Permit me a little tangent. I teach a rhythmic chant of the United States presidents each year to second grade children as part of a big patriotic program we perform in March. For many of the presidents, I work in mnemonic devices with the chanting of presidents' names.
For instance, when we chant William Howard Taft, we pretend to be a very heavy person riding an encumbered pony. We bounce the rhythmic line of Taft's name. This leads into stories about Taft's having been the heaviest of the presidents, and, true to fat and jolly, beloved for his sense of humor.
Anyway, the point here is, even though these second graders chant these names and learn a lot of stories, there is that rare child who, by the fifth grade social studies project, will say that Benjamin Franklin or Martin Luther King was a president. I no longer get upset as I did when I was a young teacher. I just try to improve the stories, and also try to get any current set of second graders to laugh at the stories of fifth graders saying that Franklin and King were presidents. I assure you that I never tell names and tales--just amusing generalizations.
Most of the children will remember; however, there are some who simply won't think things out. They're the ones who make it into the darndest-things-that-are-said lists.
Wordwind, who is not a United States president
