Lessons of Obama's School Speech

Why the president should stay out of America's classrooms

Steve Chapman | September 10, 2009

On Tuesday, as children in many places went back to school, the world's most prominent black leader undertook to expand a worshipful cult of personality as part of a systematic effort to achieve absolute power. You may have heard about it: Oprah Winfrey kicked off her 24th season on the air by taking over Chicago's Michigan Avenue for a live show in front of thousands of adoring fans.

Oh, there was also that business involving the president of the United States going on TV to urge students to work hard and stay in school. In the end, Barack Obama's televised speech didn't quite evoke the sight of Red Guards cheering Mao Zedong in Tiananmen Square. But the more inflamed reactions from the right do not excuse his presumption in commandeering the nation's classrooms for purposes that are beyond his rightful duties.

No, I don't mean an effort to "indoctrinate America's children to his socialist agenda," as the head of the Florida Republican Party fantasized. If Obama had a socialist agenda, he'd first have to indoctrinate his own economists, who are committed believers in capitalism. The president is certainly a liberal who favors more government control of our economic system, but not a radical who wants to remake it from the bottom.

His offense was to use his office to impose on a captive audience of youngsters in an appearance that inevitably carries the odor of politics. No one objects when he speaks to the nation or Congress on TV, because we can ignore him or jeer him as we choose. But some parents who distrust him feel aggrieved that he can force his message on defenseless children.

Who can blame them? Whether you welcome Obama's speech depends largely on your opinion of him. Had George W. Bush done this, you can bet that parents in Boston and San Francisco would have pulled their kids out rather than expose them to a dangerous, power-mad warmonger. Being no fan of Bush's, I would have sympathized with them.

For the record, Democrats did complain strenuously when President George H.W. Bush gave a televised speech to schoolchildren in 1991, with House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt denouncing the spectacle as "paid political advertising for the president."

The parents this time had equally legitimate grounds to complain. When they submit to the requirement of compulsory schooling, they do it because they recognize the need for their kids to be educated. But even in the president's absence, many parents harbor reservations about some of the influences that go with government-run institutions.

That's one reason 5 million children are enrolled in private or parochial alternatives. It also helps explain why parents of another 1.5 million—1 in 34 kids—have taken the drastic step of doing the teaching themselves.

Even if Obama had made an exceptional effort not to raise hackles, he would have raised hackles among some Americans. But he didn't make quite the effort he should have.

What particularly provoked suspicion was the Education Department's lesson plan, which recommended that students compose "letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president. These would be collected and redistributed at an appropriate later date by the teacher to make students accountable to their goals." Again: Imagine the liberal uproar had George W. Bush's administration tried that.

By the day of the speech, the administration had retracted the suggestion. But amid Obama's wholesome exhortations was a boast that he is "working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books, equipment and computers you need to learn."

David Boaz, executive vice president of the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington, told me, "That suggests that education is the responsibility of the federal government and the personal responsibility of the president," something some Americans don't buy. Not only that, says Boaz, but it conveys the message that "I, Barack Obama, am fighting for you and fighting against someone"—an implicit rebuke of his political opponents, many of whom think the emphasis on physical resources misstates the nature of our educational failures.

Maybe his other messages were valuable enough to overshadow that one. But the students who heard Obama's speech are not the only ones who could learn some useful lessons from it.

COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS.COM

Comments

|9.10.09 @ 7:33AM|#

John Jackson: I say your three cent titanium tax goes too far.

Jack Johnson: And I say your three cent titanium tax doesn't go too far enough.

MNG|9.10.09 @ 7:33AM|#

"the Lessons of Obama's School Speech"

That many people have a hatred and distrust of the Prez that borders on paranoid insanity?

Mj|9.10.09 @ 7:35AM|#

"That many people have a hatred and distrust of the Prez that borders on paranoid insanity?"

See the political opponents of one George W. Bush. You reap what you sow.

MNG|9.10.09 @ 7:38AM|#

"His real offense, Chapman argues, was to use his office to impose on a captive audience of youngsters in an appearance that inevitably carries the odor of politics."

WTF?

If the leader of a nation with a third as much clout as ours were in the country and decided to speak to school children, it would be a good thing to set that up. For out own head to do so is a better thing. I can remember the local town jock (who had become a car salesman by this time but was on the high school football team years ago) coming to speak at an assembly we had in elementary school. He told us to eat our vitamins and stay in school. Having the President of the United States, and especially our first African-American President, do the same has many laudable aspects to it.

