Comments on: President will speak to students

By: UK results for Suffolk in Herefordshire

UK results for Suffolk in Herefordshire — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 10:22:43 +0000

[...] President will speak to students « Joanne Jacobs [...]

By: Richard Aubrey

Richard Aubrey — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 02:24:59 +0000

Lightly.
Geez. Pretending a metaphor is meant literally is so junior high.
If there were unfettered corporate access to the kids, there would be a corporate sponsored econ class.
Where, among other things, the subversive info that you can have a gross profit and a net loss would be explained.
That would make it difficult to get over on kids the profit-is-obscene meme.
That’s what unfettered corporate access would look like, along with Pepsi logos on the math books.
That, when pressed, all you could come up with is that textbooks were made by corporations is risible.

By: Lightly Seasoned

Lightly Seasoned — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 23:15:09 +0000

I don’t follow you, Richard. Are you saying I’m against courses in economics?

By: Paul

Paul — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 23:07:39 +0000

None of you would object if W. or McCain wanted to speak to our schoolchildren, so it shouldn’t matter now. He is PRESIDENT of the United States. Of cousre he can make a speech to American kids in school. Duh! Presidents have done this before. People need to calm down and quit losing their minds over these things. Studying Civics and civil discourse is a part of education in a democratic society, and that means listening to the speeches leaders make, but still making your own decisions about them. What’s next? If it’s time to study a speech by Lincoln, all Democrat kids stay home, and when it is time to study an FDR speech, all Republican kids stay home? This divisive, fearful behavior is going too far when you think the President has no place in school. Have we forgotten that we are all Americans?

By: Richard Aubrey

Richard Aubrey — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 11:32:04 +0000

Lightly.
So the unfettered access to the kids is the textbooks and other supplies.
You had me scared there for a minute. I thought corporations were in there teaching stuff like capitalism. “Kids, the difference between gross profit and net profit is….” If that were the case, I could see why you’d be worried.
So I guess I’ll be less worried that some corporation is making textbooks.
My wife teaches high school Spanish. I follow the new textbook thing along with her. Didn’t see much celebration of the corporate state.

By: Lightly Seasoned

Lightly Seasoned — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 11:10:02 +0000

Education is entirely corporate. Somebody is making a lot of money in this business, and it isn’t the teachers. It isn’t like our material and supplies appear out of thin air.

For a bunch of people who are sure they know the real poop on the president, I’m stunned by the lack of political savvy here.

First of all, not all states calculate funding based on daily attendance. If all the kids stayed home in my district that day, it wouldn’t affect ours at all. (Not that they will, this seems to be a tempest in an internet teapot — nobody around here had even heard of the speech until they started seeing it online — I saw a LOT of parents last night, and none mentioned it).

Secondly, legislatures can override special situations, and in fact do so all the time.

Thirdly, the cuts are always made at the classroom level first, so if funding is lost, it isn’t the decision makers who suffer.

By: Richard Aubrey

Richard Aubrey — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 03:38:36 +0000

Lightly.
Please tell us who lets the corporations into your school to mess with the kids.

By: Lightly Seasoned

Lightly Seasoned — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 03:08:19 +0000

I’ve looked at the secondary lesson plan. Totally innocuous.

Teachers are flawed human beings. We carry biases like everyone else. My building seems to contain a spectrum of political leanings, so, in theory, the kiddos get doses from all angles. Am I biased. Yep. I cannot be otherwise.

We’ve been in school since the second week of August, so it wouldn’t be much of a kick-off speech. The kids are already shedding their good intentions and best behavior.

Personally, I’d be far more worried about the unremitting and unfettered access corporations have to the kids in school than one speech by the president.

By: Mark G.

Mark G. — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 01:43:30 +0000

You got me: I am going to do something I doubt happens very often in the blogosphere comment world…claim a mea culpa. The comments which were clearly racially charged were on another board discussing this topic. I went back and re-read every comment on this site looking for a very specific one which inspired my response… I realize that the comments are not on this site, but on the Vodkapundit site. I apologize. I’d do the same in person…

But my point is bigger than this, and I’m not immune from the ills: in this medium, discourse is something we do not see…I’d hope we’d not speak to one another in person the way that it appears in these kinds of tete-a-tetes. The reasons for not watching the speech in schools should have nothing to do with cries of Hitler youth and marching in unison. To me, it should have more to do with content, parental mediation and moderation of the political messages their child receives. That, to me, is more productive a discussion than comparing any American leader to Hitler or Stalin.

And SusanS, if you interpreted that I was accusing you or ranting or raving or claiming all teachers were biased, then the rhetorical structure of my post was flawed. I was intending to show that operating in absolutes does not advance the conversation and does not contribute to positive change…using my own post as an example. If you took it as an attack, that’s one more sign that perhaps these are not the kinds of forums where productive dialogue can take place.

By: Richard Aubrey

Richard Aubrey — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 00:59:29 +0000

Mark.
Specify who, besides yourself, mentioned race.