Use Obama’s school speech as a teachable moment *UPDATED*
Bookworm on Sep 02 2009 at 11:56 am | Filed under: Barack Obama, Education
I am not at all pleased that Obama is going to descend upon an impressionable and captive audience on September 8. While I don’t expect him to do much more than mouth “lame” platitudes about education and service (meaning, of course, service to liberal causes not, God forbid, military service), I’m offended on principle to a highly partisan president speaking directly to all children without their parents there to mediate.
Making it worse, of course, is the “course material” all the schools are receiving. This material encourages the adminstration — the same people we instruct our children to respect — to have the children read bios about Obama (and perhaps some other dead white presidents), and to figure out what Obama wants them to do. In my school district, which is heavily liberal (the bumper stickers are the giveaway), this is a problematic window of opportunity for both express and implied bias.
Unsurprisingly, there is a movement afoot for conservative parents to keep their children at home:
In impossible times, the only way to be a responsible parent is to do the irresponsible thing. If my son were in a public school…
I’d call him in sick next Tuesday. I’d keep him home. I suggest you do so. I urge you to do so. If pressed, be honest about your reasons — but be reasonable about presenting them. Otherwise, don’t offer an explanation. Make it a silent protest.
And while your kids are home, think up some patriotic games to play. Rent the delightful (and true-in-spirit-if-not-in-fact) musical, 1776. Set off some fireworks. Make it a mini Fourth of July.
Can’t take the time off work? Well, I’m sure you have at least one patriotic neighbor with an older child, who might jump at the chance to play a little sanctioned hooky — and make some babysitting money, too.
Spread the word. Pass the link around. And see if the President’s face is still smiling, when he realizes he’s talking to half-empty classrooms. Do make it a teachable moment — one where the would-be teacher does the learning.
I actually have a different idea (although I still recommend 1776). You see, what we’ve got here is one of those incredibly rare opportunities when we know in advance the Progressive political material heading for our children. Those moments are so rare. I know, of course, that my children’s public school education is permeated by liberal-think but, short of attending school with them and reading every bit of material put before them, I have no idea what, precisely, that material is or when it’s going to be funneled into their absorbent little minds. At home, I try to keep the kids grounded with a global conservative perspective (patriotism, self-reliance, capitalism, a strong self-defense), but those general principles may not protect them against some insidious little seed planted in their fertile brains.
The most common situation is that which parents in Utah faced. After the fact, those parents learned that their children had been exposed to a blatantly propagandistic film urging them to pledge themselves to serve Obama. At that point, parents are left with nothing more than damage control. The kids can’t understand why Mommy and Daddy are getting so red in the face, and they’re embarrassed by those calls to the principal.
It’s so much better to teach our children prospective critical thinking so that they can put this whole thing — Obama’s inevitably vapid speech and the faculty’s equally inevitable swooning — in perspective. We all have the tendency to shelter our children from ideas we don’t like but, when we do, we become exactly like our Progressive counterparts. By barring from the classroom anything but PC thought, they are steadily destroy critical thinking in multiple generations of American youth. I can’t shelter my children forever. They have to go out in the world and learn how to analyze facts and arguments on their own. If I don’t teach them these analytical skills, they will forever be prey to every ugly trend and evil demagogue.
So rather than keeping your kids at home on Tuesday, spend the Labor Day weekend talking with them. In age appropriate language, you can talk to them about their responsibility as students, a responsibility that includes, not just learning, but also thinking.
Explain to them that public schools are meant to serve all people in America, whether they like the president or not. Ask them to observe whether the faculty at their school seems to like Obama or not. Explain that someone’s likes or dislikes may color the way that person presents information. I frequently give my children detailed data about my dislike for Obama, but I’m always careful to add: “Remember, I don’t like Obama. That’s going to color what I tell you. Talk to your father for the other side.” (So far, Dad hasn’t convinced them, but he doesn’t have much to work with, does he?)
We can also remind our children that, just as a stopped watch is right twice a day, a politician whose ideas offend us (as Obama’s do me) can still have some good ideas. If Obama really is encouraging children to work hard in school, he’s right.
Since we know Obama’s going to make a call for service, and that he will either say or imply (as will most school faculty), that this service requires abandoning the private sector and propping up government, explain to your children your concern that too much service from government saps individual self-reliance, and leads to weak and unhappy people. (And if you need examples for this premise, open any British newspaper on any day of the year.) Ask your children to think about types of service that make us strong, or that are so necessary to a nation’s survival that they are worth the risks. For example, military service requires strong troops, but it certainly leads to a population that has abdicated its own role in its defense. Israel, of course, circumvents this Catch-22 by making service mandatory of all citizens.
Although the whole idea of an Obama lecture to America’s youth is unpleasant, I think we’ve been handed a golden opportunity to engage our children before they get hit by a Progressive education bomb. The lessons in critical thinking that they take away from this moment may prove a useful building block to a more meaningful education, one in which they are able to separate educational wheat from Progressive chaff.
UPDATE: The Anchoress provides today’s perfect example of England’s continued decline as the government saps its citizens’ self-sufficient.
UPDATE II: Bob Owens thinks as I do:
[F]orbidding your children from hearing his empty platitudes gives the impression that there is something in his speech that constitutes a threat to what they are being taught at home. It makes him forbidden fruit, instead of merely a fruitcake. It also teaches them that they should quit or skulk away when they encounter a bad idea of a problem, instead of taking it head-on. I want my kids to face life by taking on challenges, not shirking them.
