As if (we) parents don’t have enough to worry about as our children head back to school: flu season along with the swine flu, health in general, behavior, grades, homework, sports, relationships, drug use, teen sex, and violence in our schools, now we must fear our own President’s motives behind his upcoming monumental message directed to our nations schoolchildren.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan sent letters to school principals; “President Barack Obama to Make Historic Speech to America’s Students” On September 8, 2009, history will be made. Will you be a part of it? At 12:00 p.m., Eastern Time (ET), President Barack Obama will deliver a national address to the students of America.
The letter states that the special address directed at our nation’s children will be about “persisting and succeeding in school”. A Presidential speech about education, terrific! Gone are the days when the President or First Lady pops up occasionally at a school to read a story or two. This administration has a new strategy. This is more than a speech. It’s an event, which encourages “students of all ages, teachers, and administrators to participate." In her letter, Duncan has prepared what the DOE is calling a “menu of classroom activities for students preK-6 and for students in grades 7-12” for educators to use as “ideas (developed by and for teachers) to help engage students and stimulate discussion on the importance of education in their lives.”
President Obama plans to speak to a captive audience of schoolchildren ages 5 to 18 through the classrooms of our nation’s public schools. If Obama’s speech actually addresses the significance of education in American lives and acts as a motivator that is one thing, but why do they need directives or interactive activities? And where are the permission slips?
Department of Education PDF files so we won't need another misinformation Czar.
Pre-K thru 6 graders activities include preparation by reading books about presidents and Barack Obama and motivate students by asking a few basic questions.
As students listen to the speech, the “menu” suggests that they could think about the following:
• What is the President trying to tell me?
• What is the President asking me to do?
• What new ideas and actions is the President challenging me to think about?
• Students might think about: What specific job is he asking me to do? Is he
asking anything of anyone else? Teachers? Principals? Parents? The American
people?
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Dave Nalle
Here in Texas parents are up in arms about this. Already at least one school district in the Austin area and one in the Dallas area that I know of have decided not to show the broadcast to kids but to make it available on the web on a purely voluntary basis.
Dave
2 - Christine
Wow, that's amazing. I just heard on the news that they are re-wording the "menus"...that speaks volumes to what citizens can do when they speak out!
3 - Jordan Richardson
Doesn't every president address the nation's children in some capacity at the start of the school year? From my understanding, he's telling the kids about getting good grades and doing well academically.
With all due respect, is that really worth four pages?
4 - zingzing
oh, for fuck's sake. you think he's gonna indoctrinate your kids? how many times did you watch presidential speeches in school? and how did you come out?
and do you really think he's going to talk about anything that's politically divisive? bah. no, you don't, you just wanna bitch up a fucking storm. go ahead...
you people are so hyperbolic and paranoid. it's like jenna jameson is coming to teach sex ed or something. jesus.
5 - Christine
Zing, it looks like you didn't read the article, it's not about the speech but the proposed activities (which Jordan is why the four pages). Why are you guys getting so hostile?
6 - zingzing
i read the article, and see nothing in the activities (which are, like any other school assignment, designed to make sure that kids participate instead of just snoozing through it,) that are in any way threatening.
we're getting hostile because you rightwingers take any goddamn thing obama sneezes and turn it into a nightmarish socialist attack on good family values or some such nonsense, and it's getting fucking ridiculous.
plus, it's fun to get hostile. that's politics!
7 - Jordan Richardson
And is it really worth all the continued fear?
Christ, I don't think there's any country in the world right now more crippled by fear and paranoia than the supposed "last, best hope" for us all. What's really scary is how gullible and silly this all is. The population has become political pawns, both on the left and the right, and everything's about what could happen or what might happen or what might be taken away.
Aren't you tired of living like that?
Here in Canada, we might be having another election soon. That'll make it our third election in three years. And you know how the public largely feels about it? They don't particularly care. I've never heard inflated, frightening rhetoric. I've never heard people comparing ANY of our politicians to Hitler. I've never seen Town Hall meetings complete with armed protesters and idiotic signs. And I've never seen anyone freak the fuck out when the PM wants to talk to children.
Grow up.
8 - zingzing
you ever watch the british parliament at work? now that's some clever fucking governance.
9 - Christine
Are we allowed to use the "F" word in BC comments?
10 - Jordan Richardson
Why are you guys getting so hostile?
How would you suggest one responds to outright fear-mongering, paranoia and ignorance? People, not just Americans but people around the world, are hostile towards your bloody country because you poison absolutely EVERYTHING you touch. People are hostile because you manage to turn the most innocuous of activities into this politically-motivated shitstain that we all should be AFRAID of.
