East High: social studies teacher Michael Thompson talks to a group of sophomores about the president's speech Tuesday. Photo by BILL ROTH / Anchorage Daily NewsPresident Barack Obama's face came in grainy, projected on the white board in Room 45 at East High School Tuesday morning. Students crowded in behind the rows of tables. A few teachers slipped in the door.

I'd come to East, where I graduated 13 years ago, with several other reporters to watch the president's speech with teacher Michael Thompson's history class. My goal was to see the speech, which had become a lightning rod for controversy over the last week, and to get some insight into the ideological rift that has kept cropping up in our city and country in the months since the president took office.

For those who missed it, a national debate about Obama's speech to schools went local last week. A hundred or so people e-mailed Superintendent Carol Comeau to say they felt the president's speech was pushing a political agenda. Some told her they heard about it on the Fox News Channel. Others forwarded messages they'd been sent by national political groups, using words like "indoctrination" and making comparisons between Obama and Hitler. Comeau told teachers they could air the speech, but allowed students whose parents objected to opt out.

The fight was the latest in a series of hot national controversies that have come home. All of them -- the tax day tea parties last spring, the health care and stimulus protests last month -- seemed to share one characteristic: perceptions of the facts from one side to the other were wildly different. This time, one side was deeply suspicious of the president's motives, while the other saw that suspicion as disrespect.

Before the speech, Thompson asked students who didn't want to see the speech to raise their hands. Two hands snaked up. He excused them to the classroom next door. The other students, 25 or so, settled in.

The speech wasn't a surprise. Obama talked about struggles growing up with a single mother. He told students whatever they had going on at home wasn't an excuse not to do their homework. They probably wouldn't be rappers or professional basketball players or reality television stars, so they should make a real goal and work toward it. When he was done, some kids clapped.
East High: sophomores watch the president's speech to America's schoolchildren as it is streamed live over the Internet in social studies teacher Michael Thompson's classroom.

The lights went on. The students who opted out came back. Thompson asked the class if the president should be able to make a speech in schools. A girl in the front said he should because he's the president. A kid in the back, one who opted out, said he shouldn't because he's a politician and kids are impressionable.

Thompson summed things up: It depends on how people see the presidency. Some see a man with an agenda; others think the office gives him a right to make speeches. I looked around the room. It was an a American microcosm. There had been the image of the president. There were the students, citizens with all their viewpoints. And there, news media. Four reporters. Three television cameras. Thompson threw out a study term.

"Sensationalism," he said. "What does that mean?"

Students brainstormed: making a big deal, blowing out of proportion.

I thought about how the coverage may have fueled the speech controversy. It was born in the conservative press and the mainstream amplified it. Was there really a split in Anchorage? Only two kids out of at least two dozen opted out. District-wide, the numbers were similarly unremarkable. Were we reporting on real divisions? Or were we creating them?

I'd run into an old teacher of mine in the hall earlier. He said he'd been following the speech coverage on television. It seemed every channel had a point of view. There were Fox News and MSNBC. When did you start picking your news depending on your politics? he asked. Where are the facts?

Thompson described some of the comments about Obama and socialism he'd seen on TV. He gave another vocab term: extremism. Then he offered the students advice about making classroom arguments this semester.

"The only time you should bring up Hitler is when you're talking about Hitler," he said.

For some reason, I started thinking about this roll of George Bush toilet paper someone gave me right after the 2004 election. It was gross and disrespectful, but at the time, people I knew were angry and worried about where the country was headed, so there was a market for it. Was printing Bush's face on Charmin different from calling Obama a fascist? Maybe. But there was something familiar in the tone.

The topic shifted to freedom of speech. Thompson asked one of the boys in the front row to tell the other about his day. As soon as the kid opened his mouth, Thompson started shouting over him.

Was that freedom of speech? A staccato chorus of nos came from the class. Thompson turned to the white board. He spelled out C-I-V-I-L-I-T-Y and framed it with a square.

"We don't want to descend so deeply into our own beliefs we start to demonize everyone else," he said.

No one has a monopoly on good ideas, he said. Thompson asked the students who opted out to consider reading the speech.

"The goal here is to be informed," he said. You can disagree, he said, but "that doesn't stop you from reading the words of people you don't agree with." Knowing more might strengthen their argument.

The bell rang. I tried to remember the last time I had heard a civilized, two-sided conversation about presidential politics among adults. I mostly know people I agree with. Things are so polarized right now that even the news has a point of view. Had we forgotten how to listen to people we disagree with?

I watched the hall fill with students. I thought about the lessons Mr. Thompson was teaching in Room 45.

It seemed they could benefit more than just the teenagers.