President Obama is amazing! He is the first president of my adult life that I find to be interesting. Many of our presidents were just boring, but some activated my “cringe” reflex every time I saw or heard them. It pains me to say that I spent too much time cringing through President Obama’s speech to American students.
John F. Kennedy’s “Ask not” speech was inspirational (he was president before I became an adult), but President Osama’s “buckle-down and do better” speech was a waste of words. Does anyone really think that American students are sitting around waiting to be told to do better? If our students are under-achieving it is because parents, teachers, and leaders have failed to provide them with the tools to excel and be successful.
I was not an exceptional student, and whenever adults came at me with the “you can do better” speech their words were lost on me. I just wanted to kick them in the shins until they fell screaming to the ground so that I could puke on them. I saw that look in many of the eyes of the students who were interviewed after the President’s speech. I am sorry Mr. President, but your speech to the students of America was worse than wasted time and wasted words. You can’t tell someone to swim faster and expect your words to be inspiring if they don‘t know how to swim. Your words were more likely to have been defeating and depressing.
Parents, teachers, and leaders are failing our students. We are not providing them with the tools to succeed. Don’t extol them to do better, to be better, or to be inspired. Be inspiring! Let your actions inspire them!
President Obama is usually an inspired and inspirational speaker, but he fell far short of the mark with his speech to the students of America. Mr. President, be inspirational again. Make your actions inspiring and do something heroic to transform the educational system. Inspire parents and teachers to step up and take inspirational action. Make our public schools the best school system in the world. Help our students to learn to be successful, and they will excel and become inspirational too.
If you need a little help, then just ask me. I know how to make American public schools the best schools in the world, and they will cost less than our current system.
The intentions of the president may well have less than the desired immediate results. However, the pro-active methodology he employed is still refreshing when compared to Dan Quale's previously bungled spelling attempts or George W' reading from a book at the time of the disclosure of the 9/11 attacks. Barack Obama is from all appearances a very good father and a prescient leader. The state of this countries demise at the time he undertook his office cannot be understated. I continue to wish him much luck and providence.
ReplyDeleteI actually agree with exactly what you said in this blog. Telling someone to do better or to be better simply isnt enough. And not only is it not enough, but it lacks a proactive edge, as you said an inspiration for children to draw from, a dream to chase after.
ReplyDeleteThe public school system takes cut after cut in their budgets. The extracurricular activites, the arts, the music, the programs that students feel passionately about are all being removed due to this massive money crisis. However these changes are also directly coorellated with students getting worse grades and dropping out of school. It is proven that students who are involved in their school can take some pride in their education and thus have the passion to do better and to be better, simply by their envolvement. By saying that it is ok to get rid of these programs is to me, like saying it is ok to not see your full potential.
Instead of having inspiring teachers who help students to reach these creative outlets that keep them healthy, active and proud in school, we have teachers whose job now is to only focus on benchmarks to meet the standardized tests brought forth by the no child left behind act... I dont want to get into great details about that, though I do feel that this law was made with good intentions, I feel as though it missed the boat almost completely by making it impossible for some youth to graduate for example if english is their second language. What happens then? More drop outs.
I was fortunate to have that one teacher in high school who seemed to get me, and inspired me to do better or be better, and taught me things that were far more important than how to pass a standardized test. He taught me how the real world works, and how to survive that while sticking true to who I was. He helped me find my passions and supported me through the hard times as well. I wish I could say that there are more teachers like this that exist, than there are in reality.
Parents, teachers, leaders, as you said, be inspiring. It truely makes all the difference.
Dr. Gehlsen, couldn't agree with you more. I love your bit about the shin kicks and puking, very entertaining.
ReplyDeleteJessica, you make a very interesting/awesome point. I was also fortunate to have that one teacher that made a huge impact on my life. It wasn't JUST that he loved to teach and cared about his students actually learning, but he was engaging and energetic. Even though he got paid in yards of dirt, he had that passion that made me want to excel. I did the work because I respected him as an educator and wanted to support his cause. Little did I know at the time that I would remember more from his class than anywhere else during my roller coaster of a high school career.
That's what we need more of in schools! Obama should be addressing the school boards and teachers, inspire THEM to be better, yes indeed. It ultimately falls on the individual who can either push through the difficulties we all experience or fall to the negative pressures and fail.