September 1, 2009 2:20 PM
Obama public school indoctrination September 8 - part 3
If we let this one go, it is sure to be part of a regular effort to indoctrinate our kids. Please read these lesson plans to see why this must be stopped BEFORE it begins.
Here is the text for "Classroom Activities" PK-6:
PreK-6 Menu of Classroom Activities: President Obama's Address to Students Across America Produced by Teaching Ambassador Fellows, U.S. Department of Education September 8, 2009
Before the Speech:
â€¢ Teachers can build background knowledge about the President of the United States and his speech by reading books about presidents and Barack Obama and motivate students by asking the following questions:
Who is the President of the United States?
What do you think it takes to be President?
To whom do you think the President is going to be speaking?
Why do you think he wants to speak to you?
What do you think he will say to you?
â€¢ Teachers can ask students to imagine being the President delivering a speech to all of the students in the United States. What would you tell students? What can students do to help in our schools? Teachers can chart ideas about what they would say.
â€¢ 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? [my emphasis - I kinda thought that in a representative government, they were supposed to listen to us.]
During the Speech:
â€¢ 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?[mind-control, anyone?]
What new ideas and actions is the President challenging me to think about?
â€¢ 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?
â€¢ Students can record any questions they have while he is speaking and then discuss them after the speech. Younger children may need to dictate their questions.
After the Speech:
â€¢ Teachers could ask students to share the ideas they recorded, exchange sticky notes or stick notes on a butcher paper poster in the classroom to discuss main ideas from the speech, i.e. citizenship, personal responsibility, civic duty.
â€¢ Students could discuss their responses to the following questions:
What do you think the President wants us to do?
Does the speech make you want to do anything?
Are we able to do what President Obama is asking of us?
What would you like to tell the President?
â€¢ Teachers could encourage students to participate in the Department of Education's "I Am What I Learn" video contest. On September 8th the Department will invite K-12 students to submit a video no longer than 2 min, explaining why education is important and how their education will help them achieve their dreams. Teachers are welcome to incorporate the same or a similar video project into an assignment. More details will be released via www.ed.gov.
Extension of the Speech: Teachers can extend learning by having students
â€¢ Create posters of their goals. Posters could be formatted in quadrants or puzzle pieces or trails marked with the labels: personal, academic, community, country. Each area could be labeled with three steps for achieving goals in those areas. It might make sense to focus on personal and academic so community and country goals come more readily.
â€¢ 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.
â€¢ Write goals on colored index cards or precut designs to post around the classroom.
â€¢ Interview and share about their goals with one another to create a supportive community.
â€¢ Participate in School wide incentive programs or contests for students who achieve their goals.
â€¢ Write about their goals in a variety of genres, i.e. poems, songs, personal essays.
â€¢ Create artistic projects based on the themes of their goals.
â€¢ Graph student progress toward goals.
This is really horrifying.
It says here that the teleconference is about the importance of a good education. How is that "horrifying"?
Oh, my bad. that's not what I meant to say. I meant to talk about liberal Marxist indoctrination, how Hitler did this just before he killed Jews, and the Obama Youth. My bad.
[Just posted the actual content with embedded cultlike indoctrination. You obviously have only looked at the cover letter - I dug deeper.
This is dangerous access and also may be the first of an intended series of "talks." Sorry, Tubby - don't think you would have approved of George Bush doing this.]
Posted by: Tubby | September 1, 2009 3:39 PM
This reminds me of Obama's campaign trail, where I truly believe he was using hypnosis techniques, which resulted in the glazed-eye audiences chanting, swaying and fainting. I watched the documentary where they interviewed his followers and they really had no idea why they voted for him, just gobbledygook "we are the change we have been waiting for" garbage. This guy is dangerous and I would in no way allow him access to my impressionable children, not even to critique him.
Posted by: MrsD | September 1, 2009 8:24 PM
[Deleted because irrelevant, insulting and uniformed.
But try again if you'd like to make a substantive argument in a respectful tone.]
