Obama Back to School Speech

I personally am not a fan of Obama's politics, but after doing a quick reading of his planned speech for tomorrow, I am pleasantly surprised. I will not be showing the speech in my classroom on the first day because of scheduling conflicts, but I do believe that it is mostly a good message.


First off, let me say that I DO NOT believe in using the classroom to push political agenda. I try very hard as an educator to be an unbiased as possible in presenting material to my students. They are at a young and impressionable age and it is not my job or the government's job to push political ideas on them. I witnessed some interesting political conversation among my students this last school year that makes it obvious to me that they pick up a lot of ideas from their parents.

I'm sure that people can read into the speech and find faults, but my first reading found it to be a good message. I personally think that it is a little long for the elementary school level and my fourth graders probably wouldn't pay attention to the whole thing. Basically what I got from it is that you need to work hard in school. Kids see Obama as a movie star because he's on TV so much. I have seen it in my own classroom, so I hope he does inspire some kids to work a little harder. I appreciated this one part of his speech particularly because I am a "no excuses" kind of girl.

"But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life – what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home – that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That’s no excuse for not trying. "

Personally as an educator of young children, I would've had him take this next part out because kids don't really care what he's given speeches about. They'll have a hard enough time listening to the whole speech. I think this is where they would phase out.

"Now I’ve given a lot of speeches about education. And I’ve talked a lot about responsibility.

I’ve talked about your teachers’ responsibility for inspiring you, and pushing you to learn.

I’ve talked about your parents’ responsibility for making sure you stay on track, and get your homework done, and don’t spend every waking hour in front of the TV or with that Xbox.

I’ve talked a lot about your government’s responsibility for setting high standards, supporting teachers and principals, and turning around schools that aren’t working where students aren’t getting the opportunities they deserve."

Yada, yada, yada. Blah, blah, blah..

I know that this has turned into quite the issue even causing my school district to release this statement. Obama isn't the first president to come up with the idea of addressing school children. The first George Bush did it in 1991 and received the same type of criticism from Democrats. I don't believe it's a terrible thing as a president to talk to schoolchildren as long as there isn't a hidden political agenda.

Here is a link to the speech if you are interested in reading the whole thing.