Something quite interesting happened across the country and here at home last week.

The practice for at least the past 20 years to yield to public educators the responsibility for teaching the basics of education and for setting the standards of discipline came to a screeching halt.

President Obama may not realize the impact he had by announcing his plans to speak to American children in their schools. His outreach brought out parents to assert control over their children. Without arguing over the merits of their protest, the fact that parents took responsibility for their children was a welcome change — regardless of whether they stayed for his remarks or took a pass.

Mr. Obama is not the first president to address schoolchildren in America, and he is not the first president to be criticized for doing so.

More on the criticism in a later paragraph, but President Reagan used his opportunity to share words with students to extol the virtues of less government. Granted he did not have the same media tools that exist now, but the Reagan White House did redefine presidential communication. He reached out to school-age students on more than one occasion.

President George H.W. Bush in 1991 used the bully pulpit of the presidency to reach out to schoolchildren. But instead of being criticized before his speech, Mr. Bush was the target of day-after criticism.

The Washington Examiner last week recalled the set of events triggered by a story in The Washington Post.

“The White House turned a Northwest Washington junior high classroom into a television studio and its students into props,” according to the Post.

The Examiner report points out that then-House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt, D- Mo., stated that the Department of Education “should not be producing paid political advertising for the president.” As a side note, the secretary of education was Lamar Alexander, now a GOP senator from Tennessee.

The General Accounting Office launched an investigation following a request by Rep. William Ford, who chaired the House Education and Labor Committee, according to the Examiner story. The result: The Bush speech did not cross the line.

The Examiner concluded its report that the Bush speech to students, similar to Mr. Obama’s remarks, was “entirely unremarkable.”

Unremarkable must mean that the political firestorm subsided and the message was simply one of encouragement to America’s students. By Washington standards, it failed the partisanship standard.

Encouraging young people to study hard, stay in school and take control of their future sums up the remarks of both presidents.

The lesson guide that was proposed by the Obama administration may have come close to the line, according to Education Secretary Arne Duncan, by asking students to share what they can do to help the president.

But there is another lesson guide that any and all should embrace and share, particularly those who raised concerns about Mr. Obama’s school plan.

A lesson on understanding and exercising the rights embraced in the First Amendment to the Constitution would be appropriate. There was free speech, a petition to the government, free use of the press, and assembling in school, at home or at a separate location. The only exclusion was religious freedom, but there probably is a way to add that to the discussion.

Those who protested and those who supported Mr. Obama probably have merely overlooked the broader lessons to be learned.

To reach Tom Griscom, call 423-757-6472 or e-mail tgriscom@timesfreepress.com.