no better place for my children to watch that speech (or any other, for that matter) than in a place where ideas are encouraged, where critical thinking about those ideas is a natural part of the conversation, and where appropriate response and debate can flourish. Where the adults in the room lead my kids to dig deeper, to validate facts, and consider the many levels of context in which every speech and every debate takes place. Where the discussion around it is such that it lays to rest the concern that many seem to have about this particular speech in general, that in some way the President will be able to “indoctrinate” our kids into some socialist mindset. If schools are the fully functioning learning communities that we hope they are, they should be the place where our kids learn to make sense of ideas, not to fear them. That, however, is not the message we are sending.
The idea of the "one-size-fits-all approach is being changed in the pages of textbooks, but sometimes it is more difficult for teachers to make this ideological change-over in their teaching methods.
True, but I am not convinced that the concept of UDL is really as much of a change as CAST is making it out to be. This is kind of a repackaging of ideas instead of a new idea. The concept of backwards design and Understanding By Design are all kind of the same thing. We are really just being asked to think about the end goal and how it fits everyone at the beginning. Or am I missing the point of UDL?
