I started getting emails on a presidential message to students yesterday afternoon, and then my daughter returned from school with a letter from Superintendent Lesky explaining the situation (you can download the letter here).
By this morning, there were 1.6 million results in a Google search on the President’s message from the past 24 hours. The official Department of Education information is available here. The Department has also created classroom activities for teachers to implement prior to and following the speech (available here for K-6). The message is to be about 20 minutes long and will take place Tuesday at noon EST.
Dr. Lesky’s letter provides the following explanation of who will and won’t see the broadcast:
Due to building schedules, not all students will have the opportunity to view the event live. However, the District will provide students in grades 4 through 12 an opportunity to view the speech on Thursday, September 10, during morning homeroom. Please note teachers may include the live broadcast in their classrooms as a current event on Tuesday.
I take this to mean that everyone in grades 4-12 will watch it, the question is whether it will be live on Tuesday or delayed on Thursday.
Parents are given the option to not have their child watch the speech by completing a form on the backside of the letter received from the school and returning it to the school by 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday.
A Presidential appearance would be an honor, regardless of your political beliefs, but the streaming of a speech to a ‘captive’ and impressionable audience clearly has rubbed people the wrong way.
I think the timing of the announcement was poor, not the NASD’s fault, and for those districts returning to school on Tuesday, they face an even bigger challenge than those already in session (regarding notification, etc).
What do you think? Should the speech be streamed into schools or not?
4 comments:
I don't think I like it, but I've seen worse political propaganda happen in Nazareth schools.
In 1987 my son was in 5th grade at Shafer. After school one day he asked me what I thought of the judge Bork nomination for the Supreme Court. Although I was surprised and delighted that they were doing current events... I was horrified with what passed for an education on the subject. The teacher played Ted Kennedy's character assassination speech, "Judge Bork's America"
Here's a YouTube snippet from it if you're not familiar with it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNaasFvvFlE
There was no explaining or counter view presented.
So my son said that this Bork guy sounded like bad news...
Well it turns out that 10 year olds aren't very well versed on the topics of that speech (does your 10 year old know what abortion is?)so I had a very interesting talk with him.
I registered a complaint with the teacher, he said he understood my concerns and that maybe it wasn't the smartest thing for him to play.
But I had no assurance that a similar thing wouldn't happen in the future... from him or any other educator...
I don't think the president's address will be quite like that, but I still don't like the idea.
Wayne I agree , there was a more recent political propaganda event, in my eyes atleast, when the NASD played the Al Gore misinformation( in my opinion) movie on global warming. I had a chat with my daughter and explained it afterwards. I emailed the principal and got a nonsense remark back, something to the effect that they provided opportunities to show both sides. BS, but it is up to us as parents to teach our kids to listen, but think for themselves. The problem, and probably the root of all important problems in a way, is that so many parents are not involved in their kids everyday activities and such.
Therefore, I think we need to be careful to allow this kind of stuff to be indoctrinated ( hey its the administrations words, not mine) to kids in general.
The text of the speech:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/MediaResources/PreparedSchoolRemarks/
I'm thinking it'll bore the snot out of the kiddies.
It is an honor to have a president speak to the nations students. Remember when president Reagan did it? (no it was not streamed to the classroom, our teachers read the text to us, but it got to everyone) Regardless of your political views, the nation's children always need the leadership of authority to say work hard, get good grades and have pride in your country.
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