Stephen Downes

The YouTube version of grade 5 student Dalton Sherman's speech, I Believe in Me, Do You? is up to 63,449 views. It won a standing ovation at the Dallas, Texas school district event where it was given. Sounds great. But I read that "Dallas ISD contacted his family in June with the invitation. They wrote the speech for him, and he practiced three times a week all summer long." As a commenter writes, "there is something deeply disingenuous about this stuff aside from the blatant ghost-writing." Right. And despite the suggestion that "there is not even the pretense here that the message came from a student" one wonders how many people - consciously or otherwise - attribute it as a statement of the student's views. Crass and callow.