President Obama's Education Address

A parent that I greatly admire and respect called me recently to ask what we intended to do about President Obama's address to the nation's school children next Tuesday. Upon receiving my answer, she stated that she wanted her child to opt out of watching the address, based primarily upon the fact that she and her husband dislike Mr. Obama.

I find this rationale curious. So often, our elected officials use education as one of their primary agenda items to get elected. However, once the election is over, few, if any, continue to see the value in education, despite everyone agreeing it is important. Here is our country's leader wanting to actually address students about education and many want to politicize the act and prevent their children from listening to what he has to say. I don't believe that President Obama is planning on turning this into a subliminal message about health care reform, but I do know that a ten minute address from the president will never supersede the philosophies a parent teaches their child at home. That being said, I believe it is still a parent's right to make decisions about this for his or her child.

Concurrently, I also believe that no matter what an individuals personal opinion about President Obama may or may not be, he is our President and I think he deserves all the respect that goes along with the office. It can easily translate to questioning the values we teach children today. We often hear criticism about "kid's today", but we always seem to forget that we are the ones raising these kids with the values we are complaining about. Respect is a quality that needs to be taught, and it does not work if it is taught "selectively". Teaching children that you should respect this person but not that person, based upon a fairly subjective list of criteria, just does not work. Try responding to that thought process when your child is disrespectful to someone you think they should respect. In that case, simply disliking the school principal would be an adequate rationale for being disrespectful. (and how could that be right!!???)

As I stated, I do not believe President Obama is going to use this forum to push his political agenda, (the text will be published this Monday) but if he says something a parent disagrees with, shouldn't that be an opportunity to dialogue with your child about that issue? In many instances, I think it would give parents an opportunity to further solidify their philosophies within their child, rather than "indoctrinate" their child with liberal rhetoric!

The most influential political leader in the world talking about the value of education seems, to me, to place a high value on education. Removing a child from this scenario seems to have other implications. We all seem to agree education is important, but God forbid our children begin to think that way by hearing a message from our President!