Would You Like to Be President? Educational Resources K12 Learning, United States, Government Lesson Plans, Activities, Experiments, Homeschool Help

Lesson Plan - Get It!

Audio:

Have you noticed how quickly presidents age in office?

Check out the pictures in this article, Side Effects Of Presidency Shown In Before And After Pictures of 10 U.S. Presidents, by Lina D. for Bored Panda.

What could cause someone to age at this rate?

Think about it: the president has power, and thus responsibility, over millions and millions of lives. The slightest mistake can cost the country, and even the world, dearly. The president is under constant scrutiny and faces nonstop criticism.

What would you be like as president?
What would be your policies?
How would you run the country?

When you apply for a job, the most important thing is to know the job description.

It is clearly a challenging position, and everyone seems to think he or she could do a better job. Very few of us, however, actually know what a president does.

How does the president spend his or her day?
What does he or she need to get done?

Watch the video, How Presidents Govern: Crash Course Government and Politics #14, read Interpretation of Article II of the U.S. Constitution (courtesy of the National Constitution Center), and locate other resources on the same topic that you can find. Make notes as you go, then create a job advertisement that you might find in the newspaper or an online job-search site like CareerBuilder.com or Indeed.com. In your job ad, be sure to include:

the duration of the position.
the responsibilities.
the requirements.
the job hazards.
the means to apply.

How Presidents Govern: Crash Course Government and Politics #14:

Share your job ad with a parent or teacher. Discuss:

Are there any responsibilities, requirements, or hazards that should be added?
What would it be like to actually sit in the Oval Office and run the country?
What kind of person would it take to be a truly good president?

As with any other job, the person holding the presidency is going to interpret the position and its responsibilities in a unique way, and imprint the responsibilities with his or her own special flair. The special combination of ideas that each person brings to the presidency is referred to as policy. Let's look at how you can turn your opinions into presidential-style policy!

Continue on to the Got It? section to begin your run for president!