Our Hometown: Kids Serious and Thrilled About Obama’s Speech
Sep 9th, 2009 | 17 responses
It’s been a good while since I’ve written a column on “Our Hometown.” I grew up in a little town, population 600 in the semi-rural backwoods. Many of you too, grew up in some little strange out of the way place. We share together the odd, strange, bizarre and beloved things that go on in small towns.
Today, there is a town some ten miles to the south of where I grew up, one that has grown and declined over the decades, for it is in the factory rust belt. Belt, heck, full dress suit of rust is more like it. With a cape. And ten hats.
This is a report from the schools in that heart of America town on the south bend of the St. Joe river in Patowatomi and French explorer country… a place with longtime Black, Latino and Eastern European immigrant families…. a town that will not likely hit the evening news, a place where at most schools, four or fewer students out of each school did not attend Obama’s speech today. I might mention, this state, this county, this particular town is still threaded through and through with the wealthy and the well-positioned who often lean hard into classical conservatism.
SOUTH BEND – All 32 sets of eyes locked onto President Barack Obama on the TV as he delivered his homework.
These kids in an eighth-grade honors class at Edison Intermediate Center – well, none of them took notes.
But when Obama finished speaking to them – and to students in kindergarten through the 12th grade across the nation Tuesday – the Edison class was ready to analyze.
Teacher Tisha Mattei asked how they’d rate him on a 10-point scale, and they offered 9 … 10.
“He doesn’t act like he’s talking to a big group,” Becca Ercoline said. “He talks like he’s talking to one person.”
They observed: He used small words. He used correct grammar. He memorized his stuff, or so it seemed. And he related to their generation by dropping words like Google and Twitter.
Mattei asked whether it felt like a stern lecture. “Nooo,” the class responded.
What’s even more telling is which of Obama’s key points they recalled.
“He got into trouble, and he had second chances to do better,” Jesse Stires said.
“He said that everybody has a chance to do something in life,” said Terrell “T.J.” Jones. “You can’t just drop out.”
“He said you may have certain talents that you may not know yet, like student government,” Evan Thomas said.
This is the speech that had riled up parents and groups nationwide before it aired. They worried that it would be political.
Parents were free to request that their kids not watch Obama’s speech. Locally, there apparently wasn’t any significant wave of parents who exercised that right.
At Edison, only one of the 622 students had parents who asked to opt out, Principal Karla Lee said.
In the Penn-Harris-Madison School Corp., an average of four students at each school had parents ask that their children not watch, said PHM spokeswoman Teresa Carroll.
And out of the 1,100 students at Plymouth High School, there was just one student whose parents asked administrators that their child opt out of the speech, Principal James Condon said. He had no idea how many parents, if any, made that request directly to teachers.
Edison guidance counselor Libby Jackson watched the speech in her office and said, “I hope as staff members it gives us the courage to say things as well (to students and parents).”
A short while before, she’d taken a call from a disgruntled parent over a child’s homework assignment.
“It’s hard for parents; they really struggle,” she acknowledged. On the other hand, she feels Obama’s message about helping yourself against the odds encourages her. “It’s OK to say to a parent, ‘Sorry, but you are going to have to make sacrifices to help your child.’”
Like other teachers at Edison, Mattei weaved Obama’s speech into a lesson about the students’ educational goals. Almost all of the kids raised their hands when she asked who among them had set any goals in their lives.
In between classes, sixth-grader Wayne Belcher said the speech inspired him because of “the way it was told.”
“Because of what we do now, in the future we can cure cancer and AIDS and have a good life,” he said of what impressed him.
And from yet another class, eighth-grader Tyler Brunner said he was inspired just “a little” because he already does his work and gets good grades. Still, he said: “I liked how he used figures from his past. … I liked how he said what you do affects the whole nation.”
“I’m more of a shy person, and he inspired me to ask questions,” said Katie Tretheway, an eighth-grader.
“I was working hard,” eighth-grader Velma Easton said. “Now I know what I have to do: Ask a lot of questions.”
Staff writer Joseph Dits
Photo by Barbara Allison
Setting aside any poisoning cynicism… I find that cynicism is very often the armor worn by the most deep and most tender-hearted of idealists… I think the above view of ‘school today’ is the one most overlooked by slavering journos.
To a good many of us, I think it is good to see that here in the American heartland, as in many other places, kids and teachers were today, as usual, interested in learning, in seeing, in inquiry, in applying the great ideas to their own young lives… and equally so, thinking about that thing which Ibsen called ‘the most radical’… that is, thinking about how one might affect the future.
I just say: Brava to the children. And, thank you. Truly. For dreaming about the future today… and for being able this day to resist the antics of grownups who too often cut short the broadest, deepest dreams of the young before they’ve even had a chance to unfold.
