Bobby,

The only person responding to this blog who has a handle on this event is Mr. Conti.  The “lesson plan” was the issue.  My guess is that when the president got word of the reaction to that lesson plan, he probably made adjustments to his speech.  The speech he gave was excellent.  The lesson plan sounded like the early stages of brainwashing, not encouragement.  This president has serious character issues.  They have nothing to do with race.  Every day something new comes out regarding his past relationships with radical groups he continues to surround himself with in the White House.  Groups such as ACORN, SEIU, etc. The parents and others that were concerned about their children being addressed by the president have very good reasons.  Finally, the main-line media could not ignore the ACORN issue any longer once Congress began addressing the continuation of funding of ACORN with tax dollars.  Same with ACORN being dumped by the Census Bureau.  I’m sure that upset the White House too.  People who watch more than one news outlet to get various perspectives of what’s going on inside the beltway understand the immense change being promoted by the president.  As mentioned by Mr. Davidson, it is about education.  It is about teaching young people, not from a secular progressive humanistic point of view, but from a balanced approach.  Parents are concerned about what this president has to say to their children.  After all, he is quite persuasive.  It’s also about teachers pushing their views on unsuspecting students.  Maybe the people who prepared the “lesson plan” should step forward and apologize.  We all want the best for our kids.  And we all want the kids to respect the office of the president.

Bobby,

Unfortunately we don’t have in many instances dedicated teachers. supporting parents and the best schools. That is why we currently spend more per student that most developed countries and rank near the bottom in achievement. There are solutions beginning with teach accountability as we now have to some degree in the Commonwealth of Virginia and as a result student achievement has improved significantly. However, across the country teacher’s unions still oppose comparative measues and accountability and pay for perfomance as well as charter schools and just about any innovation that would recognize and reward good teachers and help get rid of the bad ones.

My 5th grade son attends a public school in a district that did show the President’s talk. When I asked him that evening what the President said, he told me “we are supposed to stay in school and work hard at school”.

This made me think of the irony of all those parents who kept their children home to protect them from these radical ideas.

Actually, Bobby—and all who wrote to support him—you’ve drunk too much cool-aid.  It wasn’t about the President addressing the kids (by the way, the Democrats raised holy Hell when George HW Bush wanted to do this in 1991).  It was about the recommended lesson planner which suggested that the children could “write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president.“  That’s more than a little innapropriately political, particularly inasmuch as about 50 percent of the country doesn’t agree with helping him accomplish HIS goals.  (In a similar innapropriate vein, GHWB’s lesson planner suggested that the kids “write me a letter about ways you can help us achieve our goals.“)

Once again the Obamanistas have deliberately obscured the facts in a successful attempt to make rational objections seem creepy by feining innocence—and you and the blogger-drinkers sucked it right in. I generally like your stuff but this one is stupid and factually correct.

Thanks Bobby, 

You said it all.  The pursuit of education and one’s work ethic are two things within their control that can change their future.  Few know that better than our President.  If more kids got that message and were inspired, we’d all be better off.

Everyone always talk about how students in the United States compare against those abroad. Seemingly, the statistics cited would make it appear that our children are wanting. I find it obsured that people would object to the President of The United States encouraging our children to do better and become more responsible. Those who argue that this message does not fit into the SOL’s, it doesn’t. However, if a child feels motivated and receives encouragement by someone he/she respects and looks up to, couldn’t the end result be better test scores? In closing I will state this “if more parents did their jobs, then the president would not have to go on national tv to encourage children to succeed.“

As the Director of an Adult Literacy non-profit and as a parent, I was very distressed at all the negative comments in advance of a speech that was announced as one that would encourage student’s to take their work seriously, work to find their talents and persure their dreams. I noticed and so did the adults in our program and my children’s friends that the very negative comments eventually became more mild as the reality of the words were heard.  I also noticed that the legislator who rudely yelled “Liar” last night in the President’s Health Care speech eventually apoligized.  Is the teachable moment that people can over react, be rude, and excuse that behavior later.  What message is that to our youth?  The adults in our reading program commented that such behavior would not be encouraged by them for their children.  Civil discourse needs to be civil, discourse needs to allow all the comments to be heard, even the President should be accorded his first ammendment rights!  I saw clips of George Bushes speech to youth a couple of years back and applauded his words then as I do his words to the kids in Texas who will make a field trip to hear inspirational messages from he and Mrs. Bush.  We need all these words from all these leaders.  We need leaders who care enough to bother to comment to our youth about their responsibility and their goals.  I think the rude and over reaction need to take a holiday.  School is back in session and we need to learn all we can from each other.  Let’s have those lessons be positive not negative.

I often have thought to put the bill to those people who lack pragmatism for solving problems.  Usually they have no money with which to do so, and they really are asking the rest of us to pay for it.  In the tax code people will take action immediately in direction the IRS or state tantalizes.  By the same token we should send the bill for policies espoused to that constituency making the noise.  When it hits their actual pocketbooks, they may change their minds.  Problem is that these people really are not good abstract thinkers and just sit in their own corners blabbing with blinders on.  Paying for education and the exercise of learning are examples of big societal issues of this nature.

Thanks for these observations. We have all gotten so much in the habit of politicizing every event that we always end up judging based on our political hot button of the moment rather than actual content. This behavior is not unique to or dominated by any one group on the political spectrum. It is time for all of us to let go of judging only from our politics and to pay attention to content, even more to what is it that we are trying to accomplish and what in practice, not politics, makes the most sense. Our knee jerk reactions based largely on politics merely fan the flames and mostly hold our nation back.

God bless you Bobby for expressing what I and millions of others thought about this quintisessential embarassment for our nation that permitted a small vocal minority of people who are so opposed to a black Democratic President that they tried to ruin the respect that every schoolchild should have for the President of the United States regardless of his party , his color or his political agenda. Teachers constantly complain about the lack of respect from children that prevents them from being able to teach values or anything else in the classroom - what better way to encourage a child’s disrespect for everyone than to disrespect the President of the United States by telling your child that they should not even listen to him. To paraphrase , “ it’s about education stupid”  - and even more importantly - it’s about respect for our elected leaders and all those who are trying to invest in the future of our children..

The Teachable Moment.

You have made very good points.  Hopefully, others may hear “the” message!