Friday, September 04, 2009

Presidential Address

Sorry. Have to chime in on this. President Obama is addressing students on September 8th to encourage them to succeed in school. Parents are angry that their children will be "indoctrinated".

What's next? Second graders can't all watch as Skylab goes up? It's the president. It's a message teachers and parents send to students every day.

My only complaint? It's a live web cast. How, exactly, does President Obama expect children in the classroom to see this? Thirty students all hovered around the one teacher computer in the room? Will our internet even be fast enough to stream it properly? We don't have the LCD projectors to serve the whole building, most of the SVID connections of the televisions don't work, and we can't fit all the students in the lab. And I teach at a fairly well-off school. There are some schools where showing this at all will not even be an option.

The method of delivery does show some lack of basic understanding of the resources of public schools.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/20090903/pl_ynews/ynews_pl888_1

2 comments:

  1. I agree - how can people condemn a message intended to help our children become better and more capable citizens. Geez!

    I also agree with your objection to the method of delivery. Tuesday is actually our very first day of school in Michigan. I think a radio address alternative would be much easier to pipe into every classroom and much less disruptive on the first day.

    That's my two cents worth.

    RJ

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  2. I agree that only webcasting the speech is a poor way to have it widely viewed. However, it is also showing on C-Span. Here's more information: http://www.ed.gov/admins/lead/academic/bts.html

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