All American High School principal should give this speech!

I am your new principal, and honored to be so. There is no greater calling than to teach young people.

I would like to apprise you of some important changes coming to our school. I am making these changes because I am convinced that most of the ideas that have dominated public education in America have worked against you, against your teachers, and against our country.

First, this school will no longer honor race or ethnicity. I could not care less if your racial makeup is black, brown, red, yellow, or white. I could not care less if your origins are African, Latin American, Asian, or European, or if your ancestors arrived here on the Mayflower or on slave ships.

The only identity I care about, the only one this school will recognize, is your individual identity - your character, your scholarship, your humanity. And the only national identity this school will care about is American. This is an American public school, and American public schools were created to make better Americans.

If you wish to affirm an ethnic, racial, or religious identity through school, you will have to go elsewhere. We will end all ethnicity-, race-, and non-American-nationality-based celebrations. They undermine the motto of America, one of its three central values - e pluribus unum, "from many, one." And this school will be guided by America's values.

That includes all after-school clubs. I will not authorize clubs that divide students based on any identities. This includes race, language, religion, sexual orientation, or whatever else may become in vogue in a society divided by political correctness.

Your clubs will be based on interests and passions, not blood, ethnic, racial, or other physically defined ties. Those clubs just cultivate narcissism - an unhealthy preoccupation with the self - while the purpose of education is to get you to think beyond yourself. So we will have clubs that transport you to the wonders and glories of art, music, astronomy, languages you do not already speak, carpentry, and more. If the only extracurricular activities you can imagine being interested in are those based on ethnic or racial or sexual identity, that means that little outside of yourself really interests you.

Second, I am uninterested in whether English is your native language. My only interest in terms of language is that you leave this school speaking and writing English as fluently as possible. The English language has united America's citizens for more than 200 years, and it will unite us at this school. It is one of the indispensable reasons this country of immigrants has always come to be one country. And if you leave this school without excellent English-language skills, I will have been remiss in my duty to ensure that you are prepared to compete successfully in the American job market. We will learn other languages here - it is deplorable that most Americans only speak English - but if you want classes taught in your native language rather than in English, this is not your school.

Third, because I regard learning as a sacred endeavor, everything in this school will reflect learning's elevated status. This means, among other things, that you and your teachers will dress accordingly. Many people in our society dress more formally for a meal at a nice restaurant than they do for church or school. These people have their priorities backwards. Therefore, there will be a formal dress code at this school.

Fourth, no obscene language will be tolerated anywhere on this school's property - whether in class, in the hallways, or at athletic events. If you can't speak without using the F-word, you can't speak. By obscene language I mean the words banned by the Federal Communications Commission plus epithets such as the N-word, even when used by one black student to address another, or "bitch," even when addressed by a girl to a girlfriend. It is my intent that by the time you leave this school, you will be among the few of your age to distinguish instinctively between the elevated and the degraded, the holy and the obscene.

Fifth, we will end all self-esteem programs. In this school self-esteem will be attained in only one way (the way people attained it until the state of California decided otherwise a generation ago) - by earning it. One immediate consequence is that there will be one valedictorian, not eight.

Sixth, and last, I am reorienting the school toward academics and away from politics and propaganda. No more time will be devoted to scaring you about smoking and caffeine, or terrifying you about sexual harassment or global warming. No more semesters will be devoted to condom-wearing and teaching you to regard sexual relations as only or primarily a health issue. There will be no more attempts to convince you that you are a victim because you are not white, or not male, or not heterosexual, or not Christian. We will have failed if any one of you graduates from this school and does not consider him or herself inordinately lucky - to be alive and to be an American.

Now, please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of our country. As many of you do not know the words, your teachers will hand them out to you.

A few years ago, our local high school (Central Hardin High) had an interesting welcoming speech for students from the new principal. He was deployed to Iraq with his reserve unit and still had a few weeks before he returned stateside, so he addressed them via a webcam.

If you wish to affirm an ethnic, racial, or religious identity through school, you will have to go elsewhere. We will end all ethnicity-, race-, and non-American-nationality-based celebrations. They undermine the motto of America, one of its three central values - e pluribus unum, “from many, one.” And this school will be guided by America’s values.

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Disagree.

Schools should return to the traditional Christmas Holiday schedule and pageantry.

If this typically American custom offends you, then try tolerance. Or leave the county and go back to Kenya or wherever you came from.

Nice try but what other freedoms do you want to curtail. In a socialistic utopia that may be a good idea but here not so much

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Actually this speech would have been unheard of 30-40 years ago. As it would have been unnecessary. As these standards were the norm for American schools. Once upon a time.

And America was hardly a “socialistic utopia” back then, right?

I could not care less...

Thank goodness somebody got that expression right! I get so tired of "could care less," which is illogical in terms of what you wish to express, once you give it two seconds thought. If you could care less, it means you care somewhat, but if you couldn't care less, you do not care at all.

>> Actually this speech would have been unheard of 30-40 years ago. As it would have been unnecessary. As these standards were the norm for American schools.<<

30-40 years ago? Are you kidding? 40 years ago was 1970. Even though they had said that prayer was not supposed to be officially in schools most schools had clubs and most schools still included prayer. Most schools around the country had racial tension sky high. There were language clubs like Spanish, Latin, etc. I graduated from high school in 1967 and the utopia that speech typifies was surely not evident.

I don’t know how old you are or what part of the country you grew up in but that speach would have cause an uproar in most parts of the country.

CynicalBear “gets it.”

The principal should say:

“This school is closed! Permanently! It ( and every other government school in the nation) is a First Amendment and freedom of conscience abomination!”

I will open a PRIVATE school and it will do the following:

( Then he should give his speech.)

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