Hello everyone - how's everybody doing today? I'm here with
students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. And
we've got students tuning in from all across America,
kindergarten through twelfth grade. I'm glad you all could join
us today.
I know that for many of you, today is the first day of school. And
for those of you in kindergarten, or starting middle or high
school, it's your first day in a new school, so it's
understandable if you're a little nervous. I imagine there are
some seniors out there who are feeling pretty good right now, with
just one more year to go. And no matter what grade you're in,
some of you are probably wishing it were still summer, and you
could've stayed in bed just a little longer this morning.
I know that feeling. When I was young, my family
lived in Indonesia for a few years, and my mother didn't have
the money to send me where all the American kids went to school. So
she decided to teach me extra lessons herself, Monday through
Friday - at 4:30 in the morning.
Now I wasn't too happy about getting up that early. A lot of
times, I'd fall asleep right there at the kitchen table. But
whenever I'd complain, my mother would just give me one of
those looks and say, "This is no picnic for me either,
buster."
So I know some of you are still adjusting to being
back at school. But I'm here today because I have something
important to discuss with you. I'm here because I want to talk
with you about your education and what's expected of all of you
in this new school year.
Now I've given a lot of speeches about
education. And I've talked a lot about responsibility.
I've talked about your teachers' responsibility for
inspiring you, and pushing you to learn.
I've talked about your parents' responsibility for making
sure you stay on track, and get your homework done, and don't
spend every waking hour in front of the TV or with that Xbox.
I've talked a lot about your government's responsibility
for setting high standards, supporting teachers and principals, and
turning around schools that aren't working where students
aren't getting the opportunities they deserve.
But at the end of the day, we can have the most
dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best
schools in the world - and none of it will matter unless all of you
fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools;
pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents,
grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to
succeed.
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.
And this isn't just important for your own life
and your own future. What you make of your education will decide
nothing less than the future of this country. What you're
learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can
meet our greatest challenges in the future.
You'll need the knowledge and problem-solving
skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer
and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our
environment. You'll need the insights and critical thinking
skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and
homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more
fair and more free. You'll need the creativity and ingenuity
you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will
create new jobs and boost our economy.
We need every single one of you to develop your
talents, skills and intellect so you can help solve our most
difficult problems. If you don't do that - if you quit on
school - you're not just quitting on yourself, you're
quitting on your country.
Now I know it's not always easy to do well in
school. I know a lot of you have challenges in your lives right now
that can make it hard to focus on your schoolwork.
I get it. I know what that's like. My father
left my family when I was two years old, and I was raised by a
single mother who struggled at times to pay the bills and
wasn't always able to give us things the other kids had. There
were times when I missed having a father in my life. There were
times when I was lonely and felt like I didn't fit in.
So I wasn't always as focused as I should have
been. I did some things I'm not proud of, and got in more
trouble than I should have. And my life could have easily taken a
turn for the worse.
But I was fortunate. I got a lot of second chances
and had the opportunity to go to college, and law school, and
follow my dreams. My wife, our First Lady Michelle Obama, has a
similar story. Neither of her parents had gone to college, and they
didn't have much. But they worked hard, and she worked hard, so
that she could go to the best schools in this country.
Some of you might not have those advantages. Maybe
you don't have adults in your life who give you the support
that you need. Maybe someone in your family has lost their job, and
there's not enough money to go around. Maybe you live in a
neighborhood where you don't feel safe, or have friends who are
pressuring you to do things you know aren't right.
But at the end of the day, the circumstances of
your life - what you look like, where you come from, how much money
you have, what you've got going on at home - that's no
excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude.
That's no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting
class, or dropping out of school. That's no excuse for not
trying.
Where you are right now doesn't have to
determine where you'll end up. No one's written your
destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You
make your own future.
That's what young people like you are doing every day, all
across America.
Young people like Jazmin Perez, from Roma, Texas.
Jazmin didn't speak English when she first started school.
Hardly anyone in her hometown went to college, and neither of her
parents had gone either. But she worked hard, earned good grades,
got a scholarship to Brown University, and is now in graduate
school, studying public health, on her way to being Dr. Jazmin
Perez.
I'm thinking about Andoni Schultz, from Los Altos, California,
who's fought brain cancer since he was three. He's endured
all sorts of treatments and surgeries, one of which affected his
memory, so it took him much longer - hundreds of extra hours - to
do his schoolwork. But he never fell behind, and he's headed to
college this fall.
And then there's Shantell Steve, from my
hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Even when bouncing from foster home
to foster home in the toughest neighborhoods, she managed to get a
job at a local health center; start a program to keep young people
out of gangs; and she's on track to graduate high school with
honors and go on to college.
Jazmin, Andoni and Shantell aren't any
different from any of you. They faced challenges in their lives
just like you do. But they refused to give up. They chose to take
responsibility for their education and set goals for themselves.
And I expect all of you to do the same.
That's why today, I'm calling on each of
you to set your own goals for your education - and to do everything
you can to meet them. Your goal can be something as simple as doing
all your homework, paying attention in class, or spending time each
day reading a book. Maybe you'll decide to get involved in an
extracurricular activity, or volunteer in your community. Maybe
you'll decide to stand up for kids who are being teased or
bullied because of who they are or how they look, because you
believe, like I do, that all kids deserve a safe environment to
study and learn. Maybe you'll decide to take better care of
yourself so you can be more ready to learn. And along those lines,
I hope you'll all wash your hands a lot, and stay home from
school when you don't feel well, so we can keep people from
getting the flu this fall and winter.
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.
That's OK. Some of the most successful people in the world are
the ones who've had the most failures. JK Rowling's first
Harry Potter book was rejected twelve times before it was finally
published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball
team, and he lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots
during his career. But he once said, "I have failed over and
over and over again in my life. And that is why I
succeed."
These people succeeded because they understand that
you can't let your failures define you - you have to let them
teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently
next time. If you get in trouble, that doesn't mean you're
a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to behave. If you
get a bad grade, that doesn't mean you're stupid, it just
means you need to spend more time studying.
No one's born being good at things, you become
good at things through hard work. You're not a varsity athlete
the first time you play a new sport. You don't hit every note
the first time you sing a song. You've got to practice.
It's the same with your schoolwork. You might have to do a math
problem a few times before you get it right, or read something a
few times before you understand it, or do a few drafts of a paper
before it's good enough to hand in.
Don't be afraid to ask questions. Don't be
afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do that every day.
Asking for help isn't a sign of weakness, it's a sign of
strength. It shows you have the courage to admit when you don't
know something, and to learn something new. So find an adult you
trust - a parent, grandparent or teacher; a coach or counselor -
and ask them to help you stay on track to meet your goals.
And even when you're struggling, even when
you're discouraged, and you feel like other people have given
up on you - don't ever give up on yourself. Because when you
give up on yourself, you give up on your country.
The story of America isn't about people who
quit when things got tough. It's about people who kept going,
who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything
less than their best.
It's the story of students who sat where you
sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this
nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a
Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put
a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who
founded Google, Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we
communicate with each other.
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?
Your families, your teachers, and I are doing
everything we can to make sure you have the education you need to
answer these questions. I'm working hard to fix up your
classrooms and get you the books, equipment and computers you need
to learn. But you've got to do your part too. So I expect you
to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into
everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So
don't let us down - don't let your family or your country
or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it.
Thank you, God bless you, and God bless
America.