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14 Responses to “Use Obama’s school speech as a teachable moment *UPDATED*”
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It seems like this is only for k-6? It would be a pity, because I’d love to see what my own Domestic Terrorist (favorite economist, Thomas Sowell) could do with it
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Those moments are so rare. I know, of course, that my children’s public school education is permeated by liberal-think but, short of attending school with them and reading every bit of material put before them, I have no idea what, precisely, that material is or when it’s going to be funneled into their absorbent little minds.
That’s relatively simple to solve. Teach your children what the field of propaganda is and challenge them to perceive not only bias, but subtle or blatant manipulations. Bill this as a superior realm of senses not offered or available to normal children.
Since it is a real skill, it is not a fake advertisement. THey will become more perceptive of human motivations and emotions and behaviors if you teach them the history and the application of propaganda.
Since you can’t know what goes on in schools, you have to outsource the job to informants: your children.
Most children would love to know that they have a secret knowledge or ability they keep from others. It’s fun for them, as it exercises their imagination. In propaganda, however, you don’t need to exercise your imagination about what could be true. You can exercise it about what is true and what portrayed as the truth but really isn’t.
We all have the tendency to shelter our children from ideas we don’t like but, when we do, we become exactly like our Progressive counterparts.
I’m not the sheltering kind of guy. I’m in favor of teaching kids everything up to and including Target Focus Training. At least the principles for the particularly motivated kids. Anybody above 13, meaning in high school, can easily absorb the full program and its consequences. Bullies will be the least of their worries once they comprehend the adult world.
(So far, Dad hasn’t convinced them, but he doesn’t have much to work with, does he?)
I grade him as sub-zero on his propaganda work. No contest with you, dear Book.
I would encourage Parents to take the day off and attend school with their children during this event. Don’t most classrooms allow parents to observe?
Parents should also take discrete recording devices so that they can catch any blatant political propaganda being delivered by the teachers before or after this event.
Kind of off topic . . .
But, I’ve noticed that Obama is doing a lot of things with kids lately. I saw a report on the TV news last week that he was interviewed by a grade schooler; and now this. I don’t remember any other President doing so much with children before (not about children, with children).
Does anyone else wonder why is is doing so much with kids lately?
Is it because the adults that he, as President, now has to deal with (as opposed to the “yes-men” that have been a part of his pre-presidential life) are now willing to tell him the not-so-rosy truth and not always say “Oh, How Wonderful you are Obama”?
He reminds me of one kid back in my school days – you know, the one older kid who hung out with younger kids because he was too socially inmature to deal with those his own age.
Kali…
Nope. The indoctrination program is K-12.
Greetings:
Back when the liberal/left started pushing the idea of a “pre-kindergarten” entitlement, I had a bad feeling. I wasn’t sure whether their goals were a no-cost childcare alternative, an earlier propagandizing opportunity or some combination of both. President Obama’s background and now operational proclivities seem to argue for the propagandizing as a higher priority in his “modus operandi”, a la the good Professor Ayres. In addition, the opportunity to use the social pressure of the children’s classmates is pretty sinister in my opinion, right up there with the Hitler Youth and the Communists’ Young Pioneers.
The best advice I have for effected parents would be a concept that I first heard from the Italian (and I mean Italian with a capital I Italian) grandmother of one of my long ago sweethearts. She told her granddaughter to remember to “keep-a her pocketbook-a closed”. I’m sure that that had more than a financial meaning, but the basic idea was to avoid spur-of-the-moment decisions that could have long term negative effects. I would caution the young folks to be respectful but to keep their allegiance pocketbook closed until they had a chance to get the parental input to which they’re entitled.
Kali…forgot the link for 7-12
http://www.ed.gov/index.jhtml
To anyone who has read the pdf in grades 7-12
Take special notice of the 2 minute video and it’s submission (to be announced).
Will/can this video be used for promotional purposes? Whose purpose? When? How? Why?
The other item that jumped off the page was to take note of ‘words’ that they remembered.
Are they ‘test marketing’ the young/impressionable listening audience?
In a MTV/BET/YouTube world of teens craving their 15 minutes of fame, most will settle for TWO!
For those with younger children, parents can still intervene and interrupt information and guide them – this is a harder sell for the older students.
thanks, Sadie, I sent the link to my daughter, letting her know that it’s her decision whether or not to expose herself to such ponderous trivia.
Bruce’s Two-Bits…
Problems Money Won’t Solve. Education
Here’s another one, Rail.
Use Obama’s school speech as a teachable moment
Is Teaching Kids to Quit a Better Idea?
“Little white lie”:
With a record that included business tax cuts, promoting charter schools …
On another thought, this reminds me of a scene in Soapdish, where the middle-aged actress, ego battered and bruised after an unpleasant day on the set, goes to a shopping mall and deliberately lets herself be spotted and swarmed by fans. The smile of relief Sally Fields gets when surrounded by adulation is wonderful to see.
Is this the equivalent of Obama going to the mall?
kali…how on earth did you pull that from your memory?
It took me a moment (several) to recall the film/scene.
Ah..a neurotic glow of contentment on Sally’s face – Redemption at your local mall.
Sadie, while I can barely remember where my reading glasses are (on your head, idiot . . .) I never forget anything that gives me real pleasure.