Keep Your Child Home From School On September 8th?

[Bill Call]

On September 8th the President will give a speech extolling the virtues of the State. The speech will be broadcast to school assemblies nationwide:

http://www.ed.gov/news/events/advisory.html

The President (and many others) seem to agree with Plato:

"Children must attend school, whether their parents like it or not; for they belong to the state more than to their parents."

This is from the Joe Madak, Superintendent of Lakewood Schools:

"In talking with staff and with other school districts we will do the following:

1. We will capture the address electronically.

2. We will not disrupt our school schedule.

3. We will provide a link on our web site for parents who wish to view this address with their children.

4. We will have staff preview and use the address where it fits in with what we are doing instructionally."

One of the primary motives behind the establishment of the federal Department of Education was political. A centralized education bureaucracy can better control what is taught and what is thought.

Will you encourage your children to question the State and the roll of government or will you let them be taught that obedience to the State is the highest virtue? Will districts that make their students watch this speech let other voices be heard?

[Jim DeVito]

Perhaps it is time we start arming our kids to defend against the inevitable commie power grab.

[sharon kinsella]

This is the president, not an arbitrary person and he is doing a service to our children.

Shame on the school board. Aren't elections coming up for some?

[Jerry Ritcey]

If the "left" was complaining about Bush addressing schoolkids, the right wingers would about lose their damn minds.

This is utterly vapid. They keep finding new ways to be even stupider, I think the republicans are approaching a kind of stupidity singularity.

[Gary Rice]

I just made this comment on another thread, but I'll paste it here, because it seems to apply.

Learning to learn from each other has long been an American tradition that made us, as a people, the hope of the world.

Lately though, power seeking individuals of virtually all stripes and at virtually all levels of government and society, seem to find value in dividing us into uncompromising camps, and zero-sum games (a political term meaning that the only way for me to win, would be for you to lose)

Just today, for example, there's this talk about not letting school children see a presidential speech about education next week because it might be politically offensive to some.

And perhaps... it even could be? Only....

I've never heard of such a thing in the past in this country. To not allow young people to hear something related to their own interests, and trust them to arrive at their own conclusions?

Where does this kind of thing end?

I'll tell you where. We've seen it before, have we not?

On the battlegrounds of any (un)civil war that you would care to name- from the fields of Gettysburg, or any other conflict you might care to name- where brothers (and sisters too!) came to blows over this point or that....

Are there things in life worth fighting for? No doubt about it...but I'm a firm believer that debate is safer than destruction.

We either learn to get along, and listen to each other, or the concentration camps start up again....

We need to take a step back and think about how this kind of stuff has historically ended up...This, I do believe.

I will say that, as an educator (retired) that I think the Superintendent made the right call here. They're not excluding the Presidential presentation, necessarily, but are considering it in the context of the regular school business day. The framing of presentation and timing of current events is a matter to be weighed against daily classroom goals and objectives. I would imagine that it will be covered in some way, and at the appropriate time, under Social Studies auspices.

Back to the banjo...

[Donald Farris]

Hi,
The President wants to help with a civics lesson. The Lakewood school system apparently doesn't agree (that is what you said, Mr. Call that according to Mr. Madak he was not going to let the President's speech be broadcasted to the school population (right?)). So, I'm confused. If the Lakewood School System isn't going to do as our President wants. and it's going to be a day just like any other, why would you ask if people are going to keep their kids out of school?

Are your concerns Mr. Call a standard view of the GOP? It sounds a bit like your not a GOP but an anarchist. We do want our great nation to have a long and prosperous existence. We do want our President to work to see to that. Educating our youth is a good thing. I'm surprised: a). you oppose this and b). Our Schools system isn't cooperating.

[Bill Call]

Perhaps it is time we start arming our kids to defend against the inevitable commie power grab.

Perhaps the speech can be part of a discussion about our first Progressive president:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0205/p09s01-coop.html

Don’t worry about communism, worry about progressivism:
http://civilliberty.about.com/od/histor ... e-ACLU.htm

This is the president, not an arbitrary person and he is doing a service to our children.
Shame on the school board. Aren't elections coming up for some?

I think the superintendent got it right.

A president’s speech can be part of a broader discussion about civil liberties, the limits of government and the role of the president.

When did the president become the National School Marm?

When did people start focusing their dreams and ambitions on their role in the machinery of the State?

If the "left" was complaining about Bush addressing schoolkids, the right wingers would about lose their damn minds.

This is utterly vapid. They keep finding new ways to be even stupider, I think the republicans are approaching a kind of stupidity singularity.

Bush tried the same stupid stunt:

http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washingtonp ... rtising%27

Just today, for example, there's this talk about not letting school children see a presidential speech about education next week because it might be politically offensive to some.

And perhaps... it even could be? Only....

I've never heard of such a thing in the past in this country. To not allow young people to hear something related to their own interests, and trust them to arrive at their own conclusions?

I think Dr. Madak got it right. Overall, Lakewood schools are in good (if overly generous) hands.

Why should students be taught to care about what the President wants them to do?

Will other politicians who have a different philosophy of government be given the same opportunity to reach the children?

What won’t be taught so that so that Saul Alinky’s ideas can reach a broader audience?

President Obama cut his teeth on the radical handbook. Why is there a political response to this idea? Because EVERYTHING he does is political.

It’s a bit ironic that calls to discuss and disagree with the president’s propaganda campaign are seen as divisive but the propaganda campaign itself is seen as “uniting the people”.

