Barack Obama Forty-Fourth President
(2009 to 2017)
National Address To America's Schoolchildren
Wakefield High School --
Arlington, Virginia
September 8, 2009
THE PRESIDENT: Hello, everybody! Thank you. Thank
you. Thank you, everybody. All right, everybody go ahead and have a
seat. How is everybody doing today? (Applause.) How about Tim
Spicer? (Applause.) I am here with students at Wakefield High School
in Arlington, Virginia. And we've got students tuning in from all
across America, from kindergarten through 12th grade. And I am just
so glad that all could join us today. And I want to thank Wakefield
for being such an outstanding host. Give yourselves a big round of
applause. (Applause.)
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 -- (applause) -- 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 bit longer this morning.
I know that feeling. When I was young, my family lived overseas. I
lived in Indonesia for a few years. And my mother, she didn't have
the money to send me where all the American kids went to school, but
she thought it was important for me to keep up with an American
education. So she decided to teach me extra lessons herself, Monday
through Friday. But because she had to go to work, the only time she
could do it was at 4:30 in the morning.
Now, as you might imagine, I wasn't too happy about getting up that
early. And 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 she'd say, "This is no picnic for me
either, buster." (Laughter.)
So I know that 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
about responsibility a lot.
I've talked about teachers' responsibility for inspiring students
and pushing you to learn.
I've talked about your parents' responsibility for making sure you
stay on track, and you get your homework done, and don't spend every
waking hour in front of the TV or with the Xbox.
I've talked a lot about your government's responsibility for setting
high standards, and supporting teachers and principals, and turning
around schools that aren't working, where students aren't getting
the opportunities that they deserve.
But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers,
the most supportive parents, the best schools in the world -- and
none of it will make a difference, none of it will matter unless all
of you fulfill your responsibilities, unless you show up to those
schools, unless you pay attention to those teachers, unless you
listen to your parents and grandparents and other adults and put in
the hard work it takes to succeed. 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 that 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 great writer -- maybe even good enough to write
a book or articles in a newspaper -- but you might not know it until
you write that English paper -- that English class paper that's
assigned to you. Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor --
maybe even good enough to come up with the next iPhone or the new
medicine or vaccine -- but you might not know it until you do your
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
cannot drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You've got
to train for it and work 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. The future of America depends on you. 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 and your
skills and your intellect so you can help us old folks 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 it's like. My father left my family when I was
two years old, and I was raised by a single mom who had to work and
who struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn't always able to
give us the things that other kids had. There were times when I
missed having a father in my life. There were times when I was
lonely and I felt like I didn't fit in.
So I wasn't always as focused as I should have been on school, and I
did some things I'm not proud of, and I got in more trouble than I
should have. And my life could have easily taken a turn for the
worse.
But I was -- I was lucky. I got a lot of second chances, and I had
the opportunity to go to college and law school and follow my
dreams. My wife, our First Lady Michelle Obama, she has a similar
story. Neither of her parents had gone to college, and they didn't
have a lot of money. 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 -- none of that is an excuse for
neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude in school. That's
no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or
dropping out of school. There is 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, because 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. Neither of her parents
had gone to college. But she worked hard, earned good grades, and
got a scholarship to Brown University -- is now in graduate school,
studying public health, on her way to becoming Dr. Jazmin Perez.
I'm thinking about Andoni Schultz, from Los Altos, California, who's
fought brain cancer since he was three. He's had to endure 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. 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 in the city, she managed to get a job at a
local health care 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.
And Jazmin, Andoni, and Shantell aren't any different from any of
you. They face challenges in their lives just like you do. In some
cases they've got it a lot worse off than many of you. But they
refused to give up. They chose to take responsibility for their
lives, 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 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 some 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 young people
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, by the way, I hope all of you are washing
your hands a lot, and that you stay home from school when you don't
feel well, so we can keep people from getting the flu this fall and
winter.
But 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 that 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.
Chances are you're not going to be any of those things.
The truth is, being successful is hard. You won't love every subject
that you study. You won't click with every teacher that you have.
Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your
life right at this minute. And you won't necessarily succeed at
everything the first time you try.
That's okay. Some of the most successful people in the world are the
ones who've had the most failures. J.K. Rowling's -- who wrote Harry
Potter -- her first Harry Potter book was rejected 12 times before
it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high
school basketball team. 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's why I
succeed."
These people succeeded because they understood that you can't let
your failures define you -- you have to let your failures teach you.
You have to let them show you what to do differently the next time.
So if you get into trouble, that doesn't mean you're a troublemaker,
it means you need to try harder to act right. 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 all 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. The same principle applies to your
schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before
you get it right. You might have to read something a few times
before you understand it. You definitely have to 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 because it shows you have the
courage to admit when you don't know something, and that then allows
you to learn something new. So find an adult that you trust -- a
parent, a grandparent or teacher, a coach or a 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 they founded this nation. Young
people. 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 and Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we
communicate with each other.
So today, I want to ask all of 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 20 or 50 or 100
years say about what all of you did for this country?
Now, 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 and the equipment and the computers you need to learn. But
you've got to do your part, too. So I expect all of 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 down or your country down. Most
of all, don't let yourself down. Make us all proud.
Thank you very much, everybody. God bless you. God bless America.
Thank you. (Applause.)
