Tuesday, March 19, AD 2024 6:50am

Obama and the Kiddies

Obama on September 8 is going to have a large audience for one of his speeches.  This in itself is unusual in view of the declining TV ratings of his speeches.  Even more unusual is the audience: most of the elementary public school kids in the nation.  Why is he doing this?  The US Department of Education has  thoughtfully prepared a study guide for teachers here.  It is untrue that it comes bound in a little red book.

It apparently is still undergoing revisions however:

“As one of the preparatory materials for teachers provided by the Department of Education, students had been asked to, “Write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president. “
Today, after Republicans accused the White House of trying to indoctrinate school children with liberal propaganda the White House and the Department of Education changed the section to now read, “Write letters to themselves about how they can achieve their short?term and long?term education goals.”
“We changed it to clarify the language so the intent is clear,” said White House Spokesman Tommy Vietor…”

The ever cogent Erin Manning at her blog and sometimes tea has her version of the Obama speech and you can read it here.

The truly hilarious thing about this is how it demonstrates how tone deaf politically this administration has become.  I can imagine the scene in the White House among the Obama political advisors:  “The President’s critics contend that he has fostered a cult-like atmosphere and is a proponent of Big Brother goverment.  How do we counter this?  We’ ll go over their heads and talk directly to their kids!  That’ll calm down his critics.”  I almost do think that a Karl Rove mole in the White House is behind this “brilliant” move!

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Rick Lugari
Thursday, September 3, AD 2009 6:54am

Reason 455,543,154 to home school.

Blackadder
Thursday, September 3, AD 2009 7:05am

I think a lot depends here on the content of the speech. If it’s about how you should stay in school, do your homework, etc., then I don’t see the problem (indeed it could be beneficial). If it’s about how kids should be good Democrats, then that would be an issue. Given that these kids won’t be of age to vote for Obama ever, it’s not implausible that the speech will be of the former type.

Rick Lugari
Thursday, September 3, AD 2009 7:49am

I think the worry is that the message will be it is right and moral to support x, y, and z. (all of which are Democratic party ideals). Therefore, our dear and illustrious leader and his cohorts like Pelosi and Reid become champions of morality and good governance and those who oppose them are the immoral enemies of all that is good.

Indoctrination is alive and well in the public schools, and it’s nothing new. It’s been more direct the last 20 years, but as Chesterton pointed out nearly a hundred years ago in England, you can impart an ideology just by the selection of books you have a child read.

Blackadder
Thursday, September 3, AD 2009 8:56am

Indoctrination is alive and well in the public schools, and it’s nothing new.

Indoctrination is just a pejorative word for education, so I would hope there was some of it going on in the public schools.

When the 9/11 attacks happened President Bush was reading a book to school children (My Pet Goat, I believe). He was criticized for a lot of things, but I don’t think anyone criticized him for being there in the first place. Had he been reading Heather Has Two Mommies, it would have been a different story. As I said before, it all depends on the content of the speech.

Jay Anderson
Thursday, September 3, AD 2009 9:26am

Yeah, I’m not too worked up about this, especially if the purpose of the speech is a generic encouragement of kids towards service.

It becomes problematic if the message becomes one of encouraging kids towards a particular policy preference or outcome. But – and perhaps I’m giving the Obama team too much credit here – surely they’re not so hamfisted as to do something that stupid.

All in all, I really have no objection, per se, to schoolchildren hearing a message from the President of the United States.

Rick Lugari
Thursday, September 3, AD 2009 9:45am

Blackadder,

I’d disagree that indoctrination is *just* a pejorative word for education. It may be used as such, but if the idea of education is to impart knowledge in an attempt to foster and enhance understanding, thinking, and reason, then indoctrination may be something entirely different. Still we’re not in much disagreement, since I cited with approval what Chesterton said about the matter.

Henry Karlson
Thursday, September 3, AD 2009 9:46am

Jay and BA

I am glad you are at least waiting to see what is said before judging the action. So many people think they know and pre-judge — but the problem is, I do remember in my youth being put in front of the tv for Ronald Reagan, so it is not a new thing per se, and Presidents can say much which is good for kids, if appropriate things are said. Encouragement is good. As long as it remains non-political (or controversial politics at least).

