September 08, 2009 08:13 PM UTC

President addresses students

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• by: MADCO

I would support any US president addressing students. The sooner students learn that our President holds a special place in the world, as in:  leader of the free; the better.  It’s not just American exceptionalism, but that is a part.  

I watched the speech live on C-SPAN.   It was a conservative values speech and conservatives should be approving the message and encouraging President Obama to do more conservative messaging.  I won’t be holding my breath.  I expect the reaction will be more focused on straw man arguments and discrediting the messenger.   But this is where the national discussion is just stupid.

There are areas where all Americans agree.  Well, almost all and certainly conservatives and progressives. This would seem to be one of them: it is good and correct to work hard and in school, to be responsible for your own opportunity for your future and to realize that if you do not, you let us all down and  you let yourself down.

So use the teachable moment to reinforce this to any student who will listen.  In my kids’ schools the teachers won’t be using the the DOE/White House prepared “Menu of Classroom Activities“, though I will use some of it at home.

Specifically, I like the parts that ask students to think about why the president would want to speak to them and what would they say to students if they were president.  I also like the section about whether the student feels motivated because of the speech to do anything and if so what?

In our house, we set goals for the school year the week before school starts.  This typically includes sports and other out of school activities because it is just easier to align the calendar with the school year.  The President’s speech goes along with that quite well.  

He would be doing me a big favor if he would address the students again about mid-December and tell some heart warming tales about celebrating Christmas on a tight budget. Or again in the spring and talk about how big trips over spring break are not always necessary.