Tapas Course 3 - President of the Whole World and all of its beautiful people.
The President of the United States is an elected official by the citizens of the United States, but in a sense, he has a power that represents the interest of the world population. With the United States government's growing international role, by choice or by circumstance, the executive branch leader must think though the repercussions on the world population of all of his decisions. The needs of the world population are diverse in their needs, many of which may be different then those of US citizens. Many voters only see their immediate needs and will only vote for a representative that will insure the maintenance of their lifestyle or one that they aspire to. Presidential candidates make promises in the hopes that they will reach a diverse group of voters to gain support for their campaign and get them elected. Often these promises will be impossible for the candidates to honor, so (once elected) a candidate must make hard decisions about which items need should be addressed first. A president generally has high approval ratings at the beginning of their term to make the promises that they had stated a reality.
Barack Obama is no exception to this rule. During his long campaign, he made many campaign promises to make radical changes upon his election to the office of the president. Many of these groups rallied behind his campaign for "change" and "hope" because of these promises. Some of these voters felt as though they had been marginalized by the outgoing administration, kept in the dark, and were willing to sign over their support for a promise, without a guarantee of any actions. Now that Obama has been installed into the office of president, these groups want to see the changes that they were promised. Whether it was gay rights with "don't ask don't tell" policies, an economic stimulus through increased job programs and minimum wage increases, healthcare reform for unemployed workers, or to ending the war in Iraq and bringing home servicemen overseas - all of these groups are waiting for these promised changes.
A prime example of this conflict of what a group of those who elected him and what he represents to them think, and what he as president in the minds of the majority of Americans believe he should do, is in the Gates-police officer incident. After the exchange between Professor Gates, a highly distinguished professor at Harvard University, and a decorated Cambridge police officer, there was seen to be pressure by many of those supporters of the president in the minority community suggesting that he should weigh in on the current state of race relations of minorities and law enforcement officials. How the president handled this delicate situation would polarize the president's constituents and be seen this way in public opinion polls. How the president handles delicate situations like this will be an examination of his ability to weigh the opinions of those who elected him, and the country as a whole he represents.
Strategies:
Students followed the 2008 presidential campaign, the issues discussed, and the differences in how each candidate planned to address each of these issues during their presidency. Now that Barack Obama has been elected, the American public will decide if he has kept his campaign promises. Students, through use of research methods, will decide which promises candidate Obama made to various groups, in particular those he made to minority groups, and whether President Obama has, or has not begun to fulfill them. Students will analyze whether the promises Obama made during the campaign were ever meant to be fulfilled, or were they a symbolic gesture towards the minority group causes. Was the election of a minority president a gesture in itself or will he actually push congress to pass legislation that betters minority groups? Through Bloom's Taxonomy of spiraling questions, students will explore whether this presidential choice was an example of a coalition of a diverse group of voters bonding together to elicit group change, or was it a rebellion against the outgoing administration's inability to address the needs of minority voters.
Through different research methods, students will analyze the promises candidate Obama made during the campaign, and how he has acted on them now as president. Students will chart out promises he had made during the campaign on a number of key areas, healthcare, education, economy, foreign policy, and the environment. They will research what has been done on these issues since his election and what the White House has done to advocate to congress on their agenda. Students will look at websites, speeches to chart out campaign promises.
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