Information or Indoctrination?

The President Speaks to Our Children: Information or Indoctrination?

September 23, 2009 by Teri Christoph

By Stacy Mott, Founder and President of Smart Girl Politics

As do many of us, I have two separate accounts on Facebook. One is one hundred percent political while the other is a personal account for friends and family. I have many friends from both sides of the aisle and try not to let politics affect those relationships. However, it has become more and more difficult in the last few weeks, with more people speaking out on both sides about the health care issue, missile defense shield, and the President’s speech to school children.

The last one was the most challenging issue from which to refrain. For those who do not follow politics on a daily basis like I do, it is hard to see why there would be a concern for the President to encourage children to take responsibility, work hard, and stay in school. Were this all that had occurred, I would have agreed with them. However, what many on my Facebook page were not aware of was the lesson plan that was sent out by the Department of Education a few days before the President’s speech was made public. In the lesson plan for teachers were instructions on how to have children write about supporting or helping the President. We will never know what the President’s speech actually contained prior to the outrage over the speech began. Was the original speech truly a message to students about working hard and personal responsibility?

Even with all of the hoopla over the lesson plan suggestions, some schools still found ways to push support for the President. A few days after President Obama’s speech, one of the members of Smart Girl Politics contacted me and was upset about something that had transpired in her daughter’s school. Her daughter, a senior in high school, had come home upset because, although the speech was not shown in her school, her anatomy teacher had made the class watch the President’s health care speech. After the video was shown, the students were given a short quiz about the speech. The questions asked gave the assumption that the answers provided in the President’s speech were fact and not opinion. The students were given no opportunity to discuss opposing views or have a debate on the topic. In fact, when one student stated that the President had lied, the student was told that kind of talk was unnecessary. Students in the class with opposing views were forced to remain silent or whisper amongst themselves.

The daughter of our member was so upset about what had occurred that she refused to finish the quiz and brought it home to her mother for review. A copy of the quiz is provided below. Some of these students were educated on the health care debate going on in the country, while others simply took the information as fact and filled out their quiz. For those students, President Obama’s speech was their education. Is that not considered indoctrination?