President Obama’s Address to Students Across America September 8, 2009
President Obama?s Address to Students Across America September 8, 2009
PreK-6 Menu of Classroom Activities: President Obama?s Address to Students Across America
Produced by Teaching Ambassador Fellows, U.S. Department of Education
September 8, 2009
Before the Speech:
? Teachers can build background knowledge about the President of the United States and his speech by reading books about presidents and Barack Obama and motivate students by asking the following questions:
Who is the President of the United States?
What do you think it takes to be President?
To whom do you think the President is going to be speaking?
Why do you think he wants to speak to you?
What do you think he will say to you?
? Teachers can ask students to imagine being the President delivering a speech to all of the students in the United States. What would you tell students? What can students do to help in our schools? Teachers can chart ideas about what they would say.
? Why is it important that we listen to the President and other elected officials, like the mayor, senators, members of congress, or the governor? Why is what they say important?
During the Speech:
? As the President speaks, teachers can ask students to write down key ideas or phrases that are important or personally meaningful. Students could use a note-taking graphic organizer such as a Cluster Web, or students could record their thoughts on sticky notes. Younger children can draw pictures and write as appropriate. As students listen to the speech, they could think about the following:
What is the President trying to tell me?
What is the President asking me to do?
What new ideas and actions is the President challenging me to think about?
? Students can record important parts of the speech where the President is asking them to do something. Students might think about: What specific job is he asking me to do? Is he asking anything of anyone else? Teachers? Principals? Parents? The American people?
go to the link for a full rundown...
All I know is Bill Ayers is smiling!
Replies
280
margarita brocolia
Trey Garrison: No, you can't, Mr. President
05:56 PM CDT on Thursday, September 3, 2009
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The problem? It's not his place to deliver it.
That's why my first-grader won't have any part in this.
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The study materials dictated by the White House to accompany the address make the hairs on my neck stand up:
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Trey Garrison is a contributing editor for D Magazine and free-lance writer. He can be reached through treygarrison.com.
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:roll:
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The instructional materials Obama was going to use were almost identical to the ones used by George H.W. Bush in 1991.
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Edited
Beach Fanatic
the main difference here as I see it, is that the question then was about the expense and whether or not a "political" event should be funded by the DOE--not whether the duly elected president of the country is a socialist who is harming the nation's school children!
More adults in this country need to reason through this as Mrs. Bush apparently has done:
http://news.aol.com/article/laura-bush-praises-obama-family/658797
More adults in this country need to reason through this as Mrs. Bush apparently has done:
http://news.aol.com/article/laura-bush-praises-obama-family/658797
Edited
SoWal Insider
the main difference here as I see it, is that the question then was about the expense and whether or not a "political" event should be funded by the DOE--not whether the duly elected president of the country is a socialist who is harming the nation's school children!
True, this was blown way out of proportion. Thankfully it's over now and we can all get back to more important issues. I'm looking forward to Obama's speech tomorrow night, the whole healthcare thing is about to heat up again. Should be interesting.
SoWal Insider
True, this was blown way out of proportion. Thankfully it's over now and we can all get back to more important issues. I'm looking forward to Obama's speech tomorrow night, the whole healthcare thing is about to heat up again. Should be interesting.
One of the guys from Politico was on CNN and very bluntly stated that a public option is not going to happen, that a compromise is the only way to get enough votes, and that no one wants reconciliation because it will make an already poisonous environment even worse. Let's hope they can strike a decent deal and move on. I still think Obama has a good chance of pulling this one off.
Beach Fanatic
One of the guys from Politico was on CNN and very bluntly stated that a public option is not going to happen, that a compromise is the only way to get enough votes, and that no one wants reconciliation because it will make an already poisonous environment even worse. Let's hope they can strike a decent deal and move on. I still think Obama has a good chance of pulling this one off.
I think so too. He is much more the shrewd politico than the deft socialist!
SoWal Insider
They should have the kids go before Congress and give a speech now. After watching some of these shrewd children being interviewed after Obama's speech, I think they probably will get more accomplished in reaching a settlement. 
Beach Fanatic
They should have the kids go before Congress and give a speech now. After watching some of these shrewd children being interviewed after Obama's speech, I think they probably will get more accomplished in reaching a settlement.
I agree. I think the children of this country and the young adults could teach many of the older generation a thing or two about tolerance, acceptance, compromise, negotiation, importance, relevance, inclusion, and common courtesy.
Skunky
Trey Garrison: No, you can't, Mr. President
05:56 PM CDT on Thursday, September 3, 2009
There's no doubt the presidential address directed to the captive audience of the nation's schoolchildren Tuesday will be nonpartisan and positive. Chock full of "study hard and stay in school."
The problem? It's not his place to deliver it.
That's why my first-grader won't have any part in this.
I know some people will say that we live in a democracy, he's the national leader and the people voted for him.
Those people are wrong on all three counts. We're a republic. He's the president of a federation of states. And a majority of the members of the electoral college voted for him.
What could further cement this fundamental, dangerous misperception of the proper, limited role and power of the president's office than to have him beamed into every classroom speaking virtually ex cathedra? I got nothing.
By the way, see how I haven't mentioned the president's name? That's intentional. It wouldn't matter to me who the president is. This could be Bush, Clinton, Reagan or zombie Milton Friedman ? it wouldn't matter. I don't want a president of any stripe presenting himself as the All Powerful Oz until my kid has the wherewithal to look behind the curtain.
The study materials dictated by the White House to accompany the address make the hairs on my neck stand up:
Why is it important that we listen to the president and other elected officials, like the mayor, senators, members of congress and the governor? Why is what they say important?
