A lot of people were pitching a major fit about President Obama and the speech to the children.

My take? It was somewhat understandable. There’s a lot of distrust of the man, his administration, and the current Congress. With the way things are right now, people were afraid he was going to turn it into some sort of agenda push.

Me? I expected the worst but hoped for the best. This is not the first time a President has spoken to the schoolchildren. And they’re generally always the same sort of thing: stay in school, education is important, study hard, etc.. And every time this happens, the “opposition party” has always come out screaming that the speech is going to be brainwashing the children. So, the speech and the reactions to the speech are just typical… happens all the time, nothing really new to see here.

My take? I homeschool the kids. Now, we had a 4-H meeting today so I couldn’t watch it, but it can be caught on YouTube and the transcript was posted. But the general plan was to go ahead and watch it with our kids. Then no matter what the message, discuss it. I think that’s really the best way to handle just about anything with your children: participate, be involved, discuss, help them understand.

Overall the speech wasn’t too bad. The overall message was a good one, and the illustrations and construction of the speech were alright.

But I do have a few beefs with the speech:

I’ve talked a lot about your government’s responsibility for setting high standards, supporting teachers and principals, and turning around schools that aren’t working where students aren’t getting the opportunities they deserve.

Can someone point out to me where in the US Constitution it says anything about the Federal Government being responsible for education?

The other big thing I wonder is… he spoke a lot about being responsible. He set forth a great number of things — expectations of behavior. I can only hope that he himself, after speaking as he did today, holds himself, his cabinet members, all those czars, members of Congress, etc. to the same standards.