President Obama told a student reporter last month that he would be making an address to schoolchildren on September 8
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The Daily Paul picked up the story last week and linked to teachers’ manuals pegged to Obama’s address, which have now been linked on Drudge.
The documents have a heavy activist bent:
“During the Speech:
• As the President speaks, teachers can ask students to write down key ideas or phrases that are important or personally meaningful. Students could use a note-taking graphic organizer such as a Cluster Web, or students could record their thoughts on sticky notes. Younger children can draw pictures and write as appropriate. As students listen to the speech, 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 can record important parts of the speech where the President is asking them to do something. 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?
• Students can record any questions they have while he is speaking and then discuss them after the speech. Younger children may need to dictate their questions.
After the Speech:
• Teachers could ask students to share the ideas they recorded, exchange sticky notes or stick notes on a butcher paper poster in the classroom to discuss main ideas from the speech, i.e. citizenship, personal responsibility, civic duty.
• Students could discuss their responses to the following questions:What do you think the President wants us to do?
Does the speech make you want to do anything?
Are we able to do what President Obama is asking of us?”
Schools have used students as little lobbyists on everything from illegal immigration to gay marriage to anti-war activism.
And most recently: Census collection.
Will Obama be able to resist issuing a call to youth arms to marshal help in passing his legislative agenda?
The thing is: He won’t need to make the call explicit.
Obama zealot teachers like this one across the country will do all the extra-curricular bullying and haranguing for him.
Hugh Hewitt at Townhall:
Liberals will say critics of this “first ever” presidential speech to students are politicizing a nice gesture by the president about the importance of learning.
But the widespread and growing objection to the idea is that the president has no business injecting himself into every classroom or suggesting to teachers that they help students figure out how they can help the president. If W has tried such a stunt he would have been rightfully roasted for doing so. It is a terrible idea, and ought to be abandoned, but won’t be. Parents who object to the exercise are going to find themselves mocked, but many will do so nonetheless. Whether they will be listened to remains to be seen.
John Hinderaker at Powerline:
Some conservatives, like Hugh Hewitt, are up in arms about the speech. Hugh argues “that the president has no business injecting himself into every classroom or suggesting to teachers that they help students figure out how they can help the president.” The speech doesn’t really seem that sinister to me. But it does strike me as incredibly, inexpressibly lame–President Obama at his geekiest.
Which is, actually, the mode in which I like him best. But I guarantee that America’s school children won’t see it that way. To appreciate fully how lame this event is going to be you have to read the menu of classroom activities that teachers are asked to lead in conjunction with the speech. The linked activities are for grades 7-12; there is another set for elementary school kids.
Presidents often visit classrooms and talk to students. It usually makes a good photo op to put the President with children who obviously enjoy the attention, and there’s no harm in it. It can be a good teaching moment for civics instruction, which this nation does poorly at delivering. The timing can even be explained as the first week in which all children will return to school, and since for many of them it will be their first day, it won’t interrupt their normal curriculum.
Still, the nationwide speech aspect of this is unprecedented, and a little odd. Coming as it does on the heels of a disastrous summer, it’s not surprising that people are suspicious, including the boss:
“Will Obama be able to resist issuing a call to youth arms to marshal help in passing his legislative agenda?
The thing is: He won’t need to make the call explicit.
Obama zealot teachers like this one across the country will do all the extra-curricular bullying and haranguing for him.”
They probably don’t need Obama pushing them to do that, anyway, although it will certainly give them more energy to do so.
If Obama sticks to education and personal achievement in his speech, there should be no controversy. Parents should prepare their children for the difference between political speeches and actual facts in any case, which will be a most useful education regardless of what Obama has to say in his speech.
I imagine that every school will play the broadcast and teachers will of course treat it reverentially.
I also guess that Obama will take the opportunity to boost learning generally, always an important message, but especially important for young black males to hear.
On the other hand, Obama tends to be unable to resist his partisan and/or messianic impulses.
So, you know, is it too much to ask he provide the text of the speech to parents before he delivers it so they can make an informed choice about it?
I’m not saying I don’t trust you. I’m just saying — no, I am saying I don’t trust you, now that I think about it.
Thanks to circa, who’s trying to put The Omen III: The Final Conflict out of his mind and forget that Damien Thorne’s biggest cause and font of support was “the children.”
UPDATE: Charles Johnson at LGF
Frederick M. Hess at The Enterprise Blog at AEI
The WH has changed the language.
Adam Schaeffer at Cato
UPDATE #2:
Michelle Cottle at TNR
UPDATE #3: The text of the speech has been released.
Michael Scherer at Swampland
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