Phillip
Phillip
Thursday, September 3, AD 2009 10:05am

Actually, there may have been more than “school is good” in the speech:

“The Obama administration is rethinking its course recommendations for students ahead of President Obama’s address to the the nation’s schoolchildren next week, rewriting its suggestions to teachers for student assignments on how to “help the president.”

White House aides said the language was supposed to be an inspirational, pro-education message to America’s youths, but its unintended consequences were evident.

Among the activities initially suggested for pre-K to 6th grade students was to “write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president.”

Another assignment for students after hearing the speech was to discuss what “the president wants us to do.”

The suggestion about writing letters has since been changed to: “Write letters to themselves about how they can achieve their short-term and long-term education goals. These would be collected and redistributed at an appropriate later date by the teacher to make students accountable to their goals.”

White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said the changes to the language are intended to make the lesson plans clearer. He added that the speech is not a policy speech, but is intended to encourage kids to work hard and commit to school.

The speech is “about the value of education and the importance of staying in school as part of his effort to dramatically cut the dropout rate,” Vietor said.

The Washington Times was first to report. Thursday that the plan was being reconsidered. Presidential aides also acknowledged to the newspaper that they helped the U.S. Education Department write the suggested assignments, which stirred criticism by many who say Obama is trying to indoctrinate the education system.”

Blackadder
Thursday, September 3, AD 2009 10:06am

in?doc?tri?nate
–verb (used with object), -nat?ed, -nat?ing.
1. to instruct in a doctrine, principle, ideology, etc., esp. to imbue with a specific partisan or biased belief or point of view.
2. to teach or inculcate.
3. to imbue with learning.
Origin:
1620–30; in- 2 + ML doctr?n?tus ptp. of doctr?n?re to teach; see doctrine, -ate 1

Phillip
Phillip
Thursday, September 3, AD 2009 10:10am

As noted above, perhaps definition 1 was in the mind of the White House.

Rick Lugari
Thursday, September 3, AD 2009 10:23am

I fail to see how the posted definition of indoctrinate differs from what I said.

MacGregor
MacGregor
Thursday, September 3, AD 2009 10:39am

Wow, who writes some of these articles.

It is one thing to be properly skeptical about politicians, but this is so obviously a politically slanted take on the matter. Every president who gets out in front of the camera often walks a very fine line between being communicative and being overbearing. President Bush, in my opinion, was too secretive and rarely gave press conferences and almost all of his speeches were at the WH or on military bases.

Obama can be criticized for being too much in the media, but that is the 24-hour news cycle and the Twitter-filled world we live in. He has been about as out spoken as he can be against lazy parenting and dead beat dads in the African American community and yet there are some who only seem to imagine the worst.

Again it is necessary to be skeptical of politicians, but Erin Manning’s blog is just dismissive and sophomoric, not “cogent.” Did she criticize Bush’s private school education the way she criticizes Obama’s?

Anyone who assumes that President Obama is going to be ideological seems to be fishing for controversy and has basically ignored the fact that his speeches tend to be overly down the middle and pragmatic. Portraying Obama as Hitler/Stalin/Mao (“little red book”) is simply snarky propaganda and indoctrination at its worst.

I am heartened that others here remember that other presidents have talked to school kids without destroying the fabric of civilization, so maybe Rick, you can wait before you judge. If Obama tries to turn Sally and Johnny into soldiers of liberalism by describing the differences between supply-side and demand-side economic theory and that they should all marry within their same gender, then I’d be the first to voice my outrage!

Phillip
Phillip
Thursday, September 3, AD 2009 10:46am

That’s fine, but given the state of most public schools, its not beyond the pale to believe that the class assignment on “how to help the President” could easily become a partisan assignment. Even the White House recognized it was vague. Thus they changed it.
Though its unclear why the White House is writing lesson plans for the speech to begin with.

Rick Lugari
Thursday, September 3, AD 2009 10:59am

MacGregor,

Please read my initial post carefully, you will see that I made no judgment and that I was stating what I believe the fear of critics to be. Personally, I think the speech will be fairly innocuous. Though I do find the initial proposed exercises inappropriate. I also stated that I thought the degree of indoctrination (in the partisan sense) has been more direct the last 20 years. That encompasses all the Bush years too, dontcha know.

Even at that, I didn’t have in mind presidential visits in mind. I was thinking more along the lines of sex education, “different” lifestyle choices, environmental doom-and-gloom hysteria, etc.

