This post came from a person who earlier had said that not teaching grammar explicitly was “stupid and irresponsible”.
This reawakens my old suspicion that people who oppose communicative teaching (and when you insist on explicit grammar instruction you DO oppose communicative teaching since the message to students is clearly that the grammar is what’s important, not the communication), Whole Language, and other progressive education measures, are political conservatives. Is there a correlation? What do you think?
Issues: control, tradition, one right way, revealed truth, authority, correctness, hierarchy, and so forth.
The post:
I think it’s absolute INSANITY for Obama to do this, and I applaud the people who are taking a stand against it. There is absolutely no reason why this oratory can’t be delivered in the evenings over radio or television so parents can decide whether or not they want their children involved. This business of taking school time for the president to by-pass parents and go right to kids is ominously similar to what Russia and Hitler did. I don’t think there is anything that is one bit irrational about questioning the motives behind this. One only has to look at what Obama and his ilk have done to this country up to this point to understand why people don’t want him using schools as captive audiences to go straight to kids. This is so totally inappropriate. I REFUSE to show the address in my classroom, and we teachers have the blessing of the office to go on with class as usual.