With a couple of weeks passed since the speech by President Barack Obama to students, giving time to reflect and read about the reaction across the country, it seems that schools did a disservice to their students by restricting, or outright banning, access to the address.

The disservice is that restricting access to the 18-minute speech about working and studying hard will have lasting ramifications that will further opportunities to hear speakers or attend assemblies in which folks choose to see political overtones.

An immediate example occurred in the Arlington school district last week where, because school officials did not air the presidential address, a planned field trip that included a speech by former President George W. Bush and Laura Bush has been canceled. The reason for canceling the opportunity to hear the former president is to correct for the bad call of not letting students hear the current president. In my book, students should get to hear both, and more.

The excuse most given for restricting access to the presidential address is to give parents and school officials time to "preview" content to ensure that it is appropriate. It's not like the president is going to tell dirty jokes. Folks were concerned that the speech would have a political message, they said. I say, so what?

When I was a child, my parents made us sit down and watch presidential addresses on television, and those definitely had political messages. We were exposed to political messages from Presidents Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, and if you are counting that is two Republicans and one Democrat. I am sure we watched speeches from John F. Kennedy, but I was too young to pay those much attention. We also watched televised speeches from various political candidates and the Republican and Democratic national conventions. We were exposed to many political points of view.

It would seem that my parents, in today's way of thinking, were delusional in making us watch televised speeches and make up our minds about what we thought of the message. We were allowed to express opinions on the various topics and our parents would point out where our logic might be flawed. My older brother held starkly different political views than those of our parents and some of those discussions became quite heated.

The presidents who served while I was in public school did not make any addresses to students during the school day. It might not have occurred to them to try that, or they might not have thought it appropriate, or the technology may not have allowed a nationwide talk over school public address systems. Whatever the case, my parents would have let us listen and start working out our own opinions with their guidance.

But back to the Obama speech to students—-contrary to some vocal opinions, not everything is political. The speech planned by former President Bush at the new Dallas Cowboys stadium, which is now canceled for Arlington students, probably is not political either. But again, so what if it is?

My 16-year-old son is becoming more vocal about his political beliefs and we encourage that. So far, he is on the same page as his parents, although he gets a little far out for my taste on occasion. When that happens, I try to reel him in as part of my parental responsibility. One day, however, he may decide to break ranks with me, and that is his right.

What we will continue to offer to our son is the freedom to listen, read and form his own opinions. Also, we are teaching him to respect the opinions of others, especially those with which he disagrees. Respect, it seems, is a commodity that is in short supply these days.