Posted by: psmother | September 2, 2009 1:38 PM
I wonder if Pres. Reagan wanted to do this, would we be trying to ignore him? O wait he did, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but first ask what you can do for your country." That is indoctrination and I am sure you agree with him, so it is fine. What is important is that the students hear from their President and begin to decipher for themselves what they agree to and what they don't. I think it own wise to teach students to ignore what our President says. Don't you???
[Um, Mr. Beasley - that was John F. Kennedy who said that in his Inagauration speech. I thought everyone in the world knew that!!!
This just confirms for me as a former emotion- and slogan-driven radical leftist that conservatives are truly more educated and logical and in possession of the facts.]
Posted by: Dick Beasley | September 2, 2009 9:51 PM
Obama has pledged to serve his country. Not have his country pledge to serve him. We pledge to serve our country. He sounds like Hitler just in a seductive enticing way. I think I will watch it at home first with them and discuss it. Then I can teach them what is really going on instead of President Obama brain washing them into thinking they should worship him. We worship God. We serve our Country.
There is nothing I hate more than celebrities making a video to entice our children into something they think is great. And the whole slavery thing. What did Martin Luther King do all those years ago? It was the "African American" people who stood up for themselves and ended it. I think that is just a slap in the face to them. Obama is so worried about other countries freedom. Why doesn't he worry about ours. He thinks our country is terrible, and we should be like others. Am I wrong. I think not. I seriously wanted Pres. Obama to be a great and wonderful president. As the first African American president. But, he seems to be more like Hitler every time I hear about him.
Posted by: n | September 3, 2009 12:19 PM
Are you smarter than a Fifth Grader? The answer is pretty obvious from what Iâ€™ve read in the blogsphere. To start, what explanation will the parentâ€™s who force their children to stay home offer to those children? What can they say, other than the President of the United States canâ€™t talk to you if Iâ€™m not there because he canâ€™t be trusted. Heâ€™s the President of the United States of America and he canâ€™t be trusted to encourage our children to excel!
Gee, it must have seemed like a good idea at the time. Itâ€™s not possible to hit every single school in the country and chat, read a story, so why not use technology. Why not also make it easier for teachers; make up a lesson plan that they can use, adjust or discard if they so choose. Speaking of that lesson plan, the part that seems to really generate some ire is â€œwhy is important to listen to (elected officials). Iâ€™m going out on a limb here, but could it be important to listen so that if one disagrees with what one hears, then those elected officials can be contacted? Those elected officials can be defeated at the polls, you know, a lesson in democracy!
Those who choose to keep their children at home will I hope, protest and protest loudly if the mayor of their city or their congressperson or ANY elected official comes to school for any reason whatsoever; to give a speech, to present an award, to dedicate a learning center, to work in the cafeteria, to read a story. Do not allow it, have your children call you to come and get them if itâ€™s attempted.
How could President Obama know that this too would become a political football, used by those who oppose his policies? Yes, perhaps he should have known. Itâ€™s a sad state of affairs but apparently those who want to regain power know their base audience and know just how easy it is to manipulate that audienceâ€¦like shooting fish in a barrel.
Posted by: quincy | September 3, 2009 2:19 PM
"Those who choose to keep their children at home will I hope, protest and protest loudly if the mayor of their city or their congressperson or ANY elected official comes to school for any reason whatsoever; to give a speech, to present an award, to dedicate a learning center, to work in the cafeteria, to read a story. Do not allow it, have your children call you to come and get them if itâ€™s attempted." Let me first start by saying that the public schools are under local government, not federal so these speakers would be welcome, not to mention the fact I am sure that it would be well advertised, not kept tightly under wraps like Obama's speech. I am already hearing about a prime time speech next week he will be making about health care, but nothing in the news about him addressing my child. If is going to be that great, and not as creepy as it sounds then it should be well advertised and not take place on the first day of school for so many. Please know that this is not a lesson in civics, teach your children how our government works, I did not risk my life fighting for my kids freedom to be slowly taken away.
