It's official. President Barack Obama can now add "Sports Announcer" to his resume.  Just days after giving the State of the Union speech and meeting with the GOP House of Representatives, President Obama joined the CBS Broadcast announcing team Verne Lundquist and Clark Kellog for a brief moment to commentate the Georgetown v. Duke match-up.

Supposedly, the crowd went berserk when they found out our President was in attendance. And why not? Whether you like his politics or not, Obama is, indeed a rock star.  If I knew President Obama was in the stands watching me play ball, I'd probably go berserk too.

Check out the video below.  Peep my favorite part of Obama's commentary as he puts the Ohio State Buckeyes on blast for "bragging" about beating an Ivy League team. (Starts at 2:29)

"First of all, if the Buckeyes are bragging about beating an Ivy League team, that doesn't say much."

Ha! Indeed, Mr. President.

The new law requiring Texas schools to add the Bible to their curriculum has confused teachers who maintain that the law has provided no guidelines or resources for these new lessons. Furthermore, the law requires that teachers be trained to teach these classes, but did not specify what kind of training that would be, or provide any funding sources for the classes and training.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/6605883.html

California, Wisconsin, and Nevada have laws that forbid linking teacher reviews and test performance, though they may have to hurry and fix that, thanks to President Obama's plans for education. While Education Secretary Arne Duncan claims these teacher review laws are "simply ridiculous," the teachers' unions are protesting, and I have to agree with them. Basing a teacher's future and a school district's income on one test forces them to only concentrate on prepping for that test--not actually teaching the students anything--and pretty much ignore any students' individual learning style in favor of drills and rote memorization. And of course, there's always that one student in the class who can test incredibly well, and that one student who simply cannot test at all.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5irQ98Fr6me-yudqhyVUlUEfEfPTQD9AK0JN80

The Washington Post claims that online education will soon replace actual colleges and universities, just as blogs and online newspapers have replaced the print versions. The only holdouts will be the elite institutions--whether it's the Ivy Leagues or the New York Times.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/11/AR2009091104312.html

And meanwhile, it's my first week back from school and already my school district has proved it has its priorities mixed up again. We got money for site improvements from California's Prop S, and my school had planned to use it for air conditioning (a fully legal use of the funds, I believe). It's practically summer year-round in Southern California, and only a couple of our brand new buildings have air conditioning--enough for about 90 students out of 2400 per period. However, our school district has decided that we need smartboards (interactive whiteboards)--I think the product we're getting is this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promethean_Ltd#2006:_Activboard_.2B2_Adjustable_Height_Interactive_Whiteboard_System . This is possibly the most ridiculous way ever to spend our money, especially since we just got spiffy new projectors a couple years ago. It's almost as bad as my principal's last plan to build a skatepark with the Prop S funds.

Like many students across the country, I was unable to watch President Obama's speech to students in school yesterday. School districts had many excuses for this, according to the LA Times--from parents complaints to simply not having the technology necessary.

And of course, there were plenty of school districts where it was decided the address didn't fit into the state standards, and that was that. In my AP Biology class, we had already started our first lecture of the year, and there was no way our teacher was going to halt that to watch the president speak.

Naturally, after all the uproar regarding the so-called "socialist indoctrination" that was just bound to be present in the speech, I was disappointed I didn't have a chance to view it and see for myself what the fuss was about.

Luckily, my English teacher gave my class an assignment to read the text of the speech and analyze it. I was all set to speak in glowing terms of the astounding rhetoric which I was sure would be present in the speech, after Obama's previous speech-making triumphs.

Unfortunately, I was pretty underimpressed.

I appreciated Obama's intent and the purpose behind his speech--to encourage kids to take responsibility for their education and stay in school--but I didn't feel particularly inspired at all.

Most of the speech seemed to take on a lecturing tone, as the president echoed the old rules we know by heart--stay in school, do your homework, respect your teacher...the list goes on. Maybe I'm just a cynical high school junior who's not about to drop out of school, but the address didn't really inspire or motivate me.  