Phillip
Phillip
Thursday, September 3, AD 2009 11:54am

Ah yes, it was a bit intemperate.

MacGregor
MacGregor
Thursday, September 3, AD 2009 11:59am

Phillip: The White House isn’t writing lesson plans for the speech, the Dept. of Education did or at least may have. Not a lot of real facts yet. The Dept. of Ed. does that sort of thing, then schools and teachers decide if they want to use the curriculum. The schools are run by local districts who are in no way obligated to do anything. That’s how schools work.

Rick: I am glad you didn’t jump to the conspiracy theories that others have. I agree that the first PROPOSED SUGGESTION for a paper was reworded. As a teacher and a curriculum developer you write things many way and test things out before actually doing a lesson – whether in a private, public or home-school situation (and I’ve taught in all three!). So one draft lesson plan from a Dept. of Education curriculum writer is hardly a vast liberal agenda against the minds of America’s youth.

Your description of “champions of morality and good governance and those who oppose them are the immoral enemies of all that is good” is one that fits the previous administration far more than the current one.

It is my reading of history however I’m not sure what you mean by indoctrination being more “direct” in the last 20 years. I think schools did a very direct job of indoctrinating kids in the 1920’s in the South regarding the separateness of African Americans and in the 1950’s regarding the communist threat. Indoctrination, socialization, citizenship, education – these all have been a part of creating a national sense of identity and a regional/cultural sense of identity and with private Catholic schools, a religious/sacred sense of identity.

Read John Dewey to find out how important a strong, public educational system was important for a democracy the size of the United States.

It is important to make sure there is a healthy blend of national/regional/familial identity in any educational system. Unfortunately some of the most aberrant sociopathic situations occur in private, secretive, cultish situations.

Phillip
Phillip
Thursday, September 3, AD 2009 12:10pm

Actually the Dept of Education admits that the White House had a hand in writing the lesson plans with them.

Tito Edwards
Thursday, September 3, AD 2009 2:00pm

I’d pull my kids out simply because it is Obama speaking. He has nothing worthy to offer my kids (if I had any).

No matter how some say the speech is not being indoctrination, it’s reason # 455,543,154 enough to home school.

I agree with Rick Lugari.

Matt McDonald
Matt McDonald
Thursday, September 3, AD 2009 2:36pm

MacGregor,

So one draft lesson plan from a Dept. of Education curriculum writer is hardly a vast liberal agenda against the minds of America’s youth.

Read John Dewey to find out how important a strong, public educational system was important for a democracy the size of the United States.

You just proved my point. Dewey was a leading proponent of the vast liberal agenda you are espousing here.

Foxfier
Thursday, September 3, AD 2009 8:01pm

All things considered, I find this alarming…..

There is a WORLD of difference between doing the classic “go in and read a cute little story to the kids” involvement with school and pushing a political agenda into the curriculum. I know it’s highly popular in some zones, but it’s a really bad idea… not just because folks don’t learn how to think, just what.

CMinor
Thursday, September 3, AD 2009 11:10pm

Even if the speech is a completely innocuous pep talk or call to service, it’s going to be less than beneficial. The last thing most kids need cluttering up their school day is another pep talk or lecture on how nice it is to do things for others. What they need is to be actually learning in class (or maybe rendering actual service.) Other than that, I’m not getting my undies in a rumple about it. Some kids will doubtless be impressed that the prez is talking to them, and will go home to parents who are equally impressed. Others will come from households where the prez is not worshipped as a minor diety, and will not be especially interested. It’s unlikely one more lackluster speech is going to win over the previously unwon youth of America even if that was the ploy, and if it does most of them won’t be voting age when he runs again anyway.

Somebody up there mentioned seeing Reagan on TV in school. I remember seeing a moon landing or two in school, but no presidents (of course, we didn’t have TVs in every classroom back then.) I also don’t recall any previous president organizing a stunt involving a direct address to a large segment of the nation’s schoolchildren. It’s really not in the presidential job description: it’s a timewaster and serves no useful purpose. That underlies the suspicion that’s been generated.

Elaine Krewer
Admin
Friday, September 4, AD 2009 6:37am

A minor point, but this address is a Webcast, NOT a televised speech. I think a lot of parents picture TV sets being rolled into the classrooms and everyone watching it at an appointed hour with rapt attention like we did in our youth with space missions, presidential inaugurations, etc. That does not seem to be what is happening here. Anything broadcast online can be saved or downloaded for viewing when and if one chooses. Apparently many teachers are going to do just that — save it for later in case anyone WANTS to see it.

