Let's Teach Sherrod's Speech in Schools

Teenagers could learn a lot from this woman's message
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 23, 2010 8:41 AM CDT
Let's Teach Sherrod's Speech in Schools
In a photo made from video provided by CBSNews.com, former USDA official Shirley Sherrod is interviewed on "The Early Show."   (AP Photo/CBSNews.com)

People are throwing around the phrase 'teachable moment" in regard to the Shirley Sherrod controversy, but Peggy Noonan means it literally. When schools open in the fall, Sherrod's full speech—"which is about the power of grace and the possibility of redemption"—should be "required viewing in the nation's high schools," she writes in the Wall Street Journal.

Even non-students can learn a thing or two, including "we're too quick to judge" and we're "not skeptical enough of what new media can cook up in its little devil's den," writes Noonan. As for our country's teenagers, they'd be lucky to soak up this all-important life lesson: "Individuals can change, just like nations. They can get better, if they want to be." (More Shirley Sherrod stories.)

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