Friday, September 4, 2009

President in School?

There is a big uproar right now about the President speaking in schools via Satellite and internet.

The local news station does a "2 cents" segment where the reporter talks about an issue, shares his opinion and viewers call, text or email in a response.

I was shocked at the amount of people who felt that this was brainwashing or abuse of power. One person even called the President Hitler for doing this.

I will say, I did not vote for Obama. I don't agree with everything he is doing, but I fully believe that as the president of the United States, he does deserve some respect. For anyone to suggest he's Hitler for wanting to speak with America's children is insane to me.

I can only imagine as a child how cool it would have been to be able to listen to the president talk, in an address targeted toward me and my friends. After first hearing about this I even told Chance that (if) when I get a teaching job, it would be so cool to talk to a representative or the governor and have them do something similar to this.

I also think it would be super cool for the president to make his address a weekly thing and do shout-outs to specific schools and have specific things to say to them. (ie, go Mustangs or whatever) The memories that would create would be kept forever, whether the childs parents like the president or not. My great uncles remembered FDR's fireside radio chats, and still talked about them up until the time they died. I would love for my child to have something similar to this.

Now, I say all of this information with the perspective that the information shared by the president is extremely generic. I wouldn't want him pushing universal health care on my third grader, but I would love for him to talk about some of his school days and experiences, as well as a few words of encouragement.

ETA: According to the White House this address will be strictly educational and not policy.

1 comments:

Kristen said...

While I did vote for Obama, even I still don't agree with everything he is for. However, I would be okay with any politician, especially the President of the United States, to speak to my children about the importance of education. I just can't believe that with this as a focus that anything else would be suggested. My biggest beef with all of this is how are we to expect our children to grow up open-minded and accepting of other peoples beliefs (even if they disagree) if we shelter them from even hearing them? I'm going to post a response I received via email that says exactly everything I feel.

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