"...an important key to teaching children ethical behavior is learning to recognize teachable moments through which your children can develop the habit of being aware of ethical challenges." Steven Carr Reuben
On September 8, 2009, President Obama (D) gave a motivational speech to schoolchildren across America. Many Rs were unhappy that the President used his office to talk to school children. Do you think they were as upset when George H.W. Bush (R) addressed public school students on October 1991? Do you think Ds demanded a special GAO probe of President Obama as they did in 1991 when they ordered a special probe by the GAO in response to Bush's speech?
The President's message was one of personal responsibility. He called on students to stay in school and take personal responsibility for getting their education. The message was one that a parent might deliver to a child, and some parents were upset about the President assuming this role. A news commenter in this NBC video, revealed his bias, declaring that parents who were upset about Obama speaking to their public school children "aren't smart enough" to raise them. One thing is obvious, those parents aren't smart enough to realize that they're supposed to love Big Brother.
To help students benefit from an address by their leader, the Department of Education prepared an online letter with some classroom activities for school teachers about President Obama's speech. One of the Department of Education-prepared discussion questions (pdf) for pre-K through grade 6 students included these questions:
- Why is it important that we listen to the president and other elected officials, like the mayor, senators, members of congress, or the governor? Why is what they say important?
Both of these questions start with one extra word which prejudices the question, presenting a false choice to the student.
Department of Education discussion questions (pdf) for grades 7 through 12 included two questions that started with one extra word to prejudice the student by presenting a false choice again:
- How will he inspire us?
- How will he challenge us?
The following Department of Education discussion question stresses the apparent main point of the President's speech:
- We heard President Obama mention the importance of personal responsibility. In your life, who exemplifies this kind of responsibility? How? Give examples.
Here are some additional questions for parents and teachers to consider:
- What article in the US Constitution authorizes a department of Education?
- Where was "personal responsibility" when the President and Congress forced taxpayers to bail out the banks?
- Where was "personal responsibility" when the President and Congress forced taxpayers to bail out automakers?
- Where is the "personal responsibility" when the planned healthcare reform forces taxpayers to pay for all citizens to have health insurance?
- When the President ended his speech he said:
"I’m working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books, equipment and computers you need to learn."
Does he mean he's taking personal responsibility and spending his own money to pay for all the things a student needs to learn? Or was he channeling Ted Kennedy?
And finally, an extra credit question for all Americans:
How does President Obama inspire children to learn personal responsibility when the policies of his administration reward the irresponsibility of some at the expense of others?
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With all due respect to your take on "teachable moments," permit me to offer another perspective.
So, Obama wants to tell kids to stay in school, work hard, pay attention in class, and ask questions. He wants them to know that asking for help is not a sign of weakness, but of strength. He'd like to give them some useful advice, maybe offer a little guidance, which, judging by the school dropout rates in this country, these kids surely could use.
But Heaven forfend that we should allow the voice of the President of the United States to echo down the pristine corridors or interrupt the vital "stuff" that passes for learning in today's classrooms. Our youth must be shielded from Obama's salutary reminder of the importance of an education, especially at the start of another school year.
Good grief!
Which reminds me of another debate that I heard recently, also involving a purported danger to the young. The issue concerned whether or not to publish a photo of Lance Cpl. Joshua Bernard, fatally wounded in Afghanistan, being attended by fellow Marines trying to save his life. Those who felt the photo should be published noted that Americans, long shielded from the realities of the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, need to be reminded of the heavy sacrifices borne by 0.5% of the population doing the actual fighting. Those who opposed publishing the image feared that some unsuspecting child might see it in the newspaper and, hence, "be subjected to...a gruesome photo." Of course, there were other arguments pro and con; but this latter one struck me because it invoked "the protection of youth," as if youth had never been subjected to violent images (abundantly supplied by television, movies, video games, etc.).
It was, in fact, a similar argument that a group of parents used last month in protesting the opening of "a controversial women’s clinic" near a public school. Again, the fear was that kids on their way to school might see the posters that abortion opponents often display in the vicinity of such clinics--"signs, which are alarming in their graphic detail of aborted fetuses...life-sized statues of the Virgin Mary, and...somebody dressed as the grim reaper" (http://www.wickedlocal.com/brookline/archive/x1307074987/Brookline-neighbors-take-town-to-court-over-clinic-decision).
What seems to worry some parents and so-called educators is that children might be exposed to disturbing images. I think we need to worry more about the reality that those images represent and the role that adults play, wittingly or unwittingly, in ushering children safely across the rickety bridge between the two.
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