JQA was president.
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