And people are tired of it. You're not living in some hellhole where the government is trying to steal your children, rape your women and kill people and yet some of you have the brutal audacity to compare it to Nazism. You're not living in a country where you lack opportunity or the ability to make your own way, yet some among you are so desperate to make a political point that they imagine themselves under the rule of some dictator's whims.
It's childish. The GOP got to run things for 8 years and now that the Dems are in charge the Right is throwing a hissyfit that, by all rights, is shameful and silly. You bitch about complain about a 3-5% tax increase, about needing to pay for someone elses' health care, about the prospect of your children actually listening to their president.
Oh no! Life as we know it is over! Where is "my America?"
This is insane. A real crisis is when your children are taken away from you in the middle of the night and there's nothing you can do about it. A real crisis is not even being able to imagine where your next meal is coming from, let alone whether or not your kid will go to school. A real crisis is living under threat of bombings or shootings daily.
We're all so fucking lucky, yet so many Americans are so desperate and politically-minded that they refuse to see it. So you've got a president that's one of the "other guys." Get over it. Your lives will still be among the world's most privileged and fortunate.
Enough already.
11 - zingzing
"And I've never seen anyone freak the fuck out when the PM wants to talk to children."
that would be the point.
and the armed protesters packing loaded semi-automatics, the preachers praying for obama's death and new address in hell, the birthers, the death panels bullshit, etc is also goddamned embarrassing. those on the right with any intelligence should be ashamed. bunch of misinformed hicks are ruining any chance you have of regaining a majority.
leave it up to the right wing to fucking mow off their collective foot even while sticking it in their collective mouth.
12 - zingzing
"Are we allowed to use the "F" word in BC comments?"
damn fucking right we are, and we'll fucking use whatever variation of "fuck" we want while we fucking do it.
13 - zingzing
"Are we allowed to use the "F" word in BC comments?"
i hope you were kidding.
14 - zingzing
"Are we allowed to use the "F" word in BC comments?"
see the first amendment.
15 - pinksugar
seems to me the right-wingers are the only ones capable of Clean, social discourse..
This is scare tactics.. purely to use His position as a way to insinuate his way into our schools and have access to our most vulnerable citizens.. (He MUST be listened to and Respected!!) If HIS kids are "Off Limits" then why aren't Mine??
16 - Christine
Jordan, you may be right when you compare this to bigger issues, however, if you have child in school that has been subjected to teachers who treat them differently because they don't agree with them politically, it's not paranoia it is real concern!
17 - Jordan Richardson
Define "Clean, social discourse."
And enlighten me as to how it's representative of "Clean, social discourse" to instruct your children not to at least listen to their president or withhold the leader of your nation from their point of view. Aren't you obstructing their ability to make their own choices by censoring who they have access to?
18 - Jordan Richardson
Christine, teachers treat kids differently no matter what. That's just a reality. I had a teacher who treated me "differently" because I liked a different hockey team than he did.
What does this have to do with Obama talking to kids about education? And try to explain it to me without "what ifs" or "coulds." Let's deal with what is first and what can actually be verified, not with what is possible.
Are you really, seriously fearful of some sort of subversive, subliminal message from your president as he talks to your children? Are you really afraid that your kids are going to come home wanting to be "socialists?"
You're more reasonable than that, Christine, so what is the REAL problem here? Should children of Democrat voters be as concerned as children of Republican voters?
19 - zingzing
christine: "if you have child in school that has been subjected to teachers who treat them differently because they don't agree with them politically, it's not paranoia it is real concern!"
your kids have political opinions? (i mean, you could instill your social values in them... but political? really? do they think their taxes are too high?)
pinksugar: "This is scare tactics.. purely to use His position as a way to insinuate his way into our schools and have access to our most vulnerable citizens..."
see, christine? paranoia.
20 - Jordan Richardson
Or is it problematic that your president has unfettered, unedited access to your children and, as a result, your children may be able to see him and hear him without the "filter of big media?"
21 - pinksugar
Filter of Big Media?
Big Media is in love with him LOL
22 - Christine
Jordan, the fact that they would even propose such an idea in the first place is not appropriate. They should of said Obama gonna give a speech about education...period! Why all the added crap?
Like I stated in my article, it's not the speech, it is the added activity being proposed after that opens the door to any teacher, left or right, to push politics on children. That ain't right!
23 - Jordan Richardson
Hardly. And FOX isn't. They're about as "big" as media gets.
24 - Jordan Richardson
Why all the added crap?
Because it's good to implement new strategies from time to time in the educational process. Because it's good to teach children new things and get them to learn for themselves. Because school really is all about "added crap."
The door is always open for teachers to push their politics on kids. They do it, they always will and they don't need incentives or opportunity. You know that.
25 - pinksugar
I won't be taunted into needless swearing and as a parent, I see the gov't encroaching more and more into MY rights as a parent.
Swear all you want to if it makes you feel good about yourself.
Its not impressing anyone.