Schools

Back to School: Obama's Speech Won't Be Required Curriculum

Superintendent Margaret Hayes says all the schools will have access to video of the speech to use in the future, if desired.

President Obama’s speech to school children may have raised a fuss at some schools across the country, but here in Scotch Plains-Fanwood, it’ll all be low-key.

Superintendent Dr. Margaret Hayes tells Patch that each school in the district will have access to a recorded electronic version of the speech, but that none are requiring students to watch it. The video may be used by a few teachers in their curriculum at some point in the school year.

Elementary schools may show a portion of the speech to children during their opening back-to-school assemblies, but Hayes said she’s not aware of any of them that are showing it in its entirety.

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Obama’s speech was broadcast to school children across the nation on Tuesday. Standing in front of students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Va., the president talked to students about the importance of a good education and the need for them to discover their talents and go after their goals.

"This isn't just important for your own life and your own future," Obama said. "What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you're learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future."

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While the speech was not political in nature, it caused quite a stir with parents and educators across the country, some who viewed the speech and its accompanying lesson plans as "political gesturing."

One Patch town, New Canaan, Conn., became the center of the controversy this week.
On "Meet the Press" Sunday, host David Gregory read a portion of the New Canaan school superintendent's letter to parents regarding the district's plan for presenting the speech to New Canaan students. The letter said that New Canaan's principals had "considered issues such as developmental appropriateness, curricular relevance, the time at which the speech is being broadcast and the importance of teachers assuming responsibility for the selection of instructional materials," in coming up with the plan.

The Republican Town Committee in New Canaan sent an e-mail to its supporters last week expressing outrage about the speech and lesson plans the White House and the U.S. Department of Education distributed to accompany it. The committee specifically attacked a line in the lesson plan asked the students "to write letters to themselves about how they and their parents could help Obama and his administration."

The message was referencing a line in an earlier version of the suggested post-speech curriculum for students in pre-K through sixth grade, which asked students to write down what they can do to "help" President Obama. The revised lesson plan asks students to reflect on the president's ideas about "citizenship, personal responsibility, and civic duty," and instructs students to write letters to themselves outlining their educational goals

To read a transcript of Obama's speech, go here.


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