The suggested activities are also nothing new either; if I remember correctly, NASA prepared similar materials for the ill-fated Challenger mission that included Christa McAuliffe, the first teacher in space. It is up to each teacher or school to decide what to do with them.

master c
master c
Friday, September 4, AD 2009 11:23am

MacGregor,
this blog is actually the Republican American Catholic. They are very suspicious
of everything Obama does. No love for him here. I was not a fan of George Bush,
but I never once told my kids that he wasn’t to be respected. I think kids should be encouraged to respect authority of all stripes: parents,teachers, policemen,
priests, and yes, even the president.

Foxfier
Friday, September 4, AD 2009 11:25am

Anything broadcast online can be saved or downloaded for viewing when and if one chooses.

Depends if it’s streamed viewing or downloaded. (Yes, I know you can technically capture a stream, but they are generally designed to be watched without being designed to be easily stored for later use.)

Also depends on if they officially allow the speech to be saved and redistributed– it’ll happen if they will it or no, but their reaction is going to be important.

The suggested activities are also nothing new either; if I remember correctly, NASA prepared similar materials for the ill-fated Challenger mission that included Christa McAuliffe, the first teacher in space.

There’s a world of difference between “send a teacher to space so kiddies learn about Space Stuff, here’s what we’ll be doing” and “the leader of the executive branch wants direct access to children in public education for a speech, here’s a lesson plan.”
(I still want to know what tin-eared idiot wrote the instruction for kids to write about how they can help Obama.)

Matt McDonald
Matt McDonald
Friday, September 4, AD 2009 11:33am

It’s interesting to me, that the same liberals who find that anything the government at any level (or even students in government schools) does to endorse religion, or limit abortion is “coercive” but on the other hand this action is somehow innocuous.

Foxfier
Friday, September 4, AD 2009 11:54am

master c-
Exactly where are we telling kids to disrespect the office of the President?

Same way that just because I respect cops doesn’t mean I am going to give a flying fig about their choices in fabric for home decorating, if an authority figure steps outside of their area of authority they are not to be treated as an authority in the new area.

Obama is the head of one of three branches of gov’t; he is not a teacher, and injecting politics into school is both far too common and a bad thing.

MacGregor
MacGregor
Saturday, September 5, AD 2009 2:36pm

Foxfier, what politics is being injected into schools?!?!? Where? The text of the speech will be released on Monday so that you and parents and teachers and school boards can review it first. If there is any politics in the speech, I would agree with you and condemn the idea. My understanding is that it is about staying in school, yadda yadda.

Pretty innocuous as Rick now admits. However if you are from a minority group in which education is seen as a luxury or as as waste of time, this may be pretty impactful for you. I think most on this forum don’t remember how important this election and presidency has been. I certainly remember hearing about how important John Kennedy’s election was to Catholic Americans and I know that he was on TV’s in many Catholic schools several times.

Again, I don’t think many in this forum even have a clue with how schools work. Teachers, schools and entire school districts are not required to do anything, show anything. You may like to believe that we live in a dictatorship to make you feel better about disliking the current president, but it isn’t accurate. As a teacher at all levels, I can tell you just keeping kids on task for a few minutes can be challenging – no amount of TV speeches would be tolerated or in the least bit effective in indoctrinating anyone. Maybe some of you need a reality check. It takes years of religious classes for many of us in Catholic schools to be ready for confirmation and even then I suspect not everyone fully was on board when we all received the sacrament. That’s just reality.

Matt, you have some serious issues to think that Dewey was particularly radical. Maybe take a class or something because you’ve sufficiently proven your ignorance. Before Dewey schools in America were largely medieval institutions and run like the factories that were dominating the nations economic landscape. Dewey reasoned that a democracy could only be effective if people had the knowledge to vote intelligently and wisely and that meant critical thinking and philosophy and all of the things you don’t seem to be expressing yourself. By the way I have no problem with students having religious clubs and expressing their opinions to limit abortion and in fact in the real world, plenty of schools allow exactly that. There is a BIG difference between a school endorsing a religion and Obama saying to kids who may look up to him, “school is important.” One goes against the establishment clause in the Constitution, the other does not, can you guess which one?

