I didn’t get to see this morning the speech, but I did read the transcript, which left me feeling conflicted about our decision not to broadcast it. The majority of the speech confirmed me in my belief that its intended audience was not our students. It was a bit hokey in its stating the self-evident and the old-hat: that to be successful, you need to stay in school and work hard. I think our students know that, and they don’t need the President to remind them.
But, the speech had its strong moments (leaving me conflicted we missed it). Perseverence is essential, and his stories to this effect were meaningful. I appreciated his recognition that all of our students have their own unique passions, and our schooling needs to not limit itself to teaching them to fill in their gaps but to build upon their strengths: “I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself. Every single one of you has something that you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is.”
To this 21st century educator, who is worried that Obama’s Race to the Top standards will stifle creativity in the classroom, Obama rightly spoke to the sophisticated skills (not just basic skills!) our students need to master:
You’ll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment. You’ll need the insights and critical-thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free. You’ll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy.
Let’s make sure these skills don’t get lost in the shuffle; let’s work to develop new ways to measure these things to ensure that we hold ourselves accountable for them, because yet another round of standardized multiple choice testing isn’t going to do it.
21k12 
September 8, 2009 at 9:02 pm
Regardless of political affiliations and leanings, suitability of content, or other objections (and we heard a lot of that), our Commander in Chief has a message. Students who are conflicted due to parental or other alignments may miss the point and opportunity for a lesson in patriotic integrity. Listening to the President is a civic duty just as voting and jury duty is a privilege. What ever happened to “Hail to the Chief…”?
“Damn the torpedoes – full speed ahead!”
September 9, 2009 at 12:59 pm
I think President Obama had some good things to say to the students of this nation, and I beleive that it would have served every child to hear them. Lets face it how many times in the year do teachers and parents get support from the president. Yes the children at St Gregory know that their education is essential, but I think it would have been good for them to hear that Mr Obama too had his shortfalls, but took his second chances and made them count. They always need to know that yes you can make good on yesterdays mistakes.
But most of all I would have liked you to have the students sit down and listen to the President, because that is what democracy is all about. It is about listening to what someone has to say whether he is your guy or not and you cannot have an opinion about what someone is saying unless you have heard it. Too many times we Americans base our opinion on what the media says someone said or is going to say. The President deserves to be heard regardless of which party he belongs to, after all he is the president because he had a majority of the votes. Now that is democracy, not he who shouts loudest or slings the most mud.