Did you watch it?  Did you watch it with your children?  I watched it with Steve, but haven’t watched it with my sons yet.  I”m planning on it though.  I realize there’s been a lot of controversy over this speech to our children, which has made me glad that I’m homeschooling and the choice is totally up to me and not the school district.  However, I do think it’s important for our children to see this speech.

What the president had to say was pretty innocuous, actually rather standard for any presidential speech to school children.  In fact it was very similar to the speech President Bush Sr. gave in 1991.  “Stay in school, blah blah, stay in school, make us proud.”  I can’t for the life of me understand why this was a speech for ALL school children, when it was directed and written for mainly high schoolers.   It was even rather pointless to middle schoolers, but harmless for any child.  So what was the uproar about?

The uproar was mostly about what the original lesson plan that was sent out by the Dept. of Education.  The biggest problem parents had was the letter children were supposed to write to the president telling him how they were going to help him.  The DoE took that out of the lesson plan though, but the intent was still there.  The intent to get our children on the side of the president, maybe no matter what their parents said.  I can see how some teachers might have felt it necessary to take the lesson plan a little too far in drilling into our kids how much to support President Obama in his various bills and ideas.  Much like they have, even when I was a kid, in drilling into their students about “saving the planet”, “recycling”, “smoking”, etc.  All of which seem like good ideas, but should be left to the parents to decide on how to teach our children about “moral” issues.   Of course, that’s why we’re homeschoolers.  We want to be the ones to teach our children how to think for themselves and how to decide for themselves what is morally right and wrong.

As a homeschooler, I saw this presidential speech as an opportunity to discuss things with my kids.  But I think that’s the way most homeschoolers look at everything.  We look for anything that will open discussions and learning.  Will I be discussing “staying in school”?  That would be a silly thing to discuss, because my kids don’t have the choice NOT to be in school… they live there.  However, I will be discussing things like their future goals, both educational and vocational.  I’ll talk to them about political aspects of the speech as well.  They are both old enough to understand some of the more politcally charged discussions.  However, I don’t think we’ll be spending all that much time on this speech, which the president will be making a more imporant speech tonight about his healthcare reform bill.  That will be the one to start some good discussions!  Especially when it comes to the constitution and taxes.

So what are YOUR thoughts on this speech to our children?  As homeschoolers, did you watch it with your kids and discuss it?  If you weren’t homeschooling your children, what would you have done?  I”m really interested in hearing the homeschool perspective on this whole controversy.

Thanks