Tito, the fact that you would pull your hypothetical kids out of school because of a 5-minute speech by the president shows a few things:

1. You think your own statement is more important than anything your hypothetical kids might learn that day. Fine, but then you have wasted more time for learning than the speech would waste and you’ve lost the opportunity to actually talk to your kids about what they thought. That is the point of education beyond simply learning facts, education and school is about giving your kids the experience of talking among themselves and with adults about ideas and important issues in a safe way so that when they are adults they have the tools to discuss and make choices. That is what a liberal education is (see John Dewey above), not about liberal political views. Thus most small Catholic colleges are intentionally called “liberal arts” universities.

2. You obviously distrust ANYTHING to do with public education and that is up to you as well of course, but it seem to me to be a very narrow viewpoint and it is when people hold on to narrow-minded points of view that democracy has it most difficult times. I have many friends who homeschool and they do very well, but they don’t have to demonize public schools.

Phillip, yes I agree that the WH had a hand in suggestions for the Dept. of Education and I agree that the first wording was problematic and I actually also agree that it might reveal an over-enthusiasm on the part of WH staff to put the President in too prominent a position. But again, it was a draft and I doubt Obama would have known about it and it looks like they changed it early on anyway, so guess what kids, the system works.

At some point if you are anti-Obama for philosophical or political reasons, I certainly have no problem with that. I don’t agree with everything he says or does and I also had an initial skeptical response to an address to students, but my Catholic education did a good job in instilling intellectual honesty and critical thinking skills before jumping to judgement too quickly.

Fear, anger, ignorance and hubris are the four worst mental states for honest discussions and for making good choices. I see these demonstrated on the far left and the far right and at times on this blog. Why not use this debate and the President’s speech to teach our kids and each other what democracy is all about?

foxfier
Saturday, September 5, AD 2009 2:56pm

MacGregor –
From the lesson plans put out– two different forms, now– it’s pretty clear he is not giving a nice little PSA to “stay in school, kids!”

You may want to do a bit of research before talking about others being ignorant, by the way. (ditto on the hubris part)
It is not a “5-minute speech by the president”– it is a 15 to 20 minute lecture by the president, with lesson plans (written by Obama’s folks) before and after, and by looking at the adjusted lesson plans we know the topics are going to be “citizenship, personal responsibility, and civic duty.”

All this is given a few days before the 11th.

Without parents being there, even if they are now going to release the text ahead of time.

Oh, and they had to adjust the prior lesson plans, because “write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president” was a bit too openly creepy.

MacGregor
MacGregor
Saturday, September 5, AD 2009 4:06pm

foxfier, it would have been helpful if you had shown your sources for the lesson plans but since you are more interested in being snarky than being helpful, I’ll put them out there. I’ll even give FOXNews props for making the the links to the lesson plans easily available, though I can’t tell if this is the final version or the first version. Here they are:

http://www.ed.gov/teachers/how/lessons/prek-6.pdf
http://www.ed.gov/teachers/how/lessons/7-12.pdf

First, I can see that using the president’s name is kind of creepy from the point of view that he has already been criticized as having a cult of personality. I admit if Reagan had done the same thing (which he kind of did, but lesson plans were not made as quickly now and the internet was not up and running to get stuff out there) I would be skeptical about this.

However I know that especially with young kids you can’t just use abstract words like the “president” or the “principal” – it is customary to use proper names so kids can identify with the person. That’s why you learn about President Washington, etc.

The phrase “Are we able to do what President Obama is asking of us?” is an example of a question that makes sense to ask a kindergartener, but not so much for a 6th grader, in my opinion. It can seem creepy in some contexts, but pretty unremarkable in others.

This goes to what I feel is just not well written lesson plans rather than from an indoctrination program. As a matter of fact, these are really suggestions for teacher who may not have used speeches as a context in class before and are not really much of a lesson plan as such.

The suggestions for 7th grade and above to me seem to be centered about critical thinking and learning techniques like concept webs for analyzing and interpreting how a person speaks to a topic. This should encourage teachers and students to be critical of the speech with both negative and positive analysis. That is what a good teacher would get from this. That is the point of especially high school education – students learning skills and practicing being adults. The lesson plan ideas also seem to encourage teachers to talk about the speeches of other presidents and I would hope they get videos with Bush, Clinton and Reagan as well. This part of curriculum development, though, you’ll never see on CNN or FOX, but this is what teachers spend most of their time doing, if they are worth their salt.