MNG|9.10.09 @ 7:40AM|#

Mj
I really don't find the two equivalent. Case in point, when 9/11 went down and Bush was dumbstruck in front of those kids at the school (btw, I think understandably dumbstruck), I remember people later mocking him for being dumbstruck, but I don't remember anyone saying "WTF was that guy doing at an elementary school anyway? Oh teh indoctrination!"

|9.10.09 @ 8:09AM|#

People distrusted Obama speaking to children because he is manifestly a skilled orator who can deliver all the tricks of rhetorical trade - straw men, half truths, contradictions and non sequitur. One feels for the Congressman who shouted out "You lie".

JohnD|9.10.09 @ 8:15AM|#

Many of the people that were opposed to Obama making a speeech to school kids just don't trust the man. He is a skillful liar and a Marxist.
He once said "judge me by the company I keep." I have. He has surrounded himself wih radicals and anti-American thugs.

Gilbert Martin|9.10.09 @ 8:15AM|#

The liberals who are claiming this was no big deal are trying to shove the outrageouos lesson plan part down the memory hole.

The Obama administration was indeed attempting to indoctrinate the kiddies. They just got caught out ahead of time and had to back off on it.

|9.10.09 @ 8:19AM|#

Donlast has it right.

Although I don't see a problem in BO talking to school kids here (plenty of other stuff to criticize), I take note of the conservative POV in this way--given circumstances, it seems a bit like that scene in 1984-- the children in the neighboring apt. Winston coming to fix the pipe. The children as junior spies, being indoctrinated to see things a certain way, Rather than to just see.

Gilbert Martin|9.10.09 @ 8:22AM|#

I'm paranoid and make no sense.

Cabeza de Vaca|9.10.09 @ 8:30AM|#

"If the leader of a nation with a third as much clout as ours were in the country and decided to speak to school children, it would be a good thing to set that up."

No it would not. Kids aren't old enough & well enough informed to know when they are being lied to or being used to score political victories. I don't want the scum of society anywhere around children warping their young minds. Politicians are like pedophiles they use & abuse people to get what they want.

Kyle Jordan|9.10.09 @ 8:36AM|#

"Politicians are like pedophiles they use & abuse people to get what they want."

That's t-shirt/bumper sticker material right there. Nice one, Head.

A T|9.10.09 @ 8:51AM|#

Everybody's worked up about this but the kids. I don't think they really give a shit.

|9.10.09 @ 8:55AM|#

I don't think they really give a shit.

Most of them thought it was just an especially boring episode of Reading Rainbow.*


*this joke is made from 100% recycled parts

Hugh Akston|9.10.09 @ 9:03AM|#

I will say that Obama had his audience well-picked. Fourth grade is about the last possible year that someone would be naive enough to trust/believe/admire a US President.

With the notable exception of MNG, of course.

|9.10.09 @ 9:09AM|#

It's silly to defend this when you know you'd bitch about it if the other side did it.

Presidents have no business directly addressing our children and disrupting the school day. Period. It's outside their purview and a little creepy. I don't care who the president is or what he says. In fact, I'd be annoyed at a libertarian president who did the same thing.

Not a big deal, but not right, either.

BruceM|9.10.09 @ 9:17AM|#

Ahh it's nice to be able to read someone explain the REAL reason why it's not proper for a president to address schoolchildren. For most of these "I want my country back" teabaggers, the reason is pure racism. "No nigger's gonna tell MY children to do their damn homework."

It wasn't proper for George W. Bush to even be reading "My Pet Goat" to a small classroom on 9-11 (and I'm not talking about the 7 minutes it took him to react to the news that "the nation's under attack, Mr. President"). All else equal, there is a significant difference between allowing a lifelong failure, incessant alcoholic, and lazy spoiled brat who achieved nothing in his life on his own who is proud of his C average (or was it a C+) talk to children versus letting someone like Obama who came from nothing and is a true American success story talk to children. But Daddy Bush isn't like his n'er-do-well failure of a son, and he shouldn't have been talking to school children either. None of them should. Not Clinton, Reagan, Bush, Obama - leave those kids alone.

There's a constant contest between liberals and conservatives to see who can get their ideas in front of The Precious Children ("TPC") first. School board elections are some of the most hostile in the country - from battles over teaching science (evolution) to teaching junk science and faith (creationism - no matter what they call it) - to fights over whose version of history gets put in the textbooks, both sides want to ensnare the ignorant, malleable, impressionable minds of TPC from the earliest age possible. They have a captive audience of some future voters and future tithers and future religious warriors, and they will do anything they can to make sure that TPC end up playing on their team, thinking their way.

