Thoughts on Obama's Speech to Students

Green, Andy. “Obama Speech to Students.” The Baltimore Sun. The Baltimore Sun, September 8, 2009. Web. September 8, 2009 <http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/2009/09/obama_speech_to_students.html>.

Read this article

Andy Green is on the editorial board of the Baltimore Sun. In his September 8, 2009 editorial, he expressed his views about the controversy over President Obama’s speech to students. The speech was broadcast in schools throughout the country. Due to controversy, some schools chose not to show the speech and some parents kept their children from hearing it. Green believes that those who stirred up the controversy should feel “silly” but doubts that they do. He points out that President Obama’s speech actually had nothing controversial in it. The speech was a straightforward speech on the value of hard work and staying in school. Andy Green blames the controversy on two things. One, he says, is the “hysterical political fringe” element of society that believes that President Obama is out to “destroy traditional American values.” The other, he says, is the “cowardice of school officials who bow to pressure from extremists.” Andy Green sees no justification for the controversy in President Obama’s speech. He is obviously a very strong supporter of Obama and he says near the end of the article that he believes that Obama might be the greatest president there has ever been.

I do not agree with Andy Green that the controversy is “silly” but I also do not agree with the parents who kept their children from hearing the speech. It is appropriate for school children to hear the president speak, after all, he is the elected leader of our country and students should be taught to respect the office of the president. However, I do not agree with much of Obama’s political ideology and would not want him using schools as a platform to influence young people’s thinking on controversial issues. When parents heard that the speech was going to be one hour long and did not know what the specific content was going to be, I believe they were justified in wondering if the president might take advantages of his young and impressionable audience to slip in some of his political agenda. The fact that the original plan was to have students write an essay called “How I Can Help the President” created more uneasiness among parents. That plan was later changed. Much of the controversy probably could have been avoided if the transcript of the speech had been posted earlier than one day prior to the broadcast. Maybe people would have realized that it was an appropriate speech, and they would not have had such a negative reaction.