Now that I've heard President Obama's speech to schoolchildren,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iqsxCWjCvI
I'm even more disappointed in the furor that caused school districts (including my own) to not air it live. Why? Because it was more inspiring than I thought it would be. Interestingly enough, it was a speech any conservative, any Republican president, would have been proud to give. It was about personal responsibility. It gave compelling reasons why school is relevant. And it was clearly effective. How much more could one ask from a speech?
In my quest to continue to understand why my school district did not air this speech on September 8th, I've researched precedent and spoke to those in my school district who were willing to speak about this, a total of one person. All of the letters I wrote, the inquiries I made, only one person from the school called me and it wasn't even the individual who wrote the letter to the parents announcing the banning of the speech.
Because I don't want to publicly express who that person was who did call me, because I did not indicate to them that I would be publicizing their comments, I will use that shadowy press term I've always wanted to use: It was "a very highly placed source." Oooooohhhhhhh.
My source indicated that they could not yet give an official response to my letter I sent to the superintendent, because apparently, there is going to be some official more general reiteration of the district's stance down the road. This confused me a bit in that I thought they already had a stance iterated.
My source did want to assure me that "the District's decision to not air the President's speech live was not politically motivated", though their own letter explaining why they would not air the speech said, "the airing of this speech has already become a very politically charged topic in the press and a significant concern for many of our parents."
I explained that I never made a claim that the board itself was casting a political statement by not airing the speech, but instead, bowing to pressure from constituents who had a political or personal agenda against the President of the United States. Furthermore, I explained, as I explained in my letter, that there were a whole host of other reasons this was poor judgement to not air the speech. Not the least of which is that it would be good for children to hear and not airing it broke with precedent as many other presidents made similar speeches in the past to much less resistance.
While there was some typical partisan dissent in the past, it never elevated itself to the wackyness of the current fervor (child indoctrination claims, brainwashing) nor the wholesale deletion of the event from school agendas. Though to that point, I challenge my board: I cannot definitively find record of my school district airing the Reagan and the George H.W. speeches, but I find no record they didn't either. I would be interested in a public statement from the board indicating what did happen on October 1, 1991 when George H.W. Bush gave the speech and in the 1980's when Ronald Reagan gave his speech. It might prove enlightening, it could even make their case that this is precedent for this school district to not air such speeches (precedent I would still disagree with).
My source also interestingly said that the superintendent had final power re this decision and that the board supported it. Really? The superintendent has final say? Now, I'm no expert here, but I thought in most municipalities that the board is elected and the board had hiring and firing power over the superintendent. Doesn't that give the board final say? How could the person being hired have final say over the person hiring them?
So I looked up some past cases. Here's an excerpt from a legal case in Harrisburg, PA concerning a curricula decision regarding "intelligent design."
HARRISBURG, Pa. - The school board, not teachers, should decide what belongs in the public-school curriculum, said the assistant superintendent of a school district being sued over whether "intelligent design" belongs in science classes.
The Dover Area School Board decided in October 2004 to require students to hear a statement about intelligent design before ninth-grade biology lessons on evolution. Teachers were opposed to the statement, which says Charles Darwin's theory is "not a fact" and has inexplicable "gaps," and which refers students to the textbook "Of Pandas and People" for more information.
The board has final say on such curriculum decisions, Michael Baksa, the assistant superintendent, testified Thursday during the landmark federal trial. "Once the board makes a decision, whether you agree with the decision or not, it's your responsibility to implement it," he said.
Well, that's interesting. If Illinois law re school boards is like Pennsylvania law, then the board should have made the decision about whether to air this speech, not the superintendent.
My source also indicated that the "grade level" of this speech (apparently graded by Microsoft according to my source, who I wasn't aware was in the grading of speeches business) was at "7th grade" and therefore inappropriate (or not understandable) for other grades (below I assume). I tried to wrap my head around this and carry it to it's logical conclusion. One would have to either have the sitting president create 12 different speeches to accommodate each of the grades and in addition, due to curricula concerns my source had, also coordinate with the board (or the superintendent) to correlate the speech to existing curricula mapping of our school district or not give the speech.
Clearly, when one tries to carry this to it's logical conclusion, it simply isn't logical. This speech cannot be measured as though it's part of standard curricula. It's not meant to be and it cannot be judged in that way. It's an historic event. It's an inspirational speech given by our President to help our children and our society. It's simply much ado about nothing to be against airing it live or otherwise. To somehow say that down the road the board (or the superintendent?) will review the speech and then they might air pieces of it "not live"is simply missing the point, besides smacking of censorship. Airing the speech preferentially later would be like airing the moon landing only after review. Yes, I hear the criticism already, "this is not the moon landing." But the speech was historic (first black president, remember?). It's also helpful for our educational system. The point, quite simply, is that it should not have been "banned" because t was meant to inspire kids and who could argue with that?
And there was another issue the source had with my argument. They said the speech wasn't "banned" but they didn't offer an alternative adjective. Then what was it? Temporarily banned? Forbidden but not really? Ban means to forbid something. If you later then allow it, you lift the ban. This is simply semantics to say it wasn't banned. It was clearly forbidden to be aired live. So the live broadcast was banned. Simple as that. This argument over minutia is one of the issues, as it's trying to create rationale through loophole. When things are wrong, we tend to use fine print to make them seem right and that is wrong.
So what did I do with my six-year old that evening of the speech? We watched the speech in bed as his bedtime story. Contrary to concerns about this being above my son's ability to comprehend, he understood quite a bit of the speech thank you. My son, to be fair, wandered at points, he asked questions, he did all of the things we all do when listening to speeches (or reading long blogs). But he got a lot out of it. Though not as much as he would have, had he been with the entire school sitting together in an auditorium. There's a reason we have movie theaters. There's simply something more important about an event when it's shared.
I would hope that the world sees that sharing, tolerance and togetherness, is what we need more of, and divisiveness, hatred and prejudice, is what we need less of.
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