Accidental Blogger

A general interest blog

From school districts all over the country, we have been seeing the likes of this statement from school boards and school administrations.

"We have been receiving many anxious phone calls from parents concerned about the content of the President's proposed speech to schoolchildren on September 8, so we will not be telecasting it live to the students for XYZ reasons. We will review the speech later to determine if it will fit in with our curriculum requirements and possibly incorporate later showings of the speech in the classroom. Rest assured that parents can opt out of their children having to view this speech at the time."

or similar.

Oh, the horror of having an actual live breathing African-American president actually address the schoolchildren of the US on the importance of staying in school, working hard, not dropping out and improving grades.

Whatever rationales these districts and schools come up with for a ban or semi-ban on the speech, they have just guaranteed a superhit on the internet and Youtube for a speech that might otherwise have been yawned through by groups of glassy-eyed sleep-deprived adolescents all over the country. Kids who wouldn't pay attention to all the boring utterances of a sitting president will now be combing and parsing the speech for any possible 'secret messages' that they suspect their parents of hiding from them under the pretext of preventing their being 'brainwashed'.

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3 responses to “Much Ado about A Speech (Sujatha)”

  1. Interesting. I hadn’t thought of that, or seen it suggested elsewhere, but it makes sense.

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  2. I wasn’t aware of this dust up until I came back from my trip yesterday and learnt of it on the news. It is utterly ridiculous, this manufactured outrage and paranoia. Asking students to stay in school and saying that education is the great equalizer is “socialist brainwashing?” Even Republican stalwarts like Newt Gingrich and Laura Bush have come out in support of Obama’s message. Who are the block heads fomenting the opposition to everything that Obama does and for how long can they get away with crying wolf?

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  3. Sadly enough, our school district was one under the ‘cop-out’ column, based on the shrill screeches of a few parents. So, the kids didn’t get to see it at school, but they did watch it later in the day at home.
    My son (15 yrs) liked it a lot, especially the story about Obama’s stay in Indonesia as a kid (probably time to give him a copy of Dreams from my Father). My daughter (8.5 yrs) on the hand, wriggled indignantly at being deprived of her dose of Spongebob Squarepants. “Is it over yet? When will it get over?”

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