What The???????-----Obama speaks to captive audience......

Here it is, friends. The outline that will grace America's classrooms THIS TUESDAY before Dear Leader "speaks" to OUR children----without our permission.

PreK-6 Menu of Classroom Activities: President Obama’s Address to Students Across America
Produced by Teaching Ambassador Fellows, U.S. Department of Education
September 8, 2009

Before the Speech:
• Teachers can build background knowledge about the President of the United States and his speech by reading books about presidents and Barack Obama and motivate students by asking the following questions:
Who is the President of the United States?
What do you think it takes to be President?
To whom do you think the President is going to be speaking?
Why do you think he wants to speak to you?
What do you think he will say to you?
• Teachers can ask students to imagine being the President delivering a speech to all of the students in the United States. What would you tell students? What can students do to help in our schools? Teachers can chart ideas about what they would say.
• Why is it important that we listen to the President and other elected officials, like the mayor, senators, members of congress, or the governor? Why is what they say important?
During the Speech:
• As the President speaks, teachers can ask students to write down key ideas or phrases that are important or personally meaningful. Students could use a note-taking graphic organizer such as a Cluster Web, or students could record their thoughts on sticky notes. Younger children can draw pictures and write as appropriate. As students listen to the speech, they could think about the following:
What is the President trying to tell me?
What is the President asking me to do?
What new ideas and actions is the President challenging me to think about?
• Students can record important parts of the speech where the President is asking them to do something. Students might think about: What specific job is he asking me to do? Is he asking anything of anyone else? Teachers? Principals? Parents? The American people?
• Students can record any questions they have while he is speaking and then discuss them after the speech. Younger children may need to dictate their questions.

After the Speech:
• Teachers could ask students to share the ideas they recorded, exchange sticky notes or stick notes on a butcher paper poster in the classroom to discuss main ideas from the speech, i.e. citizenship, personal responsibility, civic duty.
• Students could discuss their responses to the following questions:
What do you think the President wants us to do?
Does the speech make you want to do anything?
Are we able to do what President Obama is asking of us?
What would you like to tell the President?
• Teachers could encourage students to participate in the Department of Education’s “I Am What I Learn” video contest. On September 8th the Department will invite K-12 students to submit a video no longer than 2 min, explaining why education is important and how their education will help them achieve their dreams. Teachers are welcome to incorporate the same or a similar video project into an assignment. More details will be released via www.ed.gov.

Extension of the Speech: Teachers can extend learning by having students
• Create posters of their goals. Posters could be formatted in quadrants or puzzle pieces or trails marked with the labels: personal, academic, community, country. Each area could be labeled with three steps for achieving goals in those areas. It might make sense to focus on personal and academic so community and country goals come more readily.
• Write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president. These would be collected and redistributed at an appropriate later date by the teacher to make students accountable to their goals.
• Write goals on colored index cards or precut designs to post around the classroom.
• Interview and share about their goals with one another to create a supportive community.
• Participate in School wide incentive programs or contests for students who achieve their goals.
• Write about their goals in a variety of genres, i.e. poems, songs, personal essays.
• Create artistic projects based on the themes of their goals.
• Graph student progress toward goals.



NOTE how many times the kids are asked to focus on THE PRESIDENT!!!!!!!!!
As opposed to THE COUNTRY!!!!!!!!!!!

This is sick.

That great thumping sound you heard underneath your feet early this morning.....

Was our 44th President pounding away again at America's foundation and greatness.

Click the title to read Monica Crowley's latest blog entry that focuses on the one statement the President made today that really stood out with me.

It's so nice to know our President doesn't think we're any better than the British, or the Mexicans, or the Iranians, or the........

LIVE BLOGGING: The President's First Speech To Congress

Now that the clap-happy is done.....(that always trips me out)

I don't think it's ever taken a President 17 minutes to get in, shake hands, and start speaking.......

Well, here we go.

1) So far, one "crisis" and lots of word pictures of difficulty and loss.
2) "We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than ever before."

(Pelosi ruined that line by standing up too early; that was the cornerstone line of the speech, given to the press earlier, and some people missed it all. Why am I critical? She HAS A COPY of the speech in front of her, and has had it for some time!)

3) It didn't happen overnight. Here's the lineup. Energy. Health care. Education. Debt. "Short term gains were prized over long term prosperity".

OH, first notice of "wealth to the wealthy".

OH II----people bought homes they couldn't afford......

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We're five minutes in, have heard nothing new.

He gets applause for saying he wants to talk to us tonight. Dear heavens!!!

Our first split decision: That "Recovery and Reinvestment Act" is now law. GOP stays seated.

3.5 million jobs......when we're done building broadband, turbines, and rebuilding roads, what do we do then?? What jobs will be next to create?

