on censorship.

How cool is this?  I beamed.  The President of the United States, a leader who will bring real change and genuine faith and who gets it will speak to students in classrooms across our nation tomorrow.  

This means something.  And teachers across America can quote President Obama and refer back to his relevant advice to our kids.  I wonder if this was his idea?

My anticipation of Obama’s back-to-school speech, coupled with the handful of anti-Obama (but let’s be real, anti-Black president) parents in my 2009 school community reminded me how much I missed the big city and surrounding myself with like-minded people. Am I the only one geeking out over this around here?

As the school-wide instructional leader at that time, I had both power in decision making and the responsibility to collaborate with teachers and parents to provide the best educational opportunities for our kids.  We all wanted success for these young minds.

So to my surprise, blatant verbal threats blasted through my not-so-smart silver flip phone just days before the 2009 speech was to air.  

Do you really think I’m going to let you show my daughter that?  If I find out she was part of that viewing, we are going to have another conversation.  

Or…

“I will pull my three kids if you show that man on the TV.”

And the kinder-toned demands…

“We do not support Barack Obama, and if you are planning on showing that speech to my child, he needs to be removed from class.”

So I did what any school leader would do. We held a viewing party and I strongly encouraged teachers to show the live speech.  

Some teachers chose not to play it and some parents kept their kids home that day.  To be expected...

We’re not reading To Kill a Mockingbird in fourth grade, people.  We are watching a nationally publicized speech from the President of the United States of America!

And don’t get me wrong, eight years later, I cringe at the sound of our current president’s voice.  But do I play CNN Student News each morning for my fifth graders?  Yes.  And when Trump blurts out another ignorant message do I want to cover and protect my kids’ innocent ears?  Yes.    

Debating, analyzing and digging deep on various points of views makes for a hellova class discussion, doesn’t it, though?  Who knows, kids might even develop their own opinions, beyond their teachers, parents or President’s.  (Gasp!)

Is that what those parents and teachers were scared of in 2009?  That kids might’ve liked what Obama had to say, and the adults weren’t okay with that?  

In the end, reality is reality.  And I’m no proponent of inappropriate language, sexual content or glamorized violence in school settings, but uncovering age-appropriate controversial topics surrounding us in today’s current events with a carefully chosen text set makes sense to me.  

The challenge now is to teach our students how to back up their newly developed opinions with strong text evidence.  Sending y’all strength and yoga breaths on this one...

Stay woke teachers.  Happy Thanksgiving!  Power to the teacher.  

“But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life -- what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you've got going on at home -- none of that is an excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude in school. That's no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. There is no excuse for not trying.

Where you are right now doesn't have to determine where you'll end up. No one's written your destiny for you, because here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.”  -Barack Obama, Back-to-School Speech, September 8, 2009

Want to read more?  Check out Obama’s entire speech here.