Jill Biden’s classroom motto—“Teaching isn’t just what I do, it’s who I am”—sits in a larger story: nineteen presidents and first ladies served as K-12 teachers. For two presidential couples, the Fillmores and the Garfields, both spouses taught; many others sh
When Jill Biden speaks about teaching, she does it like someone describing a life she already lived. “Teaching isn’t just what I do, it’s who I am.”
Her own résumé is unusually direct: a career in education spanning four decades. moving from high schools and colleges to a psychiatric hospital. and continuing through her time as first lady—when she became the first first lady to work full time outside the White House while teaching at Northern Virginia Community College.
Biden is also part of a broader, less obvious lineage. Nineteen presidents and first ladies have served as K-12 teachers. The list excludes non-presidential spouses known as acting first ladies, focusing only on people who held the formal roles of president or first lady.
For presidential history. that’s a striking number—made even more human by how differently teaching looked depending on the person and the moment. Some taught for a short period. some found their footing with older students or specialized education. and others used teaching as a bridge toward law. politics. or another calling.
Both spouses of just two presidential couples—the Fillmores and the Garfields—worked as teachers. Many other presidents spent their careers as college professors, including Woodrow Wilson, Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, and Barack Obama, but the teaching story that follows stays anchored to K-12 classrooms.
John Adams brought teaching to his early adulthood in a way that sounds almost out of a diary entry. In Worcester, Massachusetts, when he was 20, he taught in a one-room classroom from 1755 to 1758. He had just graduated from Harvard and began studying law under James Putnam, a Worcester attorney, while teaching. Adams wrote about the experience positively in his diary. describing his school as “the highest pleasure to preside in this little world.”.
Andrew Jackson’s time in the classroom was brief and tied to economics rather than vocation. He only very briefly worked as a schoolteacher after his inheritance from his grandfather in Ireland ran out, according to The Hermitage.
Millard Fillmore’s story began with self-education and then moved into formal teaching. Born into poverty on his family’s struggling farm in upstate New York. Fillmore educated himself and eventually became a school teacher. while also studying law during his time in the profession. according to the Miller Center.
Franklin Pierce taught while still young, and not in a career sense—more like a pause between learning and study. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s biography of Pierce mentions that Pierce taught at a rural school during one of his winter vacations while he was in college at Bowdoin College in Maine. He was only a teenager. Pierce studied law soon after and was admitted to the New Hampshire bar in 1827.
James A. Garfield’s teaching work came with mixed feelings. He held multiple teaching jobs during his life. most notably to financially support himself while attending Geauga Seminary in Chester. Ohio. The National Park Service reported that he “mostly disliked teaching children in the district schools.” He fared better with older students. teaching at the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute. later renamed Hiram College. where he eventually served as president.
Chester A. Arthur’s school life wasn’t just about teaching. He served as both a teacher and a principal. He held multiple roles in schools throughout his life. teaching during winter breaks while attending Union College in Schenectady. New York. In 1851, he served as the principal of a school in North Pownal, Vermont. The following year. he worked as a principal and teacher at a school in Cohoes. New York. where his sisters worked. according to the Library of Congress. He studied law during the time and passed the bar exam in 1854, according to the Miller Center.
Grover Cleveland’s classroom was different from most presidential ones because it was specialized education. He taught at the New York Institute for the Blind, now known as the New York Institute for Special Education. He first got involved through his brother, initially as a secretary and later as a teacher, per the Institute. Fanny Crosby, the blind mission worker, cited Cleveland as a positive influence while she was a faculty member there.
William McKinley also had teaching days—brief again—but history cut in. He briefly taught in a one-room school in Ohio. His time ended early when he volunteered to fight for the Union in 1861, according to the National Museum of the United States Army.
Warren G. Harding’s tenure in the classroom may have been short, but his view of teaching wasn’t. The 29th president taught for one term in a rural school near Marion, Ohio, according to the Miller Center. In one of his speeches as president. Harding called teaching the “greatest occupation” and said it was “the hardest work I have ever known.”.
Lyndon B. Johnson considered teaching as a long-term path before turning fully toward politics. He taught at Welhausen Ward Elementary School in Cotulla, Texas, as a college sophomore. The school, located near the US-Mexico border, served students in poverty. According to the National Park Service. Johnson created and expanded extracurricular programs such as spelling bees and organized sports. purchasing equipment with money from his own paycheck. Johnson said he considered making teaching his full-time career, but set out for politics instead.
