"Why Many Students Hate History, Presidents as Students, Political Rhetoric: Past and Present" with Professor James Longo
Professor James M. Longo of Washington and Jefferson College, is the author of From Classroom to White House: Presidents and First Ladies as Students and Teachers, which compares and contrasts the educational opportunities and experiences of male and female residents of the White House.
Professor Jim Longo grew up and attended schools in St. Louis, Missouri. He was an award winning public school teacher for over a decade where he taught students from early elementary school through high school. He has a degree in History from the University of Missouri in St. Louis and has his doctorate in Teaching, Curriculum, and Learning from Harvard University. It was while he was at Harvard that he began having lunch with the former U.S. Commissioner of Education in the Kennedy-Johnson Administration. Over lunch he heard many stories about how being a teacher influenced Lyndon Johnson as a president and the role of Lady Bird Johnson in creating and supporting the Head Start program. Those stories inspired him to research other stories of presidents and first ladies as teachers. He discovered that half the presidents and first ladies have taught. But he also found stories about them as students that were funny, scary, sad, and inspiring. He realized that if by some magic time machine all the presidents and first ladies could return as children and be placed in a classroom together – they would be a teacher’s worse nightmare. These stories form the basis for his new book – FROM CLASSROOM TO WHITE HOUSE: Presidents and First Ladies as Students and Teachers.
He has shared these stories as lectures and in classrooms throughout the United States and in Austria, Brazil, Canada, Costa Rica, England, and the Czech Republic. Professor Longo did over ten years of research for this book, visiting many of the schools where American presidents and first ladies were students and teachers, read their report cards, spoke with teachers and classmates, and even sat in many times on the Sunday school class taught by President Jimmy Carter.
Dr. Longo is currently Chair of the Education Department of Washington & Jefferson College in Washington, Pennsylvania which sits on land once owned by Martha Washington. Over the years he has met several presidents and first ladies and taught and worked with a number of children whose ancestors once lived in the White House. He is the recipient of teaching and community service awards from the National Association for Children and Adults with Learning Disabilities, the American Youth Foundation, and other organizations and non-profits and has been recognized as Educator of the Year by the Junior Achievement Corporation of Pittsburgh.
His primary areas of research, writing, and teaching include gender equity in the classroom, the theory of multiple intelligences, creating the inclusive classroom, the role of women in history, and the teaching and learning experiences of presidents and first ladies as students and teachers.Dr. Longo has been appointed as a Fulbright scholar to the University of Klagenfurt Distinguished Chair in Gender Studies Lectureship at Klagenfurt University, Austria for 2011.
He has written seven books including three collections of ghost stories, articles and books on the New England Shakers, and a biography of Isabel Orleans Bragança: The Brazilian Princess Who Freed the Slaves. His story of Latin America's most famous female abolitionist was told in the context of the historic role royal women played in the rise and fall of Brazilian slavery. It was nominated for the Frederick Douglas Book Prize for the "most outstanding nonfiction book published in English on the subject of slavery and abolition." His latest book, From Classroom to White House: Presidents and First Ladies as Students and Teachers, compares and contrasts the educational opportunities and experiences of male and female residents of
Dr. Longo's research and teaching have taken him to Austria, Brazil, Costa Rica, Portugal, England, Scotland, Wales, Germany, the Czech Republic, and Canada. Under his leadership the W&J Education Department has developed school partnerships with El Centro de Educatión Creativa in Monteverde, Costa Rica, the University of Wales, Newport, St. Mary's University, England, and Aberdeen University, Scotland. Jim believes all he ever needed to know he learned at summer camp. When not teaching or writing, he would rather be in a canoe than any other place on earth.
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