Tomorrow's Obama school speech: Yes or No?

If you haven't heard, tomorrow morning, President Obama is going to give a speech to the students of our nation's schools via the whitehouse.gov website. He and his handlers have insisted that the speech is simply a "stay in school and do your work" pep talk. Tonight, I finally had the opportunity to read and preview his speech, and to tell you the truth, as much as I find the man's politics to be horribly repugnant, the speech isn't half bad.

As long as Obama sticks to simply telling kids to stay in school and what not, I never had a big problem with the speech itself. What I had a major problem with was the fact that until tonight, I could not preview the speech to see exactly what he was going to say. Further, the lesson plan from the Department of Education website that accompanied the speech - which has since been removed - instructed teachers to do such things as have their students write a short essay in which the students would write about how they could help our president. This leaves students with the impression that they work for our president and not the other way around. I would have had a big problem with that assignment.

However, after previewing the speech and seeing the president actually has some rather candid things to say, I believe I will actually show the speech tomorrow. Either live, or delayed, as I am sure it will be instantly posted on YouTube.

Now don't think I have gone all soft on our Marxist Commander in Chief. I am still very wary about having any president piped directly into our nation's schools. Even though his message might be a good one, the precedent that is being set here, no matter how benign the subject matter, is one that needs to be addressed with my students. My first question to them would be to ask how they would feel if President George W. Bush was going to speak to them directly instead of their hero Barack Obama. I will discuss with them the notion that although this speech was very non-offensive, what if future presidents (including Obama himself later in his presidency) use their direct access to the nation's schoolchildren in order to push for policies and legislation that are near and dear to that president's agenda? I will discuss with them how a practice like this could be used or abused in the years to come. I will let my students hear Obama's message in my classroom, but I will still require them to think about discuss the ramifications behind its delivery.

If you want to read the speech yourself before Obama gives it tomorrow, you can read it at this link here. Otherwise, here are some of my favorite passages:

But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world – and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed.
And that’s what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education. I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself...

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...

I know that sometimes, you get the sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work -- that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star, when chances are, you’re not going to be any of those things.
But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every subject you study. You won’t click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try...

The story of America isn’t about people who quit when things got tough. It’s about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best.
It’s the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google, Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other.
So today, I want to ask you, what’s your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a president who comes here in twenty or fifty or one hundred years say about what all of you did for this country?

I am not above giving credit where credit is due: overall, President Obama's speech is an excellent one. But politically, I still oppose him on every front.

Oh, and one more thing. I noticed that Obama ends his speech with "God Bless America." I wonder if the ACLU is going to sue him for that one. After all, they sued to have schools take down the very same words from their marquees in the wake of September 11, 2001.

Good Day to You, Sir