Nowhere is ANYONE required to see or show the president and no teacher is forced to do anything from the lesson plan suggestions.

For those of you who don’t really know how schools work nowadays and how basically impossible it is for any president to infect students with any ideology, this article may be a reality check: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-obama-schoolkids5-2009sep05,0,2023699.story
Even a republican school board trustee isn’t too worried about it.

So, foxfier, many you got me. The speech is more than 5 minutes long and it isn’t just a lame “stay in school, kids” PSA. It actually will have some content to it. Now tell me what problem you have with students studying “citizenship, personal responsibility and civic duty.” As a science teacher they were not always a part of my lesson plans, but after 9/11 all teachers were encouraged to add these to their curriculum and Bush’s speeches were made available for this.

I’m a little more creeped out that you find it creepy that this is happening so close to 9/11. This is the beginning of the school year and schools do many activities regarding recent history and civics on the anniversary of the attacks. For high schoolers this goes to the current wars and conflicts with terrorists. Again, how is this suddenly so weird for you. Did you not know this happens in schools every year since 2001?

You also think students need parents there to learn about and discuss citizenship? Wow, first you would need to be in school with your kids on a weekly basis to make sure you control everything you kids discuss. Second, older students (not to mention teachers) wouldn’t get anything done if they knew their parents would be in the room every time they were asked controversial questions. They need to be able to express themselves at some point.

For those of you who homeschool, you can of course ignore it or use it in what ever way you like (I repeat that I like homeschooling and have helped with it many times), however eventually your kids need to deal with others and need to learn how to discuss things with people that don’t agree with them, so this might be a good example to do this.

It is good to be skeptical of this speech, but I think it is ignorant to go over the top in thinking that a 15-minute speech on citizenship is really overstepping the bounds of government or even good taste – even if it was G. W. Bush doing it.

foxfier
Saturday, September 5, AD 2009 4:21pm

MacGregor –
There is someone here interested in “snark” and personal attacks, but it’s not me.

Perhaps if you bothered to read the objections here, and respond in good faith, you’d know that.

MacGregor
MacGregor
Saturday, September 5, AD 2009 4:27pm

I think each of us should think about this:

If this were President McCain talking about citizenship in a post 9/11 world would we have the same opinion about it being seen in schools? Would we think it government intrusion?

If you say “yes” then I admire your consistency, but I might question your view of how students get introduced civics in anyway that is not from a boring book.

If you say “no” then you might be biased in your views – and that would go for liberals as well as conservatives.

And just to get back to the original article that started this thread, why does the author have such a giddy view of Karl Rove? I guess the politics of lies (just ask McCain) and deception fit in with this persons view of Catholic morality.

MacGregor
MacGregor
Saturday, September 5, AD 2009 4:37pm

foxfier, I have responded in good faith and I have given you what I feel are the issues and facts as I see them. You used the terms “ignorant” and “hubris” pretty much aimed at me. I only used them in very general terms and definitely and obviously not at you.

I find Tito and Matt particularly obvious in their disdain for anyone who does not agree with them, but I didn’t say that about you.

I have read your objections and I believe respectfully answered them. If you would give me specifics I would appreciate it. I know I ramble in my posts, but usually people here ignore the dozen or so most important issues and pick one little thing to pick on, like you did as to the whether the speech was going to be 5 or 15 minutes.

MacGregor
MacGregor
Saturday, September 5, AD 2009 4:46pm

By the way, CNN (yeah, I know CNN is run by godless communists) just showed clips of Reagan, George H. Bush and George W. Bush, all three speaking on camera to students in classrooms.

Just trying to find facts amid the rhetoric.

Dale Price
Dale Price
Saturday, September 5, AD 2009 7:31pm

“and George W. Bush, all three speaking on camera to students in classrooms. Just trying to find facts amid the rhetoric. ”

I saw the same report, and it was a masterpiece of rhetorical misdirection. As to the 43rd President, Bush II was simply filmed while speaking to students in a particular class room. He never made a speech to all students generally, like the current President is proposing.

Oh, and it was the 9/11 reading to the elementary students footage, which is apropos of nothing, except to take a cheap shot at Bush II.

