Earlier this week, U.S. President Barack Obama abused his position of power by inspiring the nation's schoolchildren with his much-ballyhooed speech. Some are fortunate enough to have parents who took them out of school and forbade them from watching the speech. But for the unlucky majority of these schoolchildren who have open-minded parents, their innocence was subjected to his speech, which coerced them into appreciating the values of a good education.
On a different note, I'm surprised that, Obama, who has been shaped by mainstream media as a pro-technology progressive who can hardly keep himself away from texting on his Blackberry, mentioned very little about the role New Media has in today's education. Sure, he says--
The story of America isn’t about people who quit when things got tough. It’s about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best. It’s the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google, Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other,--but it's a throwaway line in which Google, Twitter, and Facebook could easily be replaced with Coca-Cola, McDonald's, and MTV to the same effect. This was a wasted opportunity not only to foster the attitude within children that New Media isn't just for play and can be used effectively for education, but also to win over any traditionalist educators who still resist, to the detriment of students, that it has become an essential part of their daily lives. This also beckons the question: What role, if any, should the governments play in effectively incorporating New Media in education? To sir, with love, please plan this for next year's Back to School speech.
A part of me fears that I may be racialising the issue, but I'll use the cultural memory defense, and claim that it has done a good job of that on its own. So, just because I now can't get the song out of my head:
I agree: presidential student abuse has gone too far! But your comment about the prez's glossing over of new media etc. is really interesting. I suppose he didn't want to sound too utopian? Perhaps the linking of technology and education has become too hackneyed these days . .. especially the "silver bullet" rhetoric (digital textbooks saving teachers' bacon etc.). As for Lulu . .
ReplyDeleteBut his whole 2008 presidential campaign was utopian in its rhetoric... this administration has made the White House wired and highly accessible through various New Media, so obviously they're very aware of its uses... I think they're just holding back on anything that could be labelled "radical" in a negative light while they're pushing healthcare reform... don't wanna upset anxious Middle America too much too soon...
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