Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Jeb Bush Interview on Education





Jeb Bush and His views on Education:

I chose to watch an interview with Jeb Bush at the Governors Annual Summit that dealt with his view on education in America. Eric got my interest going when he started talking about the presidential race in 2016 and mentioned that we may get another Bush in the Whitehouse.

I don't know anything about Jeb Bush or his political view so I started looking into a few of his speeches. The one that I watched first and the one that I am writing about was a potion of a longer interview on his view on education namely his brothers No Child Left Behind initiative that he endorsed when George W. Bush was president. It would be ignorant of me to say that George W came up with it so I will say endorsed instead. I will attempt to critique this interview from BJ Fogg's Behavioral Change Model. His model includes Motivation, Abilities, and Triggers.

Motivation:

Jeb Bush's motivation is to become the President of the United States of America, and become the 3rd Bush to do so. In attempting this great feat, he has to run the gauntlet of questions about the rights and wrongs of his brother’s presidency. The interview starts out with a question about the no child left behind act. He is asked about his view of the acts effectiveness and if it is working today in America. He defends the reason that it was put into place saying that it forced states that were sitting on the fence on education issues to get involved and improve their education programs in those states. He stated that the act was successful in doing that. It was interesting that he pointed out that 20% of students today don't graduate high school at all and made the comment that "that is failure". I don't think that he was trying to put his brother and the No Child Left behind Act on blast but he did mention that it wasn't as effective as it was meant to be. I think that Jeb Bush is motivated to point this out to make himself look as if he is unafraid to say that his brothers programs in some ways could be better. I like his honesty in that regard. I feel that he should be motivated to be as honest as possible about some of the hard questions dealing with "W's" presidency which will set him up to succeed in a presidential race in the long run. I think that he would do well to separate himself as much as possible from his dad and brother and find his own political identity.

Abilities:

As far as basic abilities, I think that he is much more charismatic than his brother and speaks very well publicly. He doesn't stutter, he speaks clear and seems to carry himself in a very calm and professional manner. I liked George W because what you saw was what you got but Jeb appears to be much smarter and articulates much more effectively. I like his point of view that we need to have higher education standard on a State and National level rather then dumbing down curriculum today. He didn't explain in detail what that meant being that it was such a short interview but I would hope that he means that when he says that. He stated that we need to set higher bench marks for education to compete with the entire world. He stated that we are far behind the world in education yet we spend more per child than any other country in the world. He has a great ability to get his point across and sound clear and concise in doing so. He is a supporter of Common Core which I thought was interesting. I don't know much about common core at all. But I thought that he for some reason would not be in support of it.

Triggers:

 I think that some of the triggers that he stated or covered were simply speaking to some of the issues that everyone in interested in. Like I mentioned above I was surprised to hear that he was in support of Common Core. I think that speaking about it is a trigger which got me to listen closer to what he was saying. His honesty that the No Child Left behind Act could be more effective stood out to me as a trigger as well. He was not a supporter of more testing as well. He thinks that we need to test less which I found was different as well. I think that he is relatable and easy to listen to. The way that he spoke and answered the interviewer’s questions calmly and quickly put me at ease. In a weird way he is much more refreshing to listen to than His brother who stuttered and laughed at his own jokes, and president Obama that says the word Um 40 - 50 times a speech. His calm laid back demeanor has a calming effect on me. Over all I think that I would be much more inclined to listen to other speeches, debates, and interviews by Jeb Bush having only listened to a short 4:07 interview on some of his view on education.

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