Former first lady Jill Biden frequently cited the motto, “Teaching isn’t just what I do, it’s who I am.”
Biden is perhaps one of the most notable teachers to occupy the White House, with a career in education spanning four decades and ranging from high schools and colleges to a psychiatric hospital.
But experience in the classroom has shaped the nation’s highest office more than you might realize: Nineteen presidents and first ladies have served as K-12 teachers. Business Insider compiled a list of each individual, excluding non-presidential spouses known as acting first ladies.
Among these, both spouses of just two presidential couples — the Fillmores and the Garfields — worked as teachers.
Many other presidents have been college professors, including Woodrow Wilson, Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, and Barack Obama. Wilson had a career in academia spanning more than 20 years and was the only president to earn a PhD. However, the extent of their roles varied, with some only serving in part-time or honorary positions.
See every president who worked as a K-12 teacher, followed by every first lady.
John Adams
When Adams was 20, he taught in a one-room classroom in Worcester, Massachusetts, from 1755 to 1758, according to the Worcester Telegram. He had just graduated from Harvard and began studying law under James Putnam, a Worcester attorney, while teaching.
Adams wrote positively about his experience in the classroom in his diary, saying of his school that it was “the highest pleasure to preside in this little world.”
Andrew Jackson
Jackson only very briefly worked as a schoolteacher. He took up the profession for a short time after his inheritance from his grandfather in Ireland ran out, according to The Hermitage.
Millard Fillmore
Born into poverty on his family’s struggling farm in upstate New York, Fillmore educated himself and eventually became a school teacher. Like Adams, Fillmore studied law during his time in the profession, according to the Miller Center.
Franklin Pierce
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s biography of Pierce mentions that he taught at a rural school “during one of his winter vacations.” Pierce, attending Bowdoin College in Maine at the time, was only a teenager.
Pierce studied law soon after and was admitted to the New Hampshire bar in 1827.
James A. Garfield
Garfield held multiple teaching jobs during his life, most notably to financially support himself while he was attending Geauga Seminary in Chester, Ohio.
Though Garfield excelled in his studies, he “mostly disliked teaching children in the district schools,” the National Park Service reported. He fared better with older students and taught at the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute, later renamed Hiram College, eventually serving as its president.
Chester A. Arthur
Chester A. Arthur held multiple roles in schools throughout his life. Like Pierce, he taught 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.
Also following Pierce’s lead, he studied law during the time and passed the bar exam in 1854, according to the Miller Center.
Grover Cleveland
The only president to have worked in specialized education, Cleveland taught at the New York Institute for the Blind, now known as the New York Institute for Special Education. He first got involved with the school 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 on her while she was a faculty member there.
William McKinley
Like other presidents, William McKinley briefly taught in a one-room school in Ohio. However, his time in the role was cut short when he volunteered to fight for the Union in 1861, according to the National Museum of the United States Army.
Warren G. Harding
Harding may have had the shortest teaching tenure of any president or first lady. 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
Johnson 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.
Abigail Fillmore
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
Like her husband, Lucretia Garfield also taught in Ohio, specifically in Ravenna, Bryan, Chagrin Falls, and the Brownell School in Cleveland, per the National Park Service.
Helen Taft
Taft said in her memoir that 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
Coolidge 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, 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
Hoover received her teaching certificate from the San José Normal School — now San José State University — in 1893. However, just one year later, she abandoned teaching to study geology instead.
In Hoover’s brief time as a teacher, she likely taught at a local school in Monterey, California, per the Mayo Hayes O’Donnell Library.
Eleanor Roosevelt
Roosevelt’s 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
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
Bush 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
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.
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