Try These Different Ideas to help Teach about the Presidency
The President’s State of the Union speech gives a report to the nation on how our country is doing. Have your students visit “The Public Papers of the Presidents”:
Instruct students to search the presidential papers for the State of the Union Address for the year they were born:
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1
Issues
What issues did the country struggle with according to the State of the Union Address?
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2
Changes
What has changed in the years since the State of the Union Address was given?
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3
Contrast
Have students contrast their speech with the current State of the Union.
Have students research the qualifications to be president by visiting the “List of U.S. Presidents” page [here]and have them answer these:
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1
Make Sense?
Do these qualifications still make sense today's world?
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2
Your View
Write your opinion about whether these rules should or should not change.
Have students interview the older members of their families and ask about the family member’s most memorable president in their lifetime.
Provide students with a list of interview questions to ask:
Then have the students do research on the president their family member remembered. How does history present this president?
Students may be surprised to learn that presidents their family members revere or remember, like FDR or JFK, were not as loved at the time.
Presidents have a lot of influence, both in and out of office. Many presidents find causes they want to work on-for example, President Jimmy Carter’s work with Habitat for Humanity [what?] once he left office.
Ask students to imagine they are the president…
What issue or topic–not political–would they use the “bully pulpit” to highlight?
How would they do it? Lead by example? Give awards to celebrate people working in that field?
Why do they think the president’s influence would make a difference?
The first Vice President, John Adams, called his job “the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.”
Research topics/themes about the vice presidency you may want your students to explore:
How many Vice Presidents have gone on to become President?
Who is the most interesting Vice President? Why?
Who do you think is the most important Vice President in presidential history? Why?
Throughout U.S. history, many presidents have been veterans and even war heroes.
Have students research the military careers of president:
George Washington
1789-1797
Andrew Jackson
1829-1837
Theodore Roosevelt
1901-1909
Ulysses S. Grant
1869-1877
Dwight D. Eisenhower
1953-1961
John Fitzgerald Kennedy
1961-1963
After students have researched the military careers of the above presidents (or just one of them) ask them or have them write answers to these questions:
Why have many military veterans been elected to the presidency?
Why is it that more recent presidents (Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump) have had limited (or no) military experience?
Has having been in the military mattered during their presidency?
From the 'military' presidents you have researched, has military service helped or hindered a president?
Test that appears in the student section of the presidents website
