Oh my! What a huge furor! President Obama has proposed doing what many presidents before him have done, give a speech to school children. And the nation is in an uproar!
Why all the hullabaloo? It's not just because he's a Democrat who won by a narrow margin and those who didn't vote for him are pouting about it. It's because, unlike the presidents before him, Obama has sent out accompanying cirriculum to prepare students for the speech and to build on the topic of the speech later.
Personally, I think that sounds like a great idea. In theory. Every good writer knows the three basic rules of giving a speech, "Tell them what you're going to tell them. Tell them. Then tell them what you told them."
But that's for an audience who has wilingly come to hear you speak. An audience who typically is savvy enough to question what you're saying and to weigh it against their own beliefs. These are easily impressionable children, as young as four or five, who are used to doing what they're told and who haven't learned the intricacies of critical thinking.
The suggested cirriculum included having these children write a letter saying what they can do to help the president. The letters would then be collected and reviewed, supposedly to be returned to the children at some later date to hold them accountable for what they had written, to see if they had helped the president in the way they said they would.
Excuse me?
My agenda is definitely not the same as Obama's. I don't want my child, or any children, to be forced to put into writing how they're going to help further his agenda. And I certainly don't want those writings reviewed and weighed against his agenda. Does anyone remember the McCarthy era? Today it would be, "Are you now, or have you ever been, anti-socialist?" Or worse, "anti-Obama". Can you imagine school children, some as young as four or five, ending up on a list because they wrote down that they don't want to help the president because Daddy said he's stinky?
In addition, this is just bad cirriculum. It's not, "Here's a speech. Listen, evaluate, discuss." Instead it's, "Here's a speech. Learn it, live it, love it." The questions aren't about critically evaluating what was said, rather they're about reinforcing the message. "What inspired you most?" "What can you do to help the president?" And while the overtly indoctrinal question about helping the president has been removed, the whole speech remains suspect.
Further drama was created when some school districts unilaterally decided that the speech and cirriculum would be used in all classrooms, without any parental input or consent.
In today's world of YouTube, in-line video on message boards, RSS feeds and so many other ways to access information, Obama's speech and the accompanying lesson plans will be available for just about anyone to access. Parents will be able to review and evaluate before deciding whether to show it to their children. But not until after it's been broadcast.
So why include it in the school day? Because in the schools it's a more receptive atmosphere. The majority of public school teachers voted for Obama and embrace his message. They too want to know what your child will do to help the president, it tells them how your child will help them. If teachers can tell your kids what to think about the speech before you do, they mold your child's thinking.
"Teach your child in the way he should go, and even when he is old he will not depart from it." All parents have the responsibility to see that their children are brought up in the way they should go. That responsibility includes being involved in your child's schooling. Take an interest in what is being taught, what is presented, what lies beneath the three R's. By Tuesday, the speech will be over, the controversy forgotten, but the message will remain. It's up to each of us as parents to help our kids put that message into context.