Furthermore, telling students that they should set good goals and be more responsible is probably not going to solve the high drop-out rate, low budgets, or any of the many problems that plague public schools. Like a lot of the so-called "solutions to the education crisis," the address was just a temporary band-aid fix that, especially in this case, grossly ignored the root of the problem.

But however condescending I found the speech, I didn't find a hint of "socialist indoctrination" anywhere. Whether or not the speech was effective, it seemed to be on the whole inoffensive. Yet somehow you get parents like this one from Dallas, Texas, who CNN quotes as saying, "The president's speeches tend to be [about] what's wrong with the country and what can we do to fix it. I believe this is the greatest country on Earth, and I try to teach that to my children. ... I don't want them hearing that there's a fundamental flaw with the country and the kids need to go forward to fix it."

I think this proves far more than the speech itself that we really need to ramp up America's educational system.

The full text of the speech is here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/MediaResources/PreparedSchoolRemarks/
And you can find out more here: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-obama-schoolkids5-2009sep05,0,2023699.story
And here: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/09/07/obama.school.speech/

The President of the United States of America Barack Obama has been making headlines this week for a speech he made which was broadcast to schools across the country. In this speech he encouraged children that if they want to achieve anything they will need an education to do it and that the future of the country depended on their educational achievement.

Many people in the US have been unhappy with his speech, as they believe he is trying to indoctrinate young people in to his political agenda. Instead of bringing politics in to the classroom he has brought himself in to the classroom with a motivational and inspirational message.

Now I am all for public and famous figures doing all they can to inspire and motivate young people to achieve all that they can and I think more people should use their fame or stature to do this. I think where Obama has come unstuck is when he says that the future of the country depends on you. No matter how true I think this statement is I think he should have gone down the route of encouraging young people to work hard to see what they can achieve in their own life and not tagged on the message about the country.

In the UK will we see Gordon Brown trying a similar thing and if he did what would the reaction be? I think Obama is in a unique place as I think he is one of the most liked and recognized world leaders amongst the young community that there has been so young people in America are probably more likely to listen to him than say if Gordon Brown tried the same thing over here.

Overall I think world leaders should always be doing more to help and inspire young people but it needs to be for the right reasons not for point scoring or some other hidden agenda and as Obama has found out the way the message is delivered is so important as young minds are very impressionable.

Adam Sibley
Founder of the Talented Young People organisation
www.talentedyoungpeople.com
"Envisage it, Believe it, Achieve it!"
”Shaking up the Youth of Today”

http://www.talentedyoungpeople.blogspot.com

Apparently, President Barack Obama isn't the only one engaging in peace advocacy between the Middle East and the West this week.  The U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) SportsUnited office, in partnership with Global Sports Partners/Sport4Peace, the University of Tennessee and the National Basketball Association, is hosting a delegation of basketball-playing girls and their coaches from Iraq beginning June 3rd and ending June 18th.

The idea is to allow for young Iraqi girls who aspire to play basketball the opportunity to learn about the sport and engage with another culture at the same time.  Hmmm, that sounds familiar (whud up, Just Like You!).

According to Sport4Peace, since 1974, girls and women’s basketball in Iraq was no longer offered as an Olympic sport opportunity.  During Saddam Hussein's rule, the Iraqi National Women's Basketball team was disbanded.  It was only until the 80's that the team was "revived" under Saddam Hussein's son, Uday.  However, under Uday's rule, many male and female athletes were subjected to horrific torture when they "did not placate [Uday's] obsession to win."

But a new day has arrived.

Ten girls, ages 14-16, and two female coaches are from Sulaymaniya, Erbil, and Baghdad will have an awesome opportunity to work with Basketball Hall of Fame coach Pat Summit of the University of Tennessee, and attend a WNBA game in Washington D.C. in the coming weeks.

This is one of those times when sports shows the world that it isn't just a verb of mere child's play or physical entertainment, but something much more.  It can be a medium through which people and communities can work together in transforming social dogma into cultural progress.

Photo courtesy of Williamhartz's Flickr page.