The first lady teaching stories that follow show how education could continue alongside marriage and public life rather than ending when it began. Abigail Fillmore first became a teacher at just 16. She later took a job at New Hope Academy in New Hope. New York. in 1819. according to the White House Historical Association. She met Millard Fillmore while he was a 19-year-old student at the Academy, and the pair married seven years later. Abigail Fillmore continued teaching after her marriage, eventually becoming the first first lady to continue in a profession after marriage.
Lucretia Garfield also taught after her husband did. Per the National Park Service, she taught in Ohio—specifically in Ravenna, Bryan, Chagrin Falls, and the Brownell School in Cleveland.
Helen Taft’s memoir connects teaching to a desire for a more satisfying life than performance. She said her time as a teacher came from wanting to have “something by way of occupation more satisfying than dancing and amateur theatricals.” In the 1880s. Taft taught for two years at private schools in Walnut Hills. Ohio.
Grace Coolidge made teaching a lifelong advocacy path. She took up a teaching position at the Clarke School for the Deaf in Northampton, Massachusetts. Her experience at the school turned her into a lifelong advocate for disabled children. and later using her platform as first lady to fundraise and spread awareness for the cause. according to the Coolidge Foundation. After leaving the White House. Coolidge became the head of the Clarke School’s board of trustees and continued her advocacy until her death in 1957.
Lou Hoover’s teaching chapter was brief—finished almost as soon as it started. She received her teaching certificate from the San José Normal School—now San José State University—in 1893. But just one year later, she abandoned teaching to study geology instead. In her brief time as a teacher. she likely taught at a local school in Monterey. California. per the Mayo Hayes O’Donnell Library.
Eleanor Roosevelt’s teaching was woven through her early life and later leadership. Her earliest experience as an educator came at 18. when she taught at the Rivington Street Settlement House in New York City. In the late 1920s. she became the co-owner of the Todhunter School For Girls in New York City. a private school where she taught literature. history. and government. per the Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project. Roosevelt continued her teaching role while serving as the first lady of New York.
Pat Nixon’s classroom work came through formal education and a local job. Nixon attended Fullerton College and later the University of Southern California. graduating with a bachelor’s degree in education in 1937. according to the Nixon Library. Nixon worked as a high-school teacher in Whittier, California, for a few years, during which time she met Richard Nixon.
Laura Bush’s teaching and library experience shaped her later education focus. She earned a bachelor’s degree in education from Southern Methodist University in 1968 before teaching in Dallas. Houston. and Austin. per the George W. Bush Presidential Library. She then earned a Master’s degree in library science from the University of Texas, later serving as a school librarian. Bush made education a focus while she was first lady. creating programs like the “Ready to Read. Ready to Learn” initiative. which aimed to highlight early childhood development programs. according to the White House.
Jill Biden’s story connects back to the central line that runs through all of these careers: the classroom wasn’t a footnote. Holding the most academic degrees out of any president or first lady. Biden has a master’s in education and a doctorate in educational leadership. among other degrees. She also has the most extensive teaching experience, with 40 years in the classroom.
Biden first taught at St. Mark’s High School and Claymont High School in Wilmington, Delaware. She later taught at Rockford Center, a psychiatric hospital in Delaware, and at Delaware Technical Community College. In 2009. she began working at Northern Virginia Community College. and continued teaching there during Joe Biden’s vice presidency and presidency. becoming the first first lady to work full time outside the White House.
Like Bush, Jill Biden used her platform as first lady to highlight education and teachers, which included hosting the first Teachers of the Year State Dinner in 2024, according to the White House.
Taken together. the list reads less like trivia and more like a series of personal detours—some short. some lifelong—where education offered a path into public leadership. The facts don’t all point to the same kind of classroom. but they do show one constant: for nineteen presidents and first ladies. teaching wasn’t only something they once did. It was a trade they carried. in one form or another. all the way toward the nation’s highest office and its formal front porch.
Jill Biden first lady teachers presidents K-12 teachers US presidents taught education background White House history Abigail Fillmore Lucretia Garfield