Posted by: kate | September 3, 2009 4:22 PM
You are minimizing what Obama is doing. He is not "dedicating a learning center" or "reading a story" or "chatting." He has a clear agenda with this speech to the impressionable masses, as evidenced by the extensive accompanying talking points. Plus, this is the first time a President has ever given a speech to children - TV has been around since the '50s and radio even earlier - which denotes the extraordinary nature of this event. If it's not any big deal, why haven't other Presidents done it...surely the thought must have crossed at least one administrations' collective mind in the last one hundred years? Because it is completely inappropriate, wrong, and smacks of a dictatorship, that's why.
Posted by: MrsD | September 3, 2009 4:51 PM
Actually, this speech is not unprecedented.
From the following story:
"She noted that President George H.W. Bush made a similar address to schools in 1991. Like Obama, Bush drew criticism, with Democrats accusing the Republican president of making the event into a campaign commercial."
While some Dems in Congress criticized that speech, there was no pundit obsession with it, nor a big push to keep kids from seeing it.
The DOE page simply outlines social studies discussion. I cannot understand how that is so horrifying.
Alas, it appears that the reactionary punditocracy is working too many parents into a mob mentality. Is that what we want to teach our children?
Posted by: Sarah Levi | September 4, 2009 9:03 AM
Easy targets those school kids.
Upcoming elections 2010 & 2012.
Like Michelle Malkin says: Knowledge is power & Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
Seems the "chickens are coming home to roost".
Posted by: A Mac and a Mug O' Joe | September 4, 2009 9:59 AM
Yes, the first Bush did address children. However, I have read the speech he gave and he was spurring children to stay in school and work hard at learning. He was not talking 'politics' even if re-election was his motivation.
Obama has a disturbing track record of beliefs that I do not ever wish to see reflected in my children. He said during his campaign that we should judge him by the people he surrounds himself with. I have been researching those people he has chosen to advise him: Marxists, Communists, and radicals.
No, I do not want him talking to my kids in the classroom... not with the base of views he carries. Especially not about government and civic duty. Mrs. D had it right when she spoke of mesmerizing the masses. I have seen it as well. He has a great smile, he is a handsome, young, charismatic man. It doesn't surprise me one bit that so many people blindly follow him. All he has to do is smile and talk and he has your attention. But it is all those little things he says that get masked over, the lies that are easily verifiable, and the contradictions that have created a swamp between him and any accountability.
No, I say it again, that is not someone I wish to have talk to my children.
Besides... in our school district, all the topics that this detailed lesson plan covers are already handled by the time they leave 8th grade, and I feel the teachers manage the topics well. Does he have so little confidence in our system that he feels he can't leave covering government and civic duty to the school districts on their own?
This spells bad news in any language. Those of you who support this, take an hour or so and search the net. Look at different points of view and verify all facts. Most importantly, look at the people Obama surrounds himself with and their beliefsâ€¦ visit congressâ€™ websites and check out some of the bills on the floor (One is currently there that would do away with term limits for president), compare all of this to the history of Germanyâ€¦ not text book history, but research it and then tell me you donâ€™t see the scary similarities.
It is time to be vigilant people. It is time to stop the petty arguing and start getting the FACTSâ€¦ not from mainstream media and not from what you dare to try to remember from grade school history. You are going to wake up one morning and not even recognize the country you life in.
Posted by: Amanda | September 5, 2009 3:42 PM
I'm not sure the speech is all bad. There may be under tones of "serving the President" but he gives some good encouragements too. Stay in school, work hard, be responsible for your own actions. Remember God uses "ALL MEANS& PEOPLE" to accomplish HIs Ways. I think kids of today need all the encouragement they can get. God will use this speech if we pray for it to be used to His Honor and Glory. With all this said I am NOT an OBAMA FAN AT ALL...I am just praying that God use whatever to Bring About HIS WILL......Rebecca Wold
Posted by: Rebecca Wold | September 7, 2009 5:26 PM