UNEMPLOYMENT HEALTH CARE COVERAGE? WHAT?? I didn't get that option last year. No, I'm NOT jealous.

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9:25pm---"Nobody messes with Joe." And thus is the bone thrown tonight to the Vice-President, who won't be seen again for a week.

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Time for the "credit CRISIS". (I'm not being tongue-in-cheek with the CAPS, I am trying to keep tabs on the use of the word.)

3!

"A New Lending Fund"-----paid for by????????

"Plan to help Responsibile Families" on their homes------how do they determine who a deadbeat is?

"Provide Support to clean up (bad banks) balance sheets...."------is that code speak for some sort of "nationalization"?

4!

Everybody stands on accountability. :) No brainer.

CEO's: "Those days are over". What about the ball players who make eight figures?

(REMEMBER---I ASK QUESTIONS TO MAKE US THINK!)

SIDEBAR: I do VERY much appreciate Obama's speaking style. He is speaking "to" the American people. Not all Presidents do that.

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Hmmm......."our outdated regulatory system." Haven't heard anyone in the media tackle this one yet.

Ut oh.......Obama history lesson. Ah, the GI Bill was AFTER THE DEPRESSION AND WAR. Sorry, that one doesn't wash.

Government "catalyzed"??? "CATALYZED"?? We can't spark anything without the government??? What the????

Now it's time to hear the cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching.......

REMEMBER, we're in a trillion dollar deficit. Trillions of dollars in debt.


1) Energy----love the ideas. Who pays for it all?

Good line about cars. "The nation that invented automobiles cannot walk away from it."

2) Health Care-----a bankruptcy every 30 seconds. It COULD cause 1.5 million people to lose their homes. (Can we check that figure in a year, just to make sure that wasn't a throwaway line? Didn't say it wasn't true, but it should be fact checked.)

OMG----Pelosi is jubliant almost to the point of RUDE!!!! She wasn't sure whether to stand for a cure for cancer in our time, but she jumped up at that 11 million children figure. Legislation! I'll clap to that! I love it when children have health care. Who's paying for it? That's my only question.

"It will not wait another year."---oh, boy; so, who's paying???? And how does the GDP grow when you're thinking of taking 1/6th of it and nationalizing it?

3) Education-----Okay...the same public high schools he applauded in his history lesson are now desperately in need of fixing. It's either one or the other.

College affordable for seven million more students. Details??? Figures??? Who's paying the tuition???

Teacher incentives...."rewards for success". Criteria? Based on what?

WHOA----expand our committment to charter schools!!! Pelosi was STONE FACED on that one. Thank you, Mr. President, for realizing there are MANY ways to fix the education problem. I hope that wasn't a throwaway line.

By 2020----the highest proportion of college graduates in the world. CONGRESS IS ALREADY FILLED WITH THEM! Just a reminder, folks......

Responsibility begins at home. AMEN, MR. PRESIDENT!!!

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Okay, now the fun. Listen CAREFULLY. All this spending, and don't pass on debt. Hmmm......

WHOA---DEMS ARE DRUNK WITH POWER! Did U see Chuck Schumer laughing at the GOP while clapping over the "inherited deficit".

NO EARMARKS? EXCUSE ME?? 2 Trillion Dollars in the next decade. POST IT ALL ON RECOVERY.GOV!!!

"Cold War Era" weapons programs gone. Okay, so what do we REPLACE them with?

Notice, so far, NOT A WORD on defense. All this will be wonderful, so long as we don't get hit with "9/11 II", or, God forbid, beyond.

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"Not one single dime." Wonder how many people making between $250,000 and $500,000 owns small business and are about to get "gouged", now that they've been branded "rich"? I don't know a lot of people that make more than $250K that isn't either an owner or seriously invested in the company where they hang their hat, do you?

Americans-----PLEASE, PLEASE think for yourselves when it comes to the "definition of the rich".

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Yikes! We won't allow terrorists to plot attacks in safe havens halfway around the world. Do you realize what that means??? Did you see all the Democrats clapping?? That means CONTINUAL WAR for the FORESEEABLE FUTURE, FRIENDS! Don't you get it? Don't you understand?

And that's the reality of war that could never be wiped away by the campaign slogan, "ending the war in Iraq". There are people in that hall tonight simply not thinking. They're listening to soundbites and responding like Pavlov's dog to make sure they're doing the politically expedient "thing" if the camera comes upon them.

And DON'T get me started on "The United States does not torture......"

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Time for the conclusion.

Bank CEO in Miami shares wealth. Private citizen; private decision. That rocks!!!!

"We are not quitters."-----The Bible says "...out of the mouth of babes...."
Great story, and yes, government can answer the need and cry of a neglected public school system.

5!!!

And 51 minutes later, we're done. Let the pundits with cameras begin. :)