What specific job is he asking me to do? Is he asking anything of anyone else? Teachers? Principals? Parents? The American people?
They're not even trying to hide it: What elected officials say is important, and they are different ? more important ? than you. We should do what they ask. It's our role. Listen. Serve. Obey.
This is anathema to everything good in the American spirit. Government is supposed to serve us, not the other way around.
(And why should kids be taught to value the words and wants of officeholders who've tanked the economy and taken out a mortgage on their grandkids' future for nondefensive wars and failed bailouts? But I digress with these criticisms in a way I bet few teachers will.)
Look, watching a president's speech in a middle or high school civics class? No problem. In a few years, I want my kid to be confronted by challenging ideas, informed debate and opposing values. That's how a kid learns, evolves and strengthens her own ideas and beliefs.
That's not what this is.
These are grade school kids. You know, the ones who giggle over the word booger and do their financial planning based on the tooth fairy's visits. Critical thinking and nuance? Not their strong suits yet.
What this is, though, is imprinting on them the idea that one person is their leader.
And if he's the leader, what does that make them?
This didn't start with Obama and ? shocker ? it's not about him.
In his book The Cult of the Presidency, Gene Healy examines the decades' long drift away from the vision the Founding Fathers had for the limited role of the president, and at the disturbing trend of both liberals and conservatives to think of the office as a limitless "combination of guardian angel, shaman and supreme warlord."
This Tuesday's address will only make it worse.
Execute the federal laws, Mr. President.
You do your job (don't you have a deficit to grow or something?), and we parents and teachers will worry about the kids.
Trey Garrison is a contributing editor for D Magazine and free-lance writer. He can be reached through treygarrison.com.
I think a Texas-sized aluminum foil hat is in order.
Meow
I think a Texas-sized aluminum foil hat is in order.
,,,yep, they still make 'em crazy like here.
to thankyoubuttonpusherlurker, hnooe!margarita brocolia
I think a Texas-sized aluminum foil hat is in order..
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Meow
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...TIN GALLON HAT!Beach Fanatic
Oh you are good!
Beach Fanatic
True, this was blown way out of proportion. Thankfully it's over now and we can all get back to more important issues. I'm looking forward to Obama's speech tomorrow night, the whole healthcare thing is about to heat up again. Should be interesting.
and one of the ones blowing the hardest:
Scott Maxwell: Florida Republican Party Chairman Jim Greer slams Obama -- but touts GOP views at schools -- OrlandoSentinel.com
margarita brocolia
and one of the ones blowing the hardest:.
Scott Maxwell: Florida Republican Party Chairman Jim Greer slams Obama -- but touts GOP views at schools -- OrlandoSentinel.com
There once was a political operative who loved to tell crowds he had a simple way of explaining to children the difference between Republicans and Democrats.
"Republicans get up and go to work," he would tell his son. "Democrats get up and go down to the mailbox to get their checks."
This man not only talked to his son about Republican values, he went into public-school classrooms and talked about them as well.
That man is Jim Greer ? the same Jim Greer who, as chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, just threw a nationwide hissy fit, claiming that the classroom is no place for politics and Barack Obama's "indoctrination." ...........................
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SoWal Insider
SoWal Guide
SoWal Insider
Well, glad this hype is over~~~~~~
Meow
Well, glad this hype is over~~~~~~
whew...everyone survived and now sweet Rita can go back to farming.
margarita brocolia
whew...everyone survived and now sweet Rita can go back to farming..
..I just bought he and she gnomes for my farm! Mangy thinks we should talk Farm Town into letting us hide them on each others farms! :funn:
I put a SoWal troll under my bridge!
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Beach Fanatic
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..I just bought he and she gnomes for my farm! Mangy thinks we should talk Farm Town into letting us hide them on each others farms! :funn:
I put a SoWal troll under my bridge!
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TG, I hope they stay under that bridge!
SoWal Expert
margarita brocolia
TG, I hope they stay under that bridge!.
My river's running deep and those concrete blocks I purchased at the store ought to help!..
Right now the troll is just busy banging it's head on the underpinning of my bridge.
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Edited
Beach Fanatic
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My river's running deep and those concrete blocks I purchased at the store ought to help!..
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I hope so. LOL
SoWal Insider
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My river's running deep and those concrete blocks I purchased at the store ought to help!..
Right now the troll is just busy banging it's head on the underpinning of my bridge.
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Your troll should have listened to the President and stayed in school. 
Beach Fanatic
...back to the original thread subject--I wonder if anyone will think that Bill Gates is a socialist for bringing the "Stay in School" message to the young people:
Popeater
LOS ANGELES -Students who might be too glued to their televisions to keep up with homework are going to find channels like MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon prodding them to get on task and graduate.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is partnering with Viacom Inc.'s television networks, education leaders and celebrities to launch an awareness campaign to reduce the number of dropouts. The foundation, started by Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates and his wife, has invested more than $2 billion in educational programs since 2000.
"People should understand how the system is falling short today and how it really contradicts our commitment to equal opportunity," Gates told The Associated Press. "If we don't change it now, it will hurt the future of the country as a whole."
Popeater
LOS ANGELES -Students who might be too glued to their televisions to keep up with homework are going to find channels like MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon prodding them to get on task and graduate.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is partnering with Viacom Inc.'s television networks, education leaders and celebrities to launch an awareness campaign to reduce the number of dropouts. The foundation, started by Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates and his wife, has invested more than $2 billion in educational programs since 2000.
"People should understand how the system is falling short today and how it really contradicts our commitment to equal opportunity," Gates told The Associated Press. "If we don't change it now, it will hurt the future of the country as a whole."
Edited
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