The Uproar Over Obama's Back-to-School Speech Is Silly
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I find the uproar over Obama's approaching back-to-school address to be pretty silly. The speech, which schools are being encouraged to air on Tuesday, is meant to encourage kids to stay in school. Sounds innocuous enough, but Obama opponents are using the opportunity to compare him to Saddam Hussein and accuse him of creating a "cult of personality." The reason I find this so absurd is because I was fourth grade when President Bush the first made a similar speech. I didn't remember the speech at all until today's news stories about Obama jogged it loose from the memory graveyard. But it brought up a specific image of being corralled into the gym and made to watch Bush ramble on about god knows what. I can't recall specifically because I wasn't paying attention. After all, I was only 9. I remember being pretty confused as to why our teachers were making us do this and getting scolded for talking during the address.
All of this is to say that the outrage is purely for the parents. Even most high schoolers will think of this address as a boring chore to watch and the kids who are in grade school will barely understand what's going on. Obama could actually be sitting up there spewing pinko propaganda and it will fall on deaf ears. What he's really going to do—give some general remarks about hard work—is going to be pretty well ignored, too. If you're going to oppose this speech, do it because it's a waste of time, not because it's "something you'd expect to see in North Korea," as Oklahoma state Sen. Steve Russell claims it is.
Photograph by Getty Images.
Jessica Grose is the managing editor of Double X and the co-author of Love, Mom: Poignant, Goofy, Brilliant Messages from Home. Click here to follow her on Twitter.
Comments
Obama School Speech
By: Omar_M | Fri, 09/04/2009 - 23:58
I think there is nothing wrong if President Barack Obama would talk to the school children. He is just like a father to all of those children, reminding them of what are good and what are not meant to be done. They are still young children and they need guidance from someone who knows what is good. I do believe in President Obama's capabilty to do what is good for our country. Let us not think of this as one of a political motif but instead, one of a way wherein a father like President Obama would talk to his children. Let us not judge his will immediately. Let us first see how good it can be or the other way around. There is set to be an Obama school speech next Tuesday, and it is igniting quite the controversy. Part of the rumored content is going to be his recommendations for public school curriculum, which has conspiracy theorists, and even some educators, geared for protesting the line being blurred between politics and education. (If people actually read the history textbooks, they'd see the fix is already in – but enough of that.) The Department of Education is already criticized heavily
for being too easily dominated politically. Home school advocates believe this will herald a rise in home schooling. American
schools are already in enough trouble without the Obama school speech making things worse, and it's starting to look like payday loans and private schools are a good idea. If you want to know more about this, you can check out this link:
http://personalmoneystore.com/Payday-Loans/no-Fax-Payday-Loans/
obama's moment
By: swmobill | Fri, 09/04/2009 - 15:28
i'm not an ardent democrat or republican...so don't care if my 2 kids see the president on t.v. heck, i want my children to support the president, any president at their age. i'm not sure if i would have remembered Johnson, Nixon, Ford, or Carter talking to me in my classroom, but it most assuredly wouldn't brainwash me for life. that's what the liberal college professors are for. but, hard to see how it is bad for the president to tell our kids to stay in school, behave, and do your best...that's what i tell them and don't mind the reminder.
Lots of Energy for No Purpose
By: Faith | Fri, 09/04/2009 - 14:54
Stories like this make me sad because they bring attention to nothing and distract us from some real needs in education.
Right now, charter schools are receiving funding even though we know their impact is limited. Occasionally, students perform better than the public schools they replace, but too often the students perform worse.
More upsetting is the national debate on performance pay for teachers, but no one is talking about the impact that will have on children. The high stakes tests, just went higher!! What impact is that going to have on learning. More instruction on test taking skills, instead of content and higher order thinking skills. Great we get a new generation of non-thinkers, protecting their children from listening to the president.
Of great concern is that there are some serious questions about the validity of these models from an economist at Princeton. Mentioned in my blog at http://blog.naviance.com/2009/08/lets-try-value-added-education.html.
I worry we'll further stress the students, fire the wrong teachers and have no one interested in replacing them.
Eh...
By: geml | Fri, 09/04/2009 - 14:42
Considering that it often seems that the only way to get anything accomplished is to either scare people to death or to "think of the children" the reaction shouldn't have come as a surprise.
I was in college (and therefore an adult at the age of 18) when Reagan gave his C-span talk to students. But I didn't like it. And given the number of Republicans that grew out of my fellow Gen-Xers, perhaps the speech (and governance et al) didn't fall on as many deaf ears as we believe. Maybe (shock!) some students actually listen!
Sure -- it sounds nice. It sounds innocent. Maybe it even is innocent. Oppose it and each side can use the other to accuse it of "not respecting the office of the presidency" blah blah blah. But come on, this is 2009, not pre-Watergate. (How's that for an Gen-Xer cynical statement?) Honestly? The bottom line is that I wouldn't have wanted my son to be forced to listen to GWB, and I'd a hypocrite if I sat here and said to conservative parents that they were silly.