Thank you to the parents and teachers, today and always, who dont narrow their children’s dreams by saying ‘you must believe as I do, or else you dont belong to me’ … but rather who believe their children belong to them no matter what, but also that their children belong to the world…
that their children came to earth for good reason, that the children came bearing gifts of incomparable treasure, wrapped often in the oddest of packagings, that each child on earth is needed here in order to bless and teach and care for our world, nonetheless.
And our work in all this regarding broad and deep education of children? If even one sparrow falls from the sky… here… or way over there…
17 Responses to “Our Hometown: Kids Serious and Thrilled About Obama’s Speech”
[...] has grown and declined over the decades, for it is in the factory rust belt. Belt, heRead more at http://themoderatevoice.com/45760/our-hometown-kids-serious-and-thrilled-about-obamas-speech/ Tags: 236, barack obama education speech, Bleach, Day, Kids, Michaela, Obama, Subbed, [...]
Dear Dr.E,
I want to tell you how it works here (I'm a teacher).
In the poorest towns near Paris, when a pupil is 14 or 15, and not very good at school, the teachers are saying to students : ” don't try to go to highschool, it's better for you to learn quickly a job “, even if the pupil has a little chance to go to highschool at the end of the year (if he works hard).
And “everybody” is satisfied : the teachers, because it's easy to do their jobs, the parents because they think their children would have easily a job in two or three years (crisis here too), and the pupil because he thinks he is not well-gifted (for school), and he will quickly earn money, be independent.
It's hard to struggle against this idea if the parents aren't aware about the fact that it is a luck to spend even a year in highschool, studiyng “litterature, mathematics, arts etc.”, that their children would have more choices, would meet other people, and would be more ” open-minded” (as I think)
I said : “just try one year, to see if it's your way, later you will have more creativity or more responsabilities”, because, in my opinion these pupils will not earn much money (for hard work), or only have to obey and not say anything in their professional lives.
I think this state of mind (some teachers, some parents) is linked with our choices of society, infortunately.
So thanks a lot for your column, well said (and thinked) as usual !
I find it easy to agree with Obama's message of hard work, sacrifice, gifts, and generally overcoming obstacles, both parents and students, to get ahead, to have a more fulfilling life, to better reach one's potential, etc.
More bewildering, are the reports of Obama's socialist/communist message and the need for parents to put their hands over their children's ears and eyes so as to prevent them from hearing and seeing such blasphemous rhetoric.
I must be out of touch…….I just don't get it………………I mean I get that it's politics, but the playing field has been reduced to a round or oval object, usually thought of as a toilet…………or so it seems
Oh, just after I posted above I came across this very well reasoned and, I thought balanced article that others might like to read: here's the link: http://www.reason.com/news/show/135919.html
To bad that the Obama Administraiton will not make one policy proposal that would make Edison Middle School more like Sidwell Friends or Chicago Lab School and less like most inner city schools. Maybe the students are Edison Middle school would have less to overcome if the school systems were not organized as a teachers jobs program first, political spoils second, and academic learning last.
Dear Spirasol,
Thanks for the article, I've just read it.
Just one thing to add : perhaps it's easy to agree with the message “hard work, sacrifices, gifts …”, perhaps it's easy to say it too. But in some cases, in some places, it's just useful to say it.
For instance, when children don't see their father waking up before 11 in the morning (no work for him).
It's hard to stay without a job, and sometimes people don't even feel the need to dress up (I don't say it's the rule, but it happens.) I think these children need to hear about”working hard, sacrifices “, they need to hear people saying , again and again, that it's not desesperate, that it works, that it means something.
One other thing : I've seen my black pupils being proud about Obama 's election (they don't feel concerned with politics), so I could imagine that for some students, it's important to hear him saying this message.
P.S. : from France it's funny to see Obama called “communist” because he's seen as a conservative (like Democrats).
aficionadaa – Please comment more often. You have a keen but gentle perspective, and your views from outside the U.S. so instructive. I consistently enjoy reading what you have to say. Thank you.
Dear Aficionadaa,
it is easy to agree with what you say as well………..some children and parents may NEED to hear it. As the article suggests the message is light enough such that one could take it or leave it.
Ps: I'm in Scandinavia, and most here find it humorous that Obama would be seen as some crazy eyed liberal. Same as with the “public option” and “socialized medicine.” As we know most other 1st world countries already have it and most Euros have a hard time understanding what Americans are afraid of.
