The President and Me

Tuesday, despite protests, speech changes, and political agendas, President Obama addressed the nation's school children. I received an email that showing the speech in my class was not mandatory, but that if I didn't want to, I had to notify the administration so they could "make other arrangements for the students who wanted to view the speech live." Knowing that if I didn't show it, all of my students would protest and be taken out of my class so they could watch it somewhere else, I decided to turn it on and hope they would be inspired to be better students. The speech began at 12, right in the middle of my freshman class. I wondered whether they would be more respectful of the president they claim to adore than they are of me. Well, it looks like I'm in good company. I turned on the speech and was not able to hear one word of it due to the incessant talking. I mean, it’s nice and all that the president wants students to try hard and take responsibility, but the ones who really need to hear it, aren’t listening.

This week was frustrating as I realized that I am failing to “get through” to my students on so many levels. There are serious behavior issues in every class, but what really bothered me this week was a blatant double-standard that 2 of the classes believe but won’t admit. I like when they talk about issues and stories that they see on the news. This week, they brought up the Congressman that called Obama a liar during his address to Congress. Of course, my students were outraged and said it was so disrespectful and that nothing like this had ever happened before. When I reminded them that last year President Bush had shoes thrown at him during a speech, they started laughing and making comments like, “Well, he deserved that,” and, “I wish they had hit him.” I tried my best to reason with them calmly, explaining that it doesn’t matter who the president is, you can’t claim that one of those incidents is wrong and the other is acceptable. They couldn’t see it. The majority of them have apparently been brainwashed so far that they are beyond reason. I’m not trying to push my beliefs; I just want them to be fair and reasonable. But I think it may be too much to ask.