But you didn't hear that from the right... you basically just heard a furor over trying to justify racial hatred from people who had no problem with Reagan or either Bush talking to TPC at school. It's nice to finally read a legitimate explanation of why this is wrong.

jpocali|9.10.09 @ 9:17AM|#

We educated the largest demographic in American history (the boomers) with less money and fewer schools. If his highness wishes to "fix" our schools he would be well advised to look to the past and compare it with the present, the difference is the problem.

Underzog|9.10.09 @ 9:18AM|#

Hey! Mr. Nazi Guy! You're with the misnamed Human Rights Watch, eh?

What a bunch of sickies you guys are. You have the head of that misnamed group trying to restart another holocaust of the Jews in Israel. Maybe the reason for it is because he hates his parent who survived an earlier holocaust.

Also, you have another guy, Mark Garlasco, who writes lying stories about Israel spraying phosporous on civilians while he collects tons of Nazi memorabilia at the same time. You're a bunch of creepy crawlies. I was very prescient to call you guys Ernst Rhöm wannabes and I was right to label HRW as Hitler's Reich Wilkommen, too. Does this Garlasco fellow of HRW wear his Nazi memorabilia while he writes lying articles about the the Jewish State?

Human Rights Watch Mark Garlasco is a Nazi lover

Human Rights Watch uses Israel bashing cred to get Saudi money

"There's no need to fear. Underzog is here."

Donald Duck in nutiland Human Rights Watch land

Xeones|9.10.09 @ 9:24AM|#

Hmm. I agree with BruceM that presidents have no business speechifying to the kiddies, but he's still an idiot. I'm glad we've got Underzog here for comic relief, though -- the weather was starting to get me down.

|9.10.09 @ 9:37AM|#

The liberals who are claiming this was no big deal are trying to shove the outrageouos lesson plan part down the memory hole.

Not to mention the fact that the Dems held actual Congressional hearings attacking Bush the Elder when he did this.

Whatever happened to Hack Watch, anyway?

|9.10.09 @ 10:17AM|#

If Obama had a socialist agenda, he'd first have to indoctrinate his own economists, who are committed believers in capitalism.

Link? The prez's action do not reflect such a belief in free market capitalism, unless you mean crony capitalism. Are you saying he's consistently ignoring his economic advisors?

The president is certainly a liberal who favors more government control of our economic system, but not a radical who wants to remake it from the bottom.

He's taken over much of the banking and auto industry, and wants to finish taking over the health care system. What is your definition of "remaking it from the bottom", if this isn't sufficient evidence?

And if he got all this, do you think he'd stop trying to take over the private sector?

T|9.10.09 @ 10:42AM|#

We educated the largest demographic in American history (the boomers) with less money and fewer schools.

And look what a glorious bunch that generational cohort turned out to be. Not helping your argument much with that example, methinks.

Jordan|9.10.09 @ 10:51AM|#

For most of these "I want my country back" teabaggers, the reason is pure racism. "No nigger's gonna tell MY children to do their damn homework."

Prove it, dipshit.

|9.10.09 @ 11:05AM|#

Ahh it's nice to be able to read someone explain the REAL reason why it's not proper for a president to address schoolchildren. For most of these "I want my country back" teabaggers, . . . .

Aaand, I stopped reading.

|9.10.09 @ 11:42AM|#

If I have an opinion on this "non-story" should I comment on it here or wait for the next Obama-Speaks-To-Children thread that will posted within the next hour on Hit & Run or wait for one of the next 5 in the next day or so?

MNG|9.10.09 @ 11:53AM|#

You guys are being nutty-Mcnutts. "People of note" are asked to speak to kids in schools all the time. The President is a person of note, duh. You don't like the guy, you think he's terrible for this nation, etc., etc., I get it. But he is the President of the United States and hence a person of note. The speech was the usual mild stuff people say in front of kids. But what if it were not? Does anyone really think it is going to warp these kids into proto-socialists so that when they go to vote a decade or more later they will enact the tenents of Karl Marx? I mean really people, change your tinfoil hats please!

MNG|9.10.09 @ 11:59AM|#

The local fire chief spoke at my daughter's daycare yesterday. He handed out little firemen's hats and talked about the important thing the fire department does.

That kind of shit goes on every day in our schools. And it's certainly OK in my book. You guys are coming off nutty here.

Oh teh indoctrination!

edna|9.10.09 @ 12:22PM|#

mng, when your fire chief starts setting educational policy, gets on national tv, distributes lesson plans on what students can do to support him, and starts hinting around for more money, get back to me.

