Sep. 8: Obama to address U.S. schoolchildren directly in national address
...President Obama announced that on September 8 - the first day of school for many children across America - he will deliver a national address directly to students on the importance of education... This is the first time an American president has spoken directly to the nation's school children about persisting and succeeding in school. We encourage you to use this historic moment to help your students get focused and begin the school year strong. I encourage you, your teachers, and students to join me in watching the President deliver this address on Tuesday, September 8, 2009. It will be broadcast live on the White House website www.whitehouse.gov 12:00 noon eastern standard time.
First, a bit of backstory: in my pre-election list of reasons to oppose Obama, his indoctrination plan for pre-teens was #3. He wanted to use kids under 12 to get votes; it said as much right on his site. Despite it being right on his campaign web site, the incompetent opposition leaders refused to use it against him, when it could have galvanized opposition from hundreds of thousands or millions of parents if handled correctly.
With that in mind, while it's to a good extent a good thing that the president is addressing the nation's children, it's not difficult to see that he has an ulterior motive and will subtly attempt to get those children to convince their parents to support his agenda.
Note also that the Department of Education is providing a "menu of classroom activities" before the speech, and they'll be conducting a video contest. And, on a sidenote, the page linked above is giving a perfectly good link to Youtube with the anchor text "interview with student reporter"; such a link is a valuable commodity.
UPDATE: Drudge is now linking to this document containing the "menu":
[before the speech, ask:]...Why is it important that we listen to the President and other elected officials, like the mayor, senators, members of congress, or the governor? Why is what they say important?...
[During the speech:] As the President speaks, teachers can ask students to write down key ideas or phrases that are important or personally meaningful. Students could use a note-taking graphic organizer such as a Cluster Web, or students could record their thoughts on sticky notes. Younger children can draw pictures and write as appropriate. As students listen to the speech, they could think about the following:
What is the President trying to tell me?
What is the President asking me to do?
What new ideas and actions is the President challenging me to think about?
Students can record important parts of the speech where the President is asking them to do something. Students might think about: What specific job is he asking me to do? Is he asking anything of anyone else? Teachers? Principals? Parents? The American people?
As pointed out here, another "menu" item is the suggestion that teachers have students:
Write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president. These would be collected and redistributed at an appropriate later date by the teacher to make students accountable to their goals.
9/2/09 UPDATE: From this:
In an acknowledgment that the Department of Education provided lesson plans written somewhat inartfully, surrounding the President Obama’s speech to students next Tuesday, the White House today announced that it had rewritten one of the sections in question.
...Today, after Republicans accused the White House of trying to indoctrinate school children with liberal propaganda the White House and the Department of Education changed the section to now read, "Write letters to themselves about how they can achieve their short‐term and long‐term education goals.”
“We changed it to clarify the language so the intent is clear,” said White House Spokesman Tommy Vietor.
9/8/09 UPDATE: Here are more excerpts from the lesson plans.