That said, I don’t have any problem with what President Obama is proposing, so long as there is no politicking whatsoever.

foxfier
Saturday, September 5, AD 2009 8:09pm

You used the terms “ignorant” and “hubris” pretty much aimed at me.

Hm, why would I have done that…. oh, because of this:
Fear, anger, ignorance and hubris are the four worst mental states for honest discussions and for making good choices. I see these demonstrated on … this blog.

Perhaps you should not so readily demonstrate the things you criticize if you are going to throw stones.

MacGregor
MacGregor
Sunday, September 6, AD 2009 4:42am

Donald, thanks for clarifying your purpose in using Rove as an example of the level of “foolishness” that you feel the characterizes the entire speech idea. I guess the imagery and phraseology of Hitler Youth and “little red books” might have clouded my view of your intent.

Thank you also for standing up for your thread. It is difficult for me to tell who authors which threads on this site since there are no attributions. It seems sort of like the editorial page of a newspaper. My attack was snarky and meant to cause a reaction, but was not directed toward anyone as a personal attack because I didn’t see anyone in particular as the author. I am sorry. As usual such statements simply take focus away from real issues.

Dale, I was not referring to the CNN report on “My Pet Goat.” That was not a televised address to students, just a televised photo op on a very bad day. I was referring to the fact that the Bush’s speech after 9/11 was shown to many schools (mostly high schools because the speech was too graphic and abstract for younger children) and it was given with curriculum ideas that were emailed from the Dept. of Ed. Obviously these were not pre-planned at the time, and I don’t have copies of them anymore, but a list of curricula and lesson plans based upon 9/11 and asking students to discuss issues and what they feel they can do to help can be found on this site:

http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/curriculum/socialStd/9_11_Bookmarks.html

It is current education theory to always ask students to brainstorm things that they can do as a means of empowering themselves so as not to feel they are powerless. This may seem weird, but apathy is seen as one result of students not being asked to engage and express a respected opinion.

The Bush 41 clip that I remembered was simultcasted on a semi-national education network and back then depended upon dedicated hardware at the school building level. I don’t know if the CNN piece that you saw got into that much detail.

foxfier, I guess you admit you aimed those terms at me, but still I didn’t throw stones at you. I do not have fear or anger in my posts and I admit to ignorance when I am corrected and I try to give the facts and resources as I see them. As for hubris, that is a difficult nuance to filter or discern on a blog thread, but I think I have indicated that I don’t know everything, that I believe in being skeptical and thanked others for showing my mistakes.

I still believe that those are four difficult mental states to overcome and that the video clip at embedded in the article (I don’t know if you produced it Donald) seems to take a black humor (an effective and admirable technique of propaganda) to impart fear and anger in its viewers. Am I wrong? It takes relatively benign questions from the lesson plans and contorts them into commands “dictated by our president.” Turning ideas about “sticky notes” and videos on the importance of education are then juxtaposed to a mesmerizing pattern on a screen with the word “obey” on it. Funny to be sure, but of course it is an example of the exact kind of propaganda that it pretends to be against. A common enough technique – “Let me show you how manipulative Mr. A is by manipulating you even more!”

If you would like to add to the discussion by actually bringing up a particular fact or issue that either I made or that you have, that would be great. Dale actually took a topic and enlightened me on an example pertaining to something brought up in this discussion and he did so very well – not that he needs or wants my approval.

For example do you think parents should be in the classroom when they see a speech by or discuss the words of any president?

Do you think asking students to write about the importance of education is a liberal-biased topic? I don’t think they are being asked to say public education is best or necessary and I’m sure few teachers will bring up John Dewey.

Would you have the same concerns with a President McCain or Bush? As I indicated Obama definitely has to be more careful about coming across as a cult of personality figure, so that is an appropriate issue.

Is this really about Obama or is this as much about the immediacy of the Twitter age and perhaps students seeing the first president who actually used to text message as much as they do might be one who could relate to them about basic things like civics and responsibility?

Is it really a step toward fascism or is it mostly a politically dumb thing to do as Donald wrote?

MacGregor
MacGregor
Tuesday, September 8, AD 2009 1:42am

I’ve posted way too much the last few days, but I thought this was an interesting exchange.

http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200909060005

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Tuesday, September 8, AD 2009 2:04pm

[…] accused many Americans of overreacting to the speech that President Obama will be delivering to school children today (at 11:00 am Central Daylight […]

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