How is your school using Obama's speech to students?
Tomorrow, September 8th, President Obama will be addressing our nation's students. What has the reaction been at your school? Are there any activities you will be leading that correspond to his address?
Link to his speech.
Link to his speech.
Views: 1
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Cheryl Davis on -
Hi Brian,
Our principal put out a message to our teachers asking who would be watching. I believe that some will. Sometimes streaming over the internet can be a problem at schools so I have advised our teachers to watch the speech via C-SPAN. C-SPAN classroom has put out a notice that after the speech there will be open phone lines for teachers and students to call in to C-SPAN with opinions and discussion about the speech. Some of our teachers will be using this. Here is the C-SPAN notice:
"PRESIDENT OBAMA'S ADDRESS TO STUDENTS:
Watch the President's address to students LIVE on C-SPAN next Tuesday, September 8 at noon ET. The President will deliver the address about the importance of education from Wakefield High School in Arlington, VA. After President Obama's speech concludes, C-SPAN will open its phone lines for students and teachers to comment about what they heard. If you or your students would like to call in and comment, you can use these numbers:
(202) 737-0001 for Students
(202) 737-0002 for Teachers
While you're on the phone, feel free to mention that you heard about this through C-SPAN Classroom! For more details about the President's Speech go to the White House's website: http://www.whitehouse.gov/mediaresources/."
Cheryl
-
Permalink Reply by Joan Roettenberger on -
Hi all,
This is my first-ever NL post! A huge group of teachers, facilitators, and administrators from my school district attended the BLC09 conference this summer, and are totally committed to 21C teaching and learning. That being said, I congratulate our president on his efforts to use the web to reach out to our digital natives. However, as an educator, I feel strongly that he should have planned this address for the evening, when parents could sit down with their youths and discuss his message. There is no avoiding the fact that politics play a part in every decision that the White House makes, and parents should have the right to filter what their children are hearing from there. I believe the controversy is mainly over the lesson plan ideas that were provided by the White House.
In our district, we are not showing the address tomorrow for several reasons. I believe it will be made available on our website for future viewing at home or in the middle and high schools.
-
Permalink Reply by Nancy J. on -
I created a powerpoint of 4 different colors/formats of wordle to share with faculty. They can project or print and review as a discussion tool either before or after the actual speech. The students will be able to see the recurring themes and topics visually which will help them to review content. In addition, I have sent the faculty the Department of Education materials that have come out with lesson plans,etc.
Here is a link to one of the wordles that I was able to create on Wordle.net
Re: reaction to the airing of the speech during the school day?, I was surprised to hear that we have received some calls with concern. We too have concerns about the streaming issue at our school and may actually discuss the speech with the worldles and watch snippets later in the day or on Wednesday when "traffic" is not as heavy.
We shall see how it all plays out:)
-
Permalink Reply by Brian Mull on -
I agree to an extent to what you are saying, but do we make it this much of a deal about other parts of our curriculum? Do parents have the right to opt out of your lessons on a regular basis? Can they opt out of standardized tests? This is civics live and in living color. This is a message kids need to hear from our President. Whether we are for him or against him, what is it in the message that is so dangerous or appalling for our kids to hear?
As for the supporting lessons, I don't think they're very imaginative. I think most teachers could supplement this address in a more creative way, but again, I don't really see a partisan issue within. It's about goal setting and hard work - something our kids really need.
Keep sharing. This is good stuff.
Joan Roettenberger said:Hi all,
This is my first-ever NL post! A huge group of teachers, facilitators, and administrators from my school district attended the BLC09 conference this summer, and are totally committed to 21C teaching and learning. That being said, I congratulate our president on his efforts to use the web to reach out to our digital natives. However, as an educator, I feel strongly that he should have planned this address for the evening, when parents could sit down with their youths and discuss his message. There is no avoiding the fact that politics play a part in every decision that the White House makes, and parents should have the right to filter what their children are hearing from there. I believe the controversy is mainly over the lesson plan ideas that were provided by the White House.
In our district, we are not showing the address tomorrow for several reasons. I believe it will be made available on our website for future viewing at home or in the middle and high schools.
-
Permalink Reply by Sam Wagner on -
Greetings Brian and NL folks! Here is the e.mail I sent to upper school families. So far, responses have been ~90% supportive of our decision.
Best regards,
Sam
Monday, 7 September 2009
Greetings Upper School Parents:
I hope you had a pleasant Labor Day Weekend. Having received a number of inquiries regarding President Obama’s “back to school” speech tomorrow, I thought I would send a brief clarification. While there are certainly merits behind President Obama’s goals in addressing a speech to students at the start of the academic year, at MVS, we have decided not to make arrangements to broadcast the speech to our students.
