On Parents and Education

I can't help but laugh at the "controversy" about the President giving a speech to students about the importance of education on their first day at school. Parents that are complaining about "indoctrination" clearly have no idea what that word means (no surprise there).

You can read Obama's speech here, there is nothing in there that even gets near to political propaganda.

I guess that those parents complaining like cry-babies are threaten by anything that the POTUS may say just because they have little positive to say at all. Or maybe, they really would prefer their kids to become rich and famous the quick way, through reality TV or rap because that would not challenge them (the parents) in any serious way. Something in the lines of "Let's keep 'thinking', 'asking', 'learning' and 'commitment' out of our lives." What is a shame, because if there is something that nurtures creativity is exactly that, the capacity to keep asking questions.

The very sad part is that their complaining just comes to show what kind of parents they are: the lousy type. Good parents are not threaten by that real big world outside their homes that is so full of different ideas. Good parents do care about what their kids are exposed to, of course, but they are powerful enough in their knowledge and conviction, -and most importantly in the eyes of their kids- to talk with them about what they may have seen or heard anywhere and discuss those things with their kids, as another way to teach them.

As I said, I don't see any indoctrination or political propaganda in this speech, but even if there was a hint of it, a good parent could easily rub that off from their kids. Of course, to be able to do that, you need to have half a brain, some basic capacity to articulate coherent sentences and -last but not least-, the ability to talk with your kids (as opposite to give monologues to them.)

Really, parents that do fear a speech like this, should re-evaluate their parenting skills; they obviously do not know what means (or how to be) a good parent. It may sound harsh but it is just a fact of life: Good parents are not threaten by a 20 minutes video that their kids will see just once in their life!

PS: BTW, have you read Reagan's speech for the same occasion? It wasn't exactly what I would call an "objective" one. If you compare them, there is clearly more political propaganda in this one that in Obama's speech, but I guess that was another time. Maybe at the time, those parents that differ in their views knew how to talk to their kids or maybe the type of people that are complaining now would have not complained about Reagan's propaganda because it was "their" propaganda...