He’s talking to me……

Imagine, you are a fourth grader in a small town. Nothing exciting EVER happens here, the last big thing was a garage fire last summer. But on September 8th, 2009 the President of the United States talked to you. Granted he wasn’t there in person, and there were many others who got the same talk, but still, the President took time out of his schedule, busy as it is, to talk to you. That makes you pretty important.

My district elected to televise the President’s speech in classrooms and allow students and teachers to be part of this nationwide event. I was amazed as rooms full of busy, chatty, bouncy students became quiet as they listened carefully to the President. In the room of fourth and second graders, where I sat to watch and listen, we did not give any special instructions about behavior. All we asked was that they be respectful of the others in the classroom, and be good listeners. (This is a daily request of our students, most of the time it is made many times during the day) As President Obama spoke, no reminders needed be given.

What I wished as I sat with them was that their parents and the rest of the adult world could see and experience this. The amount of respect their children gave, and the effort they put into listening. After the speech ended, and the Second Graders went back to their classroom, I asked the Fourth Graders to take out a blank sheet of paper and a pencil and write their feelings about the speech. Tell what they thought was important, what wasn’t, and what they would remember. Every student was immediately busy writing, making it evident they had really been listening; not just sitting quietly because they thought it was expected.

“I liked when he said I wasn’t a troublemaker when I got in trouble.” “I think school is important, and teachers should give you a second chance so you can do better.” “He said we should be responsible, like our parents and the teachers.” “I really hope he will get the school new computers, because we need them.” “He sounds like the teachers at school, because he kept saying that school was important. I wonder if teachers made him say that.” “It is important not to give up.” “I am going to go to college.” “He said we could invent new cool stuff.”

Those quotes show just a small portion of what the students took away from his speech. They did not see a hidden agenda, they did not see a liberal or a conservative, and they did not see “politics”. They saw an important adult, in many of their minds, the most important adult (after all, he IS the President) take the time to talk to them about important ideas in a way that made sense. He did not talk down to them, or dumb down the message. He did not sugar coat the ideas. The students understood this message - about accepting personal responsibility, the importance of setting and working toward goals, and the overall importance of education. I hope those who were given the chance to hear it will remember it; it is a good solid basic message. It is a message that our “blame game”, “it’s not my fault”, “instant gratification” society needs to hear. It was no surprise he sent this message to minds open enough to listen, think about it, and then act.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 10th, 2009 at 8:48 am and is filed under Mrs. R..You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.