Obama School Speech Sends the Right Message to Many Who are Usually Tuned Out

Deep into the presidential campaign last year, I was stunned to learn that a significant number of my high school students had never heard Barack Obama speak. They'd heard of him, but had no clue about anything he stood for. This was shocking to me; I listened to the guy and his surrogates practically every night on TV. I knew the Obama brand inside out. My D.C. pupils, living in a news vacuum, had had no exposure to him.

I set to work on filling this void by introducing campaign-related reading and activities in my class. However, there is no doubt that, for all sorts of reasons, many students across the country are simply tuned out.

That's why Obama's back-to-school speech matters. It probably won't make a significant imprint on kids who read the paper everyday, with parents discussing current events. They've already heard the president discuss personal responsibility. They know how their president speaks.

However, the back-to-school speech does have a real chance to touch the typically disconnected students, and that is a substantial upside. These kids are not absorbing the most basic civics information at home; school has to pick up the slack. There is a psychic cost to not knowing a larger world beyond your immediate day-to-day life; American kids need to know their president, whether they support his policy agenda or not.

They don't need to back his healthcare agenda or weigh in on his military spending, but they do need to know what he's about. That's the barest minimum that a responsible, participatory democracy should settle for.

In the actual speech, the messages Obama offered were all positive, non-controversial, and framed in ways that students could understand. My favorite snippets:

On discovering talent through schoolwork:

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.

On embracing challenges and failure:

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.

On effort:

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.

I look forward to showing the speech to my students when they return to school tomorrow. It's sad that a ludicrous kerfuffle launched by Glenn Beck lemmings has precluded many kids from hearing their president's ideas--- from horse's mouth. There's a substantial benefit in taking a few minutes in one school day for all students to listen to their chief executive address them.

President Obama delivered an excellent speech; here's hoping America's students listened. Now the real work begins again to support and drive our nation's youth to realize their profound potential.

Dan Brown is the author of The Great Expectations School: A Rookie Year in the New Blackboard Jungle.

Follow Dan Brown on Twitter: www.twitter.com/danbrownteacher

Comments

[Alabama John]

50% of children in America never get a high school diploma, and most all of us have one thing in common, were laboring class and going back many generations our parients had the smae lack of ability to learn.

Some say its lack of ambition and has nothing to do with intelligence. But ambition springs from visible signs of progress, and the greater the intelligence, the greater the progress and the greater the ambition.

[KelseyTahoma]

Obama's education speech was very inspiring. He was not biased in any way. He merely wanted to make the point that kids need to stay in school and work hard. I think it is ridiculous how some parents kept their kids home from school because they didn't want them to hear the speech. My favorite part of the speech was when he declared "Asking for help isn't a sign of weakness, it's a sign of strength." I really liked this becuase I use to be afraid to ask questions in class becuase I thought didn't want to appear weak or stupid. I soon learned this was obscure because it only made my work harder. Asking questions is a sign of courage. Obama's speech was meant to encourage kids and get them motivated to learn.

[Alabama John]

But why cause a slow and careful thinking laboring class child to set four years in high school and endure the stress of being force-fed knowledge that only the intelligent middleclass can comprehend?

In all the new teaching standards now being proposed in Washington, is it not strange that not a word is spoken about our intelligence being set in concrete from birth?

Surely we who hard labor do not have a "learning disability," but a God given ability, and one that gives us a slow and careful wisdom you see.

[tsobserver]

The text of the speech is no doubt admirable. It's a great message of taking personal responsibility and driving your own destiny through hard work.

Whoever wrote the speech could not possibly be a liberal or if he/she is, then the speech writer does not believe what was written. Obama certainly does not believe what he said. Or if he does, he expects people to give up that sense of rugged individualism and personal responsibility when the graduate from school.

None of his big government proposals are congruous with the message he gave to the kids. His message to Congress and the country at large was just the opposite. Don't worry, the government will take care of you.

So which is it, Mr. Obama? Are we important individuals who must take responsibility for our own destiny or helpless serfs dependent upon the benevolent sovereign for our needs and wants?

[Alabama John]

My slow and careful thinking laboring class, we who hard labor generate all of societies wealth, is not healthcare wages due and owed?

[norman60]

President Barack Obama has the best credentials as a father, a brilliant person and a source of inspiration. Anyone, young or old, who listens to him comes away wiser. There's something in this back-to-school speech for every student, in every nation of the world. God bless you Barack.

[moonwatcher]

I thought it was a good speech and our local county school districts did not show it. There are many discouraged students in this district in California. This county has one of the highest drop out rates in California and has a lot of pregnant students. I know my grandson would have benefited hearing from President Obama so I copied excerpts that I thought were the most important and emailed them to my son. Perhaps if everybody knew someone that could benefit from hearing the speech they could at least print it and send it to them.