Super D.: Just a quick note from here in Detroit Metro, in Michigan, where less than thirty days remain to getting a balanced budget achieved by Lansing, the state capital. (Yes, it is “amusing” in a perverse way.) Currently we're seeing resistance to even the slightest changes by unions — there's a Democrat, of all people, who wants to consolidate (to unify) all the union health care contracts in this state, and of course the fiefdom-ruling, feather-bedding unions are aghast at the prospect. Meanwhile, there is one college where the professors are going out on strike. (They should be facing loss of pay and even the prospect of termination and forfeiture of current and retirement benefits, pay, of all kinds for doing this.) What's one of the reasons the profs are going on strike? They're being asked to participate in a new health care plan, among other things, that includes the kind of lifestyle-related stuff the lefty activists are so enamored of currently (diet, exercise, etc., obscession), and those found to have lifestyle problems are being asked to pay more for their health insurance or health care (exactly what activists want for us all). There's one judge that has pulled negotiating teams into his chambers (talk about overreach, to say the very least!) and that's just for one of several problems involving the unions in this state — so far there is no overdue reform of “prevailing wage” (artificially high labor-controlled wage rate) legislation, et cetera.
Spirasol, the source you linked to has another article that is also appropriate here in the USA.
http://www.reason.com/news/show/126020.html
It's this that is partially why there is concern about Obama's speech to school children.
Thank you so much to encourage me Tidbits! (reading this blog for more than a year and being afraid to write something). Merci merci !
Dear Spirasol,
Sorry if I've missed your point (I'm reading with my french-english dictionnary). Just wanted to say that even if the message is “communication”, some kind of political marketing, the symbol may be important for young people. I agree with you about the fear of the parents.
What a lovely article, Dr. E. Thanks for sharing.
aficionadaa,
Je peux parler un peu francais (pas trop!). Mais je pourrait (?) heureux de vous aider avec les mots Anglais si vous voulait.
Thank you for this. I think these days the cavalier labeling with words like “Socialist,” “Nazi” and “Marxist” is an intellectually lazy trick of applying hyperbole to describe a difference of philosophy. Really, is it that overwhelming to the psyche? Some people's reaction to political difference of opinion and other forms of diversity seemingly requires a complete ritual of exorcism, a diminishing of the person to the extent s/he must be entirely dismissed with a turning of the back, crossing the arms and plugging the ears “nanana can't hear you.” Concerns or questions that might be easily remedied by respectful communication are jettisoned in favor of warnings of indoctrination and all kinds of “mellerdramer.” (The word “indoctrination” strikes me as ironically misdirected in this case. Why oh why am I thinking of that song, “You must be carefully taught?”) And how tragic to underestimate our kids.
I'll tell you a story about Sister Devota, my sixth-grade social studies teacher at Our Lady of Fatima in Lakewood, circa 1972. She would have been in her late 50s, possibly 60s at that time, perhaps you know whether she is still living — but with one sentence she impressed upon me a lifelong lesson. I wish she could know that. She was teaching a unit about Hindu society and religion, describing the caste system, the worship of cows, the belief in reincarnation, and other concepts that were struck a lot of us as — well, wacky. One boy said in a sneering tone: “That's WEIRD.” She jumped on that quickly. “No, it's not WEIRD . . it's DIFFERENT.” The room fell silent. Wow. I was only eleven then, but in one short pithy comment she demonstrated the concept of non-judgmentalism, tolerance, acceptance of diversity.
Anyway, thanks again for your excellent post.
When I first heard about Obama's speech to the school kids it was via a vaguely histrionic headline that said (something to the effect of), “THAT SOCIALIST IS TRYING TO BRAINWASH OUR CHILDREN!!”
I sat here shocked and a somewhat bemused.
I was also very concerned.
The idea that some of the media would be suggesting to our children that our President has an such an agenda as to “brainwash” them seemed worrisome to me.
Oh yes, I agree with all the tenets of “question authority,” but if children aren't allowed to even HEAR what the President of the country has to say to them, what is there to question? What is there for them to think about? How do they learn to “think” if nothing is given them to think about?
How can we expect our kids to apply analytic thought to the issues of the day (political, religious, philisophical, etc) if we refuse to let them know that the issues exist?
Recently, I read a small blurb at the Foundation for Critical Thinking website (on the page for education) that said, “one cannot think analytically FOR NO PURPOSE. Or think analytically, with NO QUESTION in mind.”
With our children…if we purposely take away all the hard questions …all the important issues … with the intention of “saving them” from worry and concern and to keep them “innocent”…I believe we're doing them a great injustice.
Yes, there are subjects that are not age appropriate as any educator would know, this but the whole hysteria over the Presidents speech was bizarre, at the very least (IMHO).
I also feel that children, who are our brightest and best and the future of us all, are sorely underestimated.
Thank you for the post Doc!
Ghost
Thanks kathykattenburg : I think I 'll need some help next times ! Je vais bien en avoir besoin.