The Angry Optimist|9.10.09 @ 12:30PM|#

MNG - the reason we object is for the same reason we object to DARE. It is the principle of the thing (something I know you don't have, but I'm trying anyway).

|9.10.09 @ 12:40PM|#

There's a constant contest between liberals and conservatives to see who can get their ideas in front of The Precious Children ("TPC") first. School board elections are some of the most hostile in the country - from battles over teaching science (evolution) to teaching junk science and faith (creationism - no matter what they call it) - to fights over whose version of history gets put in the textbooks, both sides want to ensnare the ignorant, malleable, impressionable minds of TPC from the earliest age possible. They have a captive audience of some future voters and future tithers and future religious warriors, and they will do anything they can to make sure that TPC end up playing on their team, thinking their way.

Then you and I are in complete agreement that the government school system be completely dismantled. Excellent!

Imagine the liberal uproar had George W. Bush's administration tried that.

The liberals got No Child Left Behind from Bush, what do they have to complain about?

|9.10.09 @ 1:04PM|#

Children should be indoctrinated from day one. Speeches should be played every day in school. The president should be allowed to serve life terms, starting now. Everything should be done for the good of the people, there are no individuals. The State is the will of the people.

Anomalous|9.10.09 @ 1:16PM|#

Hey, leaders, leave them kids alone!

(If you don't eat your meat, you can't have any pudding! How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?)

|9.10.09 @ 1:22PM|#

I'm certainly not offended or up in arms about Obama's speech to the kids.

But having read the transcript, it comes across as the sort of self-serious, finger-wagging "I'm an adult, so listen here, sonny!" principalish bullshit that my friends and I used to find so utterly hilarious. The sort of thing we'd sit in the back of the room, doing our level best to stifle our laughing.

"Adults loved to say things like that but kids knew better." -Ralphie Parker, "A Christmas Story."

ChrisO|9.10.09 @ 1:56PM|#

On the list of Obama's abuses of power, this ranks very low. Another one to add to the pile, just the same.

Obama|9.10.09 @ 3:40PM|#

You see, children. If you stay in school, and study hard, all of your dreams can be obtained. You too can run for and obtain the worst job in the history of mankind. You too can wind up marrying a beastly and doughy assed alien whose moods range from bitchy to bitch. Can I stay a little longer? Maybe extend this speech another fifteen minutes. Talk about my White Sox's play off chances? That will be fun, right? I really don't want to go back. You have no idea how bad my life sucks. Almost as bad as that fruit cake psycho MNGs.

U-know|9.10.09 @ 3:43PM|#

ChrisO | September 10, 2009, 1:56pm | #
On the list of Obama's abuses of power, this ranks very low. Another one to add to the pile, just the same.

As low as it is on the list, I wished we could impeach him for it. Especially over something this petty instead of the Big Crimes. The impotent rage of the left would be even more fun to watch than their desperation in the 2000 Florida debacle.

|9.10.09 @ 4:50PM|#

The sort of thing we'd sit in the back of the room, doing our level best to stifle our laughing.

I'm guessing that you had "smoke breaks" in the parking lot before class.

Because I, er, knew kids who did that when I was in high school.

Underzog|9.10.09 @ 8:09PM|#

Obama: "Almost as bad as that fruit cake psycho MNGs."

Mr. President! MNG's life is not so bad. As a member of HRW (Hitler's Reich Wilkommen) he gets money from the Saudis for bashing Israel -- jess like you do. Also, his researcher for bashing Israel has the perverted fun of wearing his large collection of Nazi memorabilia while telling lies about the Jewish state.

In fact, you should hire my friend, MNG. The greedy and perverted stance his HRW group uses against Israel is right up your alley.

p.s. What kind of weinees will you, Garascolo, Roth, and MNG roast when Iran nukes Israel? Oscar Meyer?

"There's no need to fear. Underzog is here."

VKI|9.10.09 @ 8:20PM|#

Do you all not see the difference between the President reading "My Pet Goat" to one classroom of kids, or the local fire chief speaking to one school assembly, and the President demanding airtime from every child in every school in the nation at once, complete with lesson plans and follow-up activities?

There is a big difference.

|9.11.09 @ 12:14AM|#

Children are compelled to be in school, in most states up until the age of 16. They don't get to choose what they will do while in school and it's wrong to force them to listen to political speech. This is the first time the technology has existed to bring the president into every public school classroom at the same time, live, via the internet. It's kinda creepy and Big Brotherish.

When GHW Bush spoke to schoolchildren in 1991 he did it at 10am Eastern time and taped it for later playback (not many kids in school on the west coast at 7am). That was still wrong but nobody ever thought GHW Bush was a skilled speaker, Dana Carvey's send up of him on SNL was hilarious and spot on. This president, on the other hand...I think his delivery is like watching a tennis match, his head constantly swings back & forth while reading the screens with the speech but lots of people think he's powerful.