Well, I’m sure everyone and their brother-in-law has commented in the blogosphere about President Obama’s upcoming speech to schoolchildren on Tuesday, September 8.
Here in Texas there are public school districts which are refusing to allow students to see the speech live during school. I’m sure this is the case in many other jurisdictions as well.
I suppose it could be argued that the president’s speech interrupts the school day, may not fit into pre-defined curricular goals, etc. And these, I imagine, are some of the reasons which school districts and superintendents will give as rationales for not allowing students to view the speech live. Others will not require students to listen, or will provide alternative activities for students whose parents will not give permission to listen to the speech.
I am not really all that surprised that public schools would be mired in controversy about this. As I see it, the public schools are essentially organs of the State. Their primary purposes are (a) to produce good (productive, responsible, etc) citizens of city, state, and nation; and (b) to maximize the self-fulfillment and self-realization of their students.
The uproar in Texas (and other places) suggests that the latter purpose is predominant in the minds of some parents. The President has “no right” to “indoctrinate” Johnny and Susie. Fair enough, I suppose if purposes (a) and (b) are what you think school is all about.
However, it is more surprising (and disappointing) to me that some Christian schools are unwilling to allow students to listen to the president’s speech live.
What an opportunity is being missed!
- An opportunity to compare the State’s view of education (as no doubt will be eloquently articulated by Mr. Obama) with a distinctly Christian vision of education for service in the ideology-transcending reign of God.
- An opportunity to actually model “honoring those in authority” (Romans 13:1-7) – rather than merely giving lip service to the notion of doing so.
- An opportunity to see history in the making. This hasn’t been done since 1991.
- An opportunity for students to actually know what is going on “real-time” instead of digesting it through media coverage after the fact.
- And finally, an opportunity to demonstrate courage. Should the people of God be afraid of dealing with modern political and social realities?
So, there you have it, at least in this man’s opinion. Tell me what you think in the comments below!
Ah, the comments–always an opportunity to add another thought…
As a former high school teacher, I was thinking about the “live” aspect of the President’s speech. Following the advice of my wife (who is still teaching) I never showed the students a video without previewing it.
Partly this was out of a desire to protect students from inappropriate or simply time-wasting content.
But, and this I think supports the idea of showing the speech after the fact, when I previewed a video segment, I was generally able to prepare a better lesson. That seems like a good reason to record the speech and view it the next day.
Dave – you make a good point and I agree about the previewing to maximize instruction.
Thinking back, I was really surprised to hear that schools were actually thinking about NOT showing the broadcast. The guy IS our president. In some ways, he has more right to address the students in his federally funded schools than the principal.
I would never have hesitated to let my kids watch Clinton, Bush or Bush. There is something unAmerican about censoring the request of the president to talk to American students in government schools.
What did you think when you first heard about the proposed censorship?
World Mag has an interesting article that springboards off of this debate. In a nutshell, nothing really came of this communication with school children. However, there was a secret conference call between National Endowment for Arts and the White House and leading artisans. The conference call openly asked the arts community to take the lead on changing opinion regarding health care, etc.
A few days later, Rock the Vote came up with a poster contest promoting national health care.