Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Obama speech on children taking responsibility

I never thought I would live to see this:


but I'm glad I did!
Grintiy

I do like that he talked about how many successful people got that way after many failures. That was a nice bit for my little perfectionist.

Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr, Clinton, Bush Jr all delivered speeches to schools before this.


It was the "talking points" delivered prior to the speech that were controversial. Almost all the questions were self-serving. It gave the appearance of politicizing the appearance.

As for past controversies, Bush Sr was famously lambasted by Dick Gephardt - and Bush Jr was "investigated" by Congress for his speech.

I thought Obama's speech was too long and had too many references to himself. There were a few good points and had he just hit those high notes, it would have been pretty good.

I think it's safe to say that the resonance/usefulness of a message to an individual is impacted by their personal experiences. I had the opportunity to watch a high poverty group of upper elementary school students watch the speech. Yes, some of them tuned out, but there were many students in the group (including students who are difficult to keep engaged in learning and who have difficulty sitting and listening in general) who were focused on every word. I realize that hearing about that is "just words", but watching it....wow. That 20 minutes of the school year had tremendous power for some very smart, capable children who often see themselves as neither.

I agree with Taminy. For many kids, hearing Obama's story and his wife's story, allowed them to connect with him and see another possible future for them if they work hard.

With all the rancorous bickering filling the airwaves this summer, I had trouble removing the politics from the debate over his speech to the kids.

But hearing the kids talk about the speech after school today reminded me that -- for the most part -- their little minds haven't been poisoned by partisanship yet, so they were able to enjoy the speech for what it was: The POTUS speaking directly to them.

Ditto.

My children are biracial, and while they are too young to know what true racism and inequalities are (other than it not being fair that they can't do this or that until they do something else - lol), I can tell you that DS, even though we don't live in an area of extreme poverty, and we live in an area of a huge cultural blend of people, was connected to that speech. And there is something to be said when "someone that looks like me" is giving that kind of speech vs. someone that doesn't. The same can be said listening to a woman vs. a man, if you are a woman - if that makes sense. It's not just about the subject matter itself sometimes that gives kids a sense of empowerment, encouragement & even pride.

I'm not an expert, but I believe the controversy was not the speech itself, but the lesson plan that followed afterwards.

My DH works for a school district and they didn't show it, the lesson plan afterwards being one of the reasons.