[Aurical]

To once again show the levels of their hypocrisy, it came out that some of the same districts in Tex that so violently opposed our president's speach actually BUSSED kids to see Bush speak! Unreal, why is this not the lead story in the papers and so called "mainstream media"? I do not want to hear reporters five years from now saying they dropped the ball and didnt ask the right questions like they did after the run up to the war. You do not need the benefit of time to tell when something is right or wrong.

[Retrofuturistic]

This happened in New Albany, Ohio, a wealthy suburb of Columbus, home of Les Wexner (Bravo, Joanne Williams):

New Albany-Plain schools did not show the speech live, but officials said they would review it and ask for parental permission if they decide to show it later.

For parent Joanne Williams, that wasn't good enough.

She parked her SUV outside New Albany's high- and middle-school campus and played the speech on its radio. Williams and about 10 other parents and their children listened from underneath a flagpole.

The kids returned to class after the speech.

"To suggest that there would be anything threatening from our president? It's the greatest contradiction," said Joanne Williams, 51, who has seven children including four in the New Albany school district.

(from the Columbus =Dispatch=)

[Raccoon1]

So, let's call the Republicants on their 'socialist' scare tactics.
I've been on the phone to some Republicant senators and reps explaining to them that we can't have state run colleges and universities because they're turning our children into 'socialists" and "communists". We all know the gub'mt can't do anything right, right?
So, I'm asking the Republicants to stand up for their true beliefs and to call for the immediate shutdown all state run colleges and universities.
I'm not getting a very good response.

[TLV]

As many of my kids' teachers said while I attended progress conferences - it's the parents who really need to be there who never show up.

The same kind of parents did not allow their kids to "show up" for this inspiring message from our extremely well-liked and charismatic elected leader. They simply cannot fathom how a "black" man got there in the first place because they certainly did not "show up" to vote!

[akrishn3]

I think obama should have delivered the whole speech in "rap" form. It would have reached the target audiance better.

[Social-licious]

It was a great speech! It was also a very conservative speech.

[RButler]

Aren't teachers, counselors, parents, coaches and others already telling kids to stay in school, do their homework, don't quit when they fail at something, wash their hands, and other obvious things? Did Obama invent these ideas or what? How about honoring your word and doing what you said you would do? I'm amazed at how impressed people are when Obama says the most predictable and obvious things as though they are some kind of breakthrough.

I don't recall Obama telling Americans to save money but that's what they're doing. I heard the savings rate is now about 7%, up from near zero. Why didn't he think of that?

The things he says that people think are so brilliant are pretty ordinary and conventional on closer examination. Of course, his fans don't 'do closer examination' of what he says. They're still enjoying the afterglow of his rhetoric. I picture them having a cigarette after listening to one of his speeches. Then, rolling over and going to sleep.

[MsMandy]

Yes, the hope is that all of the people you mentioned above are telling students those things. However, in reality, many of the kids who need to hear them the most do not. There are millions of school children in this country who, for the FIRST time, have someone in the highest position in the country that they can identify with. That alone made this speech all the more powerful. If his words of encouragment reached 10 kids in this country it was worth it.

[NeutralDon]

Think these parents and school district who didn't let the kids hear POTUS would rather hear speeches that have "Death Panel" or "Adolf Hitler, like Barack Obama, ruled by dictate" included. Shame on these people.

[akrishn3]

Probably they thought what si the use of showing some drug abuser, alcholoic, liar just "talk talking"....
Obama is a politician, lawyer, democract and now a president.. he is quadraply qualified to not tell the truth on anything.

[MarionWatts]

The President's speech actually brought tears to my eyes, and I deplore the ignorance and bigotry of those parents just plain too stupid or blinded by their own personal prejudices, too morally weak NOT to be led by the insidious shills from the Right, who have their own agenda, not to allow their children to listen to this inspirational man.

Mr Brown, this ignorance and indifference, this shallowness amongst the young is not limited to America. As an ex-pat living in the UK, I am witness to the same lack of direction past the trivially personal in the lives of many young British people, from adolescence into their late twenties. There was no British Prime Minister with a higher profile than Tony Blair, love him or hate him; yet at one point during his tenure, a survey showed that 60% of 14 year-olds couldn't name the PM.

Something has to be done to address the vacuity growing in the minds of young people, whose only desire seems to be 5 minutes of fame on America's Got Talent. There's 'talent' and 'talent'. Better to aspire to what Barack Obama preaches than the pithy inanities mouthed by Simon Cowell.

http://emiliawahoo76.blogspot.com
http://myspace.com/virginiadem

[DesertFlame]

Yet despite multiple phone calls and emails, our school district did not give my children an opportunity to watch it. Shame, shame, shame on CCSD in Las Vegas.