President Obama wants people to see themselves as subjects of the State. Is it treason to disagree?

[michael gill]

It's a shame our schools didn't have the opportunity to opt out of the last presidential administration's political stunt targeted at the schools.

Wouldn't it have been great to be able to store NCLB in digital memory and allow it to be used in the classrooms as teachers saw fit.

We will not disrupt our school schedule . . . We will provide a link on our web site for parents who wish to view this address with their children . . . We will have staff preview and use NCLB where it fits in with what we are doing instructionally."

[Gary Rice]

Just a little thread drift here:

The NCLB law was honestly and unfortunately I believe, a bipartisan effort that went way too far. In my opinion, it went a long way towards selling out both individual needs, and the spirits of classroom inquiry and diversity; as it attempted to turn our classrooms into one-size-fits-all sweat-shop cattle chutes and standardized testing machines.

Don't get me wrong. I don't think that having standards and high expectations are necessarily bad things at all. I just think that the politicians missed the boat when those other lessons about flexibility and individualized needs were passed out. (oops)

As a Special Ed teacher (ret.) I would feel this way, I suppose.

To the extent that schools have been able to maintain whatever local autonomy, independence and control that they are able to muster, good for them. I don't believe that schools should be forced to tune into any external televised activities, or unreviewed broadcasting without putting due and careful consideration for the students' interests first in the context of their lessons.

Teachers and administrators are charged with a responsibility to present material fairly, impartially, and in an open and honest spirit of inquiry.

Back to the point here. A Presidential speech directed to the youth of America needs to be seen by them, and I'm sure that it will be. It might have been better if it were delivered after school hours. Then if Social Studies teachers, having time to study it, wanted to incorporate it into a lesson on the following day, great.

'Course if it were delivered after school, we might just wonder exactly HOW MANY kids would actually take the time to see it?

That... would be another matter altogether. (smile)

Back to the banjo...

[sharon kinsella]

Bill - Sometimes I genuinely wonder what is in the brownies you eat.

Is everyone in your world suspect?

Even I, radical leftie that I am, would think that even Bush was the president and as such, if he had done this, should be heard.

In addition, if there are no additives in your brownies, perhaps you should try some.

[Dave Mechenbier]

I think the district got it absolutely correct. Give the kids and their parents the opportunity to watch the speech on their OWN time, if they choose to. No need to change the schedules of the school day. Heck, a teacher could make the speech an extra credit opportunity. Watch the speech, do some additional written work, turn it in.

This way kids who are interested or kids who want the points can take it in. As a bonus parents can do the same and make it a family teaching moment. This puts the responsibility with the parents too, those who are firmly for or against Obama in the classroom really ought to take the time, beyond talk radio to watch the speech.

[Stan Austin]

I was going to say that this would be an opportunity to have kids in school watch a national leader who is fluent in English, and uses logical reasoning.
hehe

[ryan costa]

Perhaps the speech can be part of a discussion about our first Progressive president:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0205/p09s01-coop.html

Don’t worry about communism, worry about progressivism:
http://civilliberty.about.com/od/histor ... e-ACLU.htm

progress is relative. in a broad modern sense, Theodore Roosevelt could be considered the first big progressive president. He combined being intelligent with being a Republican: it hasn't quite been repeated since.

the parties of yesterday are not comparable to the parties of today. President Wilson's racial attitudes could best be likened to that of the dixiecrat or NeoCon. His 14 points of light were a rational response to the horrors and slaughter of World War One. His call for a more "parliamentary" form of government is more in line with the Patrician origins of our early republic: it simply wasn't expedient to call for only prosperous white males over 21 to vote for a narrow band of patricians who would cooperate with each other a bit more closely.

What is Progressive? America was founded on the principles of redistributing land controlled by the British to....rebels who were higher up. the founding fathers relied mostly on Distance to ward off the British, French, Spanish, Netherlands. They generally fared poorly in direct conflicts with them. It took seven years to ward off a small portion of the british. The Early days of the republic were based on coercing native americans into treaties or contracts, then violating those treaties or contracts. This and the later Homestead Act allowed yeomen pioneers to be yeomen pioneers. with that cheap rich land you didn't need so many taxes: folks started making up stuff about libertarianism. the creation myth behind libertarian mythology. President Andrew Jackson is sometimes a guy the Neocons can admire: he didn't quite inherit his wealth. His Gold Standard did plunge the U.S. into a deep recession.

cheap land raised wages: you had to pay folks more to stop them from just leaving for the frontier or the sticks.

what was the point of any of this? Oh. the President wants the kids to be able to hear his speech. if President Eisenhower or Jefferson or Washington or Ford or Grant wanted to it would probably be all right.

When I was in high school the Mayor visited my civics class. in middle school we had a field trip to city hall and the police station.


When I was in high school some Commercial Free Market interests had donated Televisions and some cable technology to our high school in exchange for carrying their programming. We didn't get any live Presidential speeches. There was extensive coverage lamenting the death of rapper Easy E. The commercial free market media tried to get me feeling sympathetic for a drug dealing gang banging rapper who had infected innumerable women with AIDs. is this Civics?

[Charlie Page]

I was going to say that this would be an opportunity to have kids in school watch a national leader who is fluent in English, and uses logical reasoning.
hehe

Let's hope Teleprompter doesn't fail him....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDJSVPAx ... re=related

[Bill Call]

It is time to move this discussion to:

viewtopic.php?f=38&t=8449