Students in one North Carolina school district greeted President Obama’s Sept. 8 speech to the nation’s schoolchildren with a mixture of curiosity and skepticism. The speech apparently went over well with most students and faculty, but it’s too early to tell whether the president’s message of hard work, perseverance, and personal responsibility bears practical (or political) fruit.
Anson County is a rural, heavily Democratic, Piedmont county that voted for Obama in the 2008 election by more than 60 percent. It’s also nearly evenly split between African-Americans and whites, with a very small Hispanic population. County schools superintendent Greg Firn left the decision on whether to show the speech to individual schools, and at least two of the district’s 11 schools did so, although student participation in the event was not mandatory.
At Anson County Early College, about 120 students packed into the small auditorium to watch the speech delivered live over an Internet feed. Students remained attentive for the most part, and seemed to show particular interest when Obama spoke of his own educational struggles. The president even got a few laughs when he recalled how his mother reacted to his complaints when she tried giving him extra lessons at home at 4:30 in the morning: “[M]y mother would just give me one of those looks and say, ‘This is no picnic for me either, buster.’”
Apart from an oblique reference to the students’ future roles in fighting poverty, homelessness, crime, and discrimination, the speech had little to do with politics. When it was over, Principal Deborah Davis briefly mentioned the controversy surrounding Obama’s remarks by noting that only two students were held out of the speech by their parents. She said, “You all made a very powerful statement today” by attending.
Picking up on Obama’s theme of hard work and perseverance, she noted that she and all five of her siblings managed to finish high school and college with a master’s degree or better and said, “I hope that our teachers are instilling in you the things Obama instilled in you.”
The U.S. Department of Education crafted a set of suggested classroom activities to accompany the president’s speech, but social studies teacher Jerry Ridenhour said that his class was not able to use them due to time constraints. He added that individual teachers may choose to incorporate some of them into lessons later on.
Those materials had generated controversy earlier because one of the activities was to consider how students might “help the president” achieve his goals. That activity was subsequently deleted from the package, and the remaining ones seemed focused on more innocuous tasks, such as helping students identify key concepts from the speech.
Anson’s Early College students rose to the challenge. Asked by Carolina Journal what the main themes of Obama’s speech had been, they answered, “Try harder,” “Do your best,” and “Take responsibility for yourself,” points that Obama repeatedly made. A majority also reported feeling more motivated to do well in school after hearing the speech.
However, one student contacted CJ by e-mail later that day to complain that he thought the president was “trying to inconspicuously add some thoughts that could be considered political.” The student specifically mentioned the passage citing poverty, homelessness, crime, and discrimination as reflecting “views that the Democratic Party shares.”
Wadesboro Primary School Principal Betsy Ammons had her staff record the speech for playback later in the day, so it would not interrupt other important lessons that had already been planned. Students were able to see the speech via cable hookups in their classrooms. Principal Ammons said that while the school had fielded at least one inquiry from a parent about the speech, she was not aware of any parents objecting to their children hearing it.
The third-grade class of 17 students appeared at least as attentive as the older students at the early college. Just as at the early college there had been no extensive preparation for the speech, as most staff were busy with their normal curriculum requirements and had little time to investigate the suggested activities package beforehand.
Teacher Tracy Schultz was on top of her game, however, and as soon as the speech was over, she had the students defining key words and concepts (“goals,” “responsibility” and “effort” were some of those she identified) from the speech. One of the key words she asked students to think about was “contribution,” and that led to an interesting teacher-guided discussion that might have raised some eyebrows with some parents.
Schultz reminded her students that the United States “wasn’t always a great place, not for everybody,” and pointed out that it had been the contributions of regular people like themselves who made it better.
She asked students to think about what their contributions to the country were going to be, and reminded them that they had to work hard in school if they wanted to be able to contribute to society as adults.
“He (the president) wants to know how you will make it better,” Schultz said. “Maybe you want to be a doctor, or help the homeless. … Wouldn’t it be great if everyone had the things we had?”
The lesson concluded with an assignment for students to go home and talk to their parents about what Obama said to them, and to discuss their goals. Students were asked to come back the next day with three goals. “I think we should write Obama a letter, telling him what our goals are,” Schultz said.
Since most school districts in North Carolina left key decisions about viewing the speech to individual schools or teachers, it may not be possible to report what happened in all classrooms statewide. Anson County, with its near-majority African-American population, its preference for Democrats, and its high concentration of teachers affiliated with the North Carolina Association of Educators — the state’s largest teachers’ union and big supporter of Obama — is hardly representative of the entire state.
But if there was a political message behind the president’s speech to students, Anson County would seem fertile ground for it to take hold.
Jim Stegall is a contributor to Carolina Journal.