At the end of the class students should have a basic understanding of the process of impeaching and removing a President of the United States from office based on the US Constitution. Students should be able to converse about the presidents from history who have faced impeachment. This is not a political class and it is not partisan in any way. The goal of the teacher is that students will understand the impeachment process but not be able to say for sure how the teacher feels about the current president.

I've been a political junkie all my life -- and once upon a time even ran for United States Congress. I've been studying impeachment since I was a freshmen in college and presented one of the sides for my social sciences division on the impeachment of Bill Clinton. (I won't tell you which side I took -- my goal as a teacher is to keep you guessing!). I hold a degree in polticial science from Indiana Wesleyan University and an am alumnus of the Honors Fellowship Program at Intercollegiate Studies Institute.

We live in a big and fascinating world and one of my goals with my classes is to help kids develop an interest and appreciation for the world around them and different cultures. My classes draw from my own experiences as a world traveler. I've visited and lived abroad in seventeen countries. Much of what we do in my classes is the same type of research I would do on a destination before I would travel to that country. I'm also the former deputy director of the historic home of President Ronald Reagan and in 2010 was a candidate for United States Congress.

Constitution of the United States

Federalist Papers by Hamilton, Madison and Jay

The History, Philosophy, and Structure of the American Constitution Third Edition, by Douglas W. Kmiec 

Impeachment: An American History by Jon Meacham, Timothy Naftali, Peter Baker, Jeffrey A. Engel

Remember the “smoking gun” that led Richard Nixon to resign from office? Here’s a YouTube video Richard Nixon, years later, talking about the “smoking gun.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dR-60zDKaNE

Andrew Johnson was the first president impeached. He was the president who succeeded Abraham Lincoln as president after Lincoln was assassinated. Tough job! Congress passed a law that made it illegal for the president to fire any of his cabinet members. Johnson thought this law was unconstitutional, so to test Congress, he fires a member of his cabinet. The House impeaches him and in the Senate he falls just one vote short of being convicted and removed from office! Here’s a short video explaining the Johnson impeachment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvOBAfKbiMo