Wednesday, September 15, 2010


At my teen's school today, they are going to show President Obama's second annual back-to-school speech during the first hour of school. I wasn't able to watch it on the tv yesterday, so I found the video of it on the Washington Post and watched it for myself. It's not a bad speech and I'm sure that if my kids pay attention, they will learn something from it. He seems to be very careful to steer away from politics yet he did touch on some themes that are on voters' minds in the run-up to November's midterm elections:

"I know a lot of you are also feeling the strain of some difficult times," Obama told the students. "You know what's going on in the news, and you also know what's going on in some of your own families. You've read about the war in Afghanistan. You hear about the recession we've been through."

Then he said,

"Nothing - absolutely nothing - is beyond your reach. So long as you're willing to dream big. So long as you're willing to work hard. So long as you're willing to stay focused on your education. There's not a single thing that any of you cannot accomplish - not a single thing." I LOVED THIS!!

Did any of you view his speech yesterday? Are any of your schools having students view it today? Our Superintendent gave parents the option to write a note and have our child excused from the viewing of the speech. Any thoughts on that??



  1. As far as I know, our school isn't showing it, probably because it's an elementary school Our high school may be showing it, I don't know. I would let my child watch it, no problem, although I managed to miss it myself. I may have to go to the Washington Post and take a look.

  2. I believe that some parents in my school district are just fearful of everything...they believe that this is just another ploy by Obama to push his political agenda. I'm not saying that he hasn't done this in the past, but it isn't apparent from this video that this is what he is doing now. It is a good, straight-forward speech and I believe that those parents who are letting their kids "opt out" of seeing it probably haven't viewed it themselves. These are just my thoughts...I might be wrong...because I frequently am!!! lol

  3. I trust politicians and government about as far as I can throw them(and that wouldn't be very far!lol). Because of that, if I had young kids in a school that was showing this speech, I would have opted them out of watching....unless I had a copy of the speech beforehand to view before letting my kids hear it.
    Why? Because I am my child's primary teacher and I am his/her parent and "I" control, as much as possible, what they are exposed to and when and where. Not the government nor the government's instrument aka public school.
    That being said, I watched the speech myself after it was given and I found it fairly non-partisan and non-political so I made it available to my child to watch.
    I am not an Obama fan but I like anything that motivates kids toward personal responsibility.