Back to School with Obama
The early days of the back-to-school season are typically full of anxious parents, crying kindergartners, and school buses that can’t seem to keep to a schedule. Today was not much different – but as I waited an extra 15 minutes for my second grader’s bus to arrive, I wondered if my son had seen President Obama’s address to the nation’s school children. I wasn’t expecting so – I’d called the school office and was told that viewing varied by classroom.
But when he finally stepped off the bus and I asked him if he had watched the President’s speech, he surprised me by saying “Yes.”
“And?,” I asked excitedly. “What did you think?”
“Boring.”
“Boring!”
“Boring. What’s for snack?”
“Hold on there a minute,” I said. “I read his speech. He talked about taking responsibility, he talked about working hard, he talked about all those things that Mom and Dad talk to you about, didn’t he?”
“No.”
“Well, what did he talk about?,” I feigned.
“I don’t remember.”
I let the poor kid have his snack and gave him a ten minute rest before I started interrogating him again.
“Did your teachers talk to you about his speech after it was over?”
“No.”
“No!”
“Did you understand his speech?”
“No, not really.”
Let’s hope the speech went over better with the 7th graders and the 17-year-olds than with the 7-year-olds. I read the speech and was really impressed. It was a simple message about taking responsibility for one’s actions and working hard. You can read the text here.
What did you think? And more importantly, how did the children you know react to the speech?
— Lynn
Copyright 2009 OrganicMania
4 Responses to “Back to School with Obama”
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My son is 6 and I was surprised that he paid so little attention; he’s the kind of kid who really eats that stuff up plus he’s a big Obama fan. Since it was the 1st day of school, I didn’t really expect the teacher to take any more time on it than showing the speech. The timing was just lousy over here in VA.
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I am laughing so hard reading this post! Boring. Boring. Boring. I vaguely heard all the hub-bub about the speech (mostly because it is fundraising season and I don’t watch TV anyway), but not for a second did I think about how the little ones wouldn’t “get it” anyway. Very cute.
My 9 year old had quite a bit to say about but he’s a talker so I wasn’t surprised. The message that you can be anything you want to be when you grow up but you have to put in the effort yourself really sunk in. At this point in his life my son wants to be a football player but he knows that you have to go to college to get to the NFL so I guess that’s a good thing, huh?
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My son’s kindergarten class did not watch. I had him watch at home later. I think it was way too long for his age group, but we got to talk about how important school is. It was fun to hear him exclaim the next day when I was listening to the health care speech, “Hey, I know this show! It’s Barack Obama!” 😉
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