The White House has made available the text version of the President’s speech, which can be found at the following weblink: http://www.whitehouse.gov/MediaResources/PreparedSchoolRemarks/
Pat Basset, President of the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS, of which MVS is a proud member), posted a letter from a member school in Florida, which eloquently addresses the reasoning and approach that MVS and many other independent schools are taking in regard to President Obama’s speech. I hope this letter clarifies our position in the Upper School.
With sincere regards,
Sam Wagner Head of Upper School
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
September 4, 2009
Dear Academy Families:
A small number of our families this week inquired about whether we intend to show our students President Obama's upcoming speech to our nation's school children. Some families have requested that their children be removed from such a presentation; others have requested that we show the speech. We do not intend to show a live broadcast of the speech. Our reason is that we don't think it's really intended for students like ours, as it is designed to be a message about staying in school, about taking responsibility to do your homework and encouraging all students to accept the value system of school and the idea that being a good student will lead to improvement in your life. Almost all of our students have internalized this message long ago. Still, I feel a need to comment about the idea of viewing a presidential speech and requests for children to opt out of viewing a speech.
We very much want to engage our students about the world around them and about taking part in our democratic system. We feel that they ought to learn about our national issues and hear perspectives on those issues regardless of which party's philosophy they might endorse. As an administration, we see a big problem in our country today - that, as a nation, we are not very good right now at engaging in civil discussion and disagreement about the policies and political philosophies that are being "debated" in the public square. We very much want our school to be a place where our students learn to listen to all sides of a debate and engage in questioning, answering, and exploring, but always in a polite and civil tone. We do not want our students to become liberals. We do not want our students to become conservatives. We want them to learn how to listen respectfully, how to question respectfully, and how to come to their own opinions and votes while respecting those who may come to different conclusions. We want them to learn how to be citizens. In order to do that, they have to be exposed to different points of view. We would like them to study those points of view.
If we were to show the President's speech, we would hope that those families who disagree with the President's comments would engage their children in discussion about what the President says, and that they will in turn provide (and teach) their own countervailing views. When you do so, please also reinforce rules of respect and polite civil discourse. ("We disagree with the President because . . ." )
We want our students to learn that patriots can disagree about policy choices in a democracy while still loving their country and wanting the best for all of her people. Opting out of hearing a speech by the President or a member of the clergy from a different religion or any opinionated speaker does not serve the goal of learning about others and, eventually, yourself. We believe that our students' education is well-served by exploration and engagement about issues, not by refusing to even hear opposing views.
As a school, we are absolutely fine with our students disagreeing with whomever is President and voicing that disagreement, even publicly, as long as every student shows respect to every speaker and every event that they attend. We want all of our students to know that they have the right to disagree with the President or their Congressman or the Governor, and that they have many appropriate avenues in which to voice that disagreement, including their vote.
Our democracy needs its young people. But before they turn 18 they ought to learn how to be better citizens and better participants than the models they see in their daily swim through our culture's waters. The Academy at the Lakes educational experience will help them learn how to participate with respect for others, respect for ideas, and respect for our country, the greatest nation on Earth.
Sincerely,
Mark Heller
Head of School
-
Permalink Reply by Bruce Abernethy on -
You know what I haven't seen in a lot of discussions here or elsewhere online - why not have older students discuss the issues surrounding showing a presidential address like this in class?
I've read the speech. It is an updated "stay in school, and do your best" speech - which is great.
But perhaps more interesting is all the controversy surrounding having the speech broadcast live to students nationwide. Why not discuss/debate that?
Discussion starters:
Throughout the history of the United States, when has a president addressed students in school directly via television, radio, written statement, and/or the Internet?
What was the message from the president?
Throughout the history of the World, when have leaders of countries addressed students in schools?
When is a national pride or scholastic encouragement speech appropriate for a president or national leader to be broadcast to students?
What types of messages would be innapropriate to present to students in this fashion? Why?
What is the difference between a message meant to promote unity and common purpose and one that is meant to polarize citizens or promote propaganda?
What is propaganda? Is it (or can it be) good or bad?
Imagine a leader that you agree with and are inspired by giving a motivational speech to students nationwide - what would be your response to the event?
Now imagine a leader that you are generally opposed to giving a national speech to all students - what would your response be then?
In a multi-party political system, such as the one in the United States, can any message from a leader in one party be considered nonpolitical?
Should a national message for the good of all citizens be brought by leaders from both political parties?
Consider the joint-messages from President Clinton and President HW Bush after national and international tragedies - were these more effective because they had voices from both parties?
.... and go from there
-
Permalink Reply by Brian Mull on
-
See, this is what I mean. I knew our teachers could come up with stronger, higher-level ideas. This is great.
Wonderful opportunity for students to really analyze the situation. This takes kids into acting as a good consumer of knowledge.
© 2012 Created by Brian Mull.
Powered by
