| September 10, 2009
Editorial
Let our students listen, let all of us learn
By Jim Blow
Editor
Valley Journal
With so much to worry about every day, this tempest in a teapot seemed extraordinarily overblown and misunderstood.
It's also a sad statement of our times when our schools have to worry about whether parents want their children to participate in an address by our President.
But both of those were the case earlier this week as political pundits and opposing-view commentators worried parents and school boards about what might be said as our President planned to speak directly to students in classrooms across the country. By the time President Obama did speak on Tuesday, the message was almost secondary to those who argued that parents might want to consider pulling their children from class or at least not allowing them to listen to the trunked in talk.
The fear, according to the reports I read, was that President Obama was going to politicize the talk, perhaps pushing for his healthcare reform or green agenda or some other polarized agenda. Political opponents and those who just flat-out don't like President Obama were jumping on the prospect of him somehow brainwashing our children with socialist propaganda.
That's my own nutshell summation, but I don't think that characterization is all that overly simplified.
It's amazing, really, to imagine that our students should be given an option to listen to a live broadcast of the President specifically addressing students in America. Yet, here we were on Tuesday morning with local school districts trying to figure out what the school's policy was going to be. Sadly, most schools felt obliged to make listening to the President optional.
I describe it as sad because it was not only a missed opportunity for our students to hear a very positive message about taking responsibility for their own education, it was also a signal that we may not be able trust our own President to speak to children without parental permission.
As it turns out, the President's talk with the students had very little political speak in it, unless you believe that governmental leaders have no place in trying to influence or motivate students. As a credentialed member of the press, I received an advance copy of the President's transcript on Monday and was able to confirm that before the actual talk on Tuesday morning.
What I also discovered from the transcript was that President Obama was delivering a very motivational message heavily laden with individual responsibilities that I believe reflect our own valley's collective message to students. It wasn't just a "please stay in school" speech. It was "you've got a job to do, so do it well" kind of a message that kids probably don't hear often enough.
President Obama urged kids to not settle for excuses for why they shouldn't be expected to do well in school. He also made the point that taking charge of your own education and making the most of the opportunities offered by school can be viewed as a patriotic duty. That might be a far stretch, but I agree that our students need to know that their community and nation is investing quite a bit of time, energy and resources into their education and that they better not squander it or disregard their responsibility to "do work," as the current MTV generation might better understand.
We need more credible civic and governmental leaders to tell kids to work hard and do their job, not less. That's an expectation we should all share. And, clearly, our President has demonstrated he's prepared to carry out his unique leadership role by encouraging, even demanding that our students take their job seriously.
Also, common sense can drive us as we choose who is credible enough to speak to our students. And common sense tells us the President is one of those who amply clears the bar of credibility. If he does get political or sends the wrong message, then let both him and our children know that's wrong and why. That would make for a fine civics lesson around the kitchen table.
I'm afraid we're slipping backwards into a bog steeped in an over-reactive sense of political correctness to the point of exclusion, and topped with a righteous, even rebellious American attitude that everything and everybody should be questioned.
Being careful in who speaks to our children is a valid concern for parents and for school staffs. So is expanding our children's exposure to and involvement with the representatives of our government. The more they get involved, the better they will understand the key role they will soon play in government as citizens.
Regardless of the message he may bring, our President should be heard by our students. In this case, I absolutely agree with the message he delivered, but my approval or disapproval is secondary. In a democracy we shouldn't diminish the importance of people, young and old, hearing directly from a man who, right or wrong, makes history come alive in real time.
Until he does overstep his boundaries, we should be giving our President the benefit of the doubt, regardless of whether you voted for him or not. He's not just a politician. He's the leader of our nation.
And our children could stand to learn a lot from the experience.
(To view the complete transcript of the President's talk, visit www.valleyjournal.net. Click on the "President's talk" button in the left column.)
Letters to the editor
Fellow trooper was honored
Editor,
A heartfelt thank you to our community for the outpouring of support, prayers, and donations in honor of our friend and fellow Montana Highway Patrol Trooper, Chris Hoyt. A special thank you to all the businesses, law enforcement and emergency personnel, churches, and organizations that were so generous.
There are so many we wish to thank, but it is impossible in the space allowed to name each of you separately. Please know that we feel blessed to live and serve in this wonderful area.
Sgt. Randy Owens
Montana Highway Patrol Detachment #623 troopers and families
Polson
You can help feed the hungry
Editor,
The Town Pump Foundation is once again offering to match individual and business donations to the Polson Food Pantry, Loaves and Fish up to $5,000. The "Match Program" started Sept. 1 and runs through Nov. 30.
In recent years this initiative has provided our pantry with its major source of income to provide food outreach services for the succeeding 12 months. Thanks to the generous support of Polson area citizens, our local pantry has been able to realize these match dollars in recent years. With your help and support we hope to once again capture these available funds to assist those folks in our community who need help with emergency or supplemental food assistance.
This "Match Program" is a wonderful opportunity to help our food pantry expand its capacity to meet the growing need for food assistance in the Polson community. Please help by making a monetary donation to the Polson Food Pantry, 10-8th Avenue East, Polson, MT 59860.
The Polson Food Pantry is open to serve clients on Tuesdays and Fridays of each week, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thanks for helping to assist those in need.
Jules Clavadetscher
Loaves and Fish Food Pantry
Polson
We must relate to others with love, not fear
Editor,
There is no sense in arguing the absurd. It'll defeat you every time. There is value, however, in keeping up the drum beat of truth as we know it and have learned it over the years from those of wisdom, integrity, vision, and a sense of the deep spiritual nature of things.
I was reading an account the other day of the Pam Am 103 Lockerbie crime and tragedy of Dec. 21, 1988. It had its own larger sordid story involving international feuding, which really proves what goes around comes around. Violence, hate, anger, fear ... all are the breeding grounds for periodic very extreme and violent acts of terror and crime, often by individuals who are energized and motivated by the larger and normally accepted bickering and battling between nations over a wide range of issues.
There must be a better way. And there surely is. In fact it is going on right now, under our very eyes, but does not get the media attention that the negative aspects of our society and our world enjoy.
There is a movement by ordinary people doing extraordinary things, which is in harmony with and responding to the natural flow of a universal divine order of life, which can never be changed or altered. Only the time we choose to cooperate with it is voluntary."
You don't have to go far to find information and programs confirming what I am saying. The Internet is full of them. For example: The World Puja Network, Hay House, Radical Forgiveness with Colin Tipping, Evolutionary Consciousness with Barbara Marx Hubbard. There are many, many more.
There are numerous books and publications speaking to this great divine order of things, all encouraging us with their different emphases and practices to cooperate with this drumbeat of divine order and power.
In my view, if we are to be able to not only survive this present chaos, but rise above it with new ways of thinking and acting, it is going to take many people making the personal choice to engage in a daily spiritual practice aimed at changing our thought systems and our ways of relating to others from our God-given centers of love rather than from our ego-driven attitudes based on fear.
Bob McClellan
Polson |
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Sept. 3, 2009