Obama's Speech in schools

I got an email from my son's school about it. He does to a virtual charter public school. The school said this about it: "At 12:00 p.m., Eastern Time (ET), September 8, 2009, President Barack Obama will deliver a national address to the students of America. (Please note that this is a change from the originally scheduled time.) During this special address, the president will speak directly to the nation’s children and youth about persisting and succeeding in school. The president will challenge students to work hard, set educational goals, and take responsibility for their learning.The U.S. Department of Education invites students of all ages, teachers, and administrators to participate in this historic moment by watching the president deliver the address, which will be broadcast live on the White House Web site (http://www.whitehouse.gov/live/) and on C-SPAN at 12:00 p.m., ET. For more information, please visit the U.S. Department of Education's website: http://www.ed.gov/admins/lead/academic/bts.html " It is not required for us to watch it and probly we won't. At least not live.Why? Well telling kids to take school seriously is great. But how to do I know that is all that is going to come out of his mouth? My son is 6. THat is an impressionable age. I will probly watch the speech live myslef first and tHen if I feel its appropriate I will let him watch it. But you know I really do not see why he doing this. It is the PARENTS place to instill education as a priority to their children. Schools, teachers, and even the president can talk til their blue in the face....but if the parents are not fostering education as one of the most important things in their childs lives than none of their words (teachers, board of eduaction, president etc) are going to make a difference. Obama should be making this speech to parents....not the kids. Parents are the ones in a position to make a difference in their children's education. Parents are the ones who can MAKE a child take seriously. Some people complain about home schools, charters schools, private schools or vitrual schools. But you know why most of those kids do better than public school kids? It has nothing to do with money or the teahcers. It has to do with the parents. We are completely committed to the education of our children. All of those schools have hugely higher amount of parent involvement with their childrens education and the school. You can talk all you want about more money to public schools. But until the parents are willing to be more involved and give more of their time things are really not going to change.

Have I seen it? yep, there have been several discussions on this in this section already. I responded in two of the 3 of them, I won't go in to details in this post and I don't really want to copy and paste my responses to those threads, but here they are for reference. http://www.mylot.com/w/discussions/2122567.aspx http://www.mylot.com/w/discussions/2122218.aspx http://www.mylot.com/w/discussions/2121781.aspx

Obama is a Socialist pig that is seeking to take away our rights and force us into government programs and suck away everything that's left from our already small paychecks. I hate Obama.

ok I dont usually post twice in the same discuss but I got some more information on this. So please forgive me for double posting. I virtual school my son. Today the school send me the information for teaching this class and for Obama's speech. Worksheets and questions to ask and stuff like that. From what I can see it is pretty basic....discuss what the job of president is.....setting goals....why school is important. Then a couple of lines jumped out at me on a worksheet for me to do after the speech was over. It said Why it is important to listen to our elected officials (president,senators, govnors, mayors, etc)? Why it is important to do what they ask? Well it isn't. I am not going to tell my 6 year old that he HAS to listen to them and do as he is told. Yes it is important for people to hear what they have to say. But what is more important is that our elected public "servants" listen to US and do what WE say. We are the boss. Not them. We hired them. We pay them. We can fire them. That makes us the boss not them. That is what I will teach my son. Hear what they have to say and then make up your own mind. But never forget who the boss is. You not them. They are the servants. Unforunately a lot of americans have forgotten that. The other was "what can you do to help the president"? Well it is not a 6 years olds job to help the president. Nor is it his "responsibility". It is not any child's responsibility to help the president.They are children. They are responsible for learning and having fun.It is only an ADULTS place to help the president and his agenda IF they agree with it. If they don't agree with it than they have the right not to help him. That goes for any president....not just this one. I have not made up my mind yet if I am going to actually teach this class and let my son watch this speech. I will make up my mind after I watch the speech (without my son). And then if I do decide to do it.....I will skip the parts on the worksheets I don't think are appropriate for him. I will have to say...I did not like it when Bush decided to have a speech and ask for the help of children when he was president and I don't like it now with Obama. What Obama should be doing is having a speech to parents. Explaining how important it is for parents to get involved with their childrens education. Explaining ways they can get involved with the schools. Telling them how they as parents can help tehir children improve in school. That would do more good than a one day speech and a couple of worksheets to a bunch of kids htat will not remember it a month from now. Parents are who can really make a difference in a childs life. Obama is so big about asking adults to do community service. So why not ask the parents to get more involved with their childrens lives and education.

I don't really see the problem either - what it looks like to me is that the President is addressing the children of the nation, which is fair enough, and talking about education, setting goals and all that - and adults who don't support Obama are thinking he is going to indoctrinate their kids to dumbly trot along after all his policies. Don't you think you are underestimating your kids? Do you not think young people can hear him and make up their own minds? They are, presumably being taught the views of their parents at home, but will make up their own minds when they are older. What is this obsession in America with being 'controlled' by someone or something? To quote a line from Doctor Who (I know, the epitome of intellectual knowledge, me!) 'the one think he couldn't stop them doing was thinking'.