Obama’s Speech to Students

The whole flap over Obama’s speech to school kids is completely ridiculous.  Are people so full of negativity and vitriol that they can’t recognize an attempt to engage kids in a civics lesson?  This was not an Orwellian moment, with the kids gathered around a television, looking at the Leader’s face, being indoctrinated.  People really are wound a little too tight these days and need to take a breath.  (As many on the left needed to do when Bush was in the Oval Office.)

What did Obama say yesterday that was so awful?  Nothing that I could detect.  He talked about doing well in school.  He talked about responsibility, something he’s been talking about for a long time.

And that’s what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education. I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself. 

Every single one of you has something you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That’s the opportunity an education can provide. 

Maybe you could be a good writer – maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in a newspaper – but you might not know it until you write a paper for your English class. Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor – maybe even good enough to come up with the next iPhone or a new medicine or vaccine – but you might not know it until you do a project for your science class. Maybe you could be a mayor or a Senator or a Supreme Court Justice, but you might not know that until you join student government or the debate team.

And no matter what you want to do with your life – I guarantee that you’ll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You’re going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You can’t drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You’ve got to work for it and train for it and learn for it.

 I know.  Horrible, controversial stuff.

Whatever you resolve to do, I want you to commit to it. I want you to really work at it. 

I know that sometimes, you get the sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work — that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star, when chances are, you’re not going to be any of those things. 

But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every subject you study. You won’t click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.

Working hard.  A terrible concept to talk to our kids about.  So today, I want to ask you, what’s your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a president who comes here in twenty or fifty or one hundred years say about what all of you did for this country?

The president challenged school kids to be something in life, to contribute to society.  I know I’m getting a little sarcastic.  The point is that Obama gave a perfectly fine talk about life.  About school.  About watching what you put in the Internet.  That life looks a lot like work.  And for this, Obama is labeled a socialist, kids are kept home, and his talk is boycotted by several schools and school districts.  (Read Kathleen Parker’s column for more on how ridiculous the nattering on the right was.)

And why shouldn’t kids write about Obama’s talk?  Writing about something is quite powerful.  It makes what one has learned sink in. 

The bottom line is that presidents talk to kids all the time.  Many presidents have done that over time.  (President Bush, as I recall, was reading to school children in Florida when he was told about airplanes hitting the Twin Towers in New York.)  I hope Obama talks to kids more.  We need our children engaged in our country and its future.