PRESIDENT BARAK OBAMA'S SPEECH ON BACK-TO-SCHOOL TODAY!

PRESIDENT BARAK OBAMA’S SPEECH ON BACK-TO-SCHOOL TODAY!

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.

© September 8, 2009

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It is the American way to speak its mind when for whatever reason it feels obliged to do so without clearly understanding why. This has been the case that has preceded the president’s address to schoolchildren today, the day after Labor Day when most all school children across the nation from kindergarten through twelfth grade are back in school.

You have read in your newspapers or the Internet, or heard on the radio or television such veiled charges that the president was out to brainwash the nation with his socialistic doctrine, that he had a hidden agenda to move independent voters into the Democratic camp, or even the blasphemy that the speech would give comfort to our enemies.

The Tampa Tribune this morning, September 8, 2009 published the speech, which will be telecast at noon today into many classrooms across the nation.

Here in Florida many schools and counties have made it clear that the speech will not be heard on their campuses. Fine. That is the American way.

I say this with regret because I’ve read the speech. It not only resonates with me but it also echoes the life I’ve enjoyed because of the tenets of the speech personified my life experience.

I am in my seventies now, and have had a very good life, a life I would not have had were it not for staying in school, studying hard, and taking responsibility as a student as the president advises in this speech.

My da with a seventh grade education struggled all his life, but my mother who graduated from high school saw to it that that would not happen to me. Chances are if I had been born in Europe I would have ended my formal education at fifteen and sent off to some trade school. That would have been unfortunate because I am not good with my hands, but far better with words and ideas, something I discovered by enjoying twelve years of compulsory education and nine years of college.

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE PRESIDENT’S SPEECH

The president tells about his own struggles as a student, and then addresses responsibility in terms of teachers, parents, and the government, but especially the student him or herself.

In the end, he says, “the responsibility each of you has for your education” is “with the responsibility you have to yourself.”

Education is an opportunity to discover what each student is good at, as every student has special talents that education reveals. “Maybe you could be a good writer – maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in a newspaper … 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 … no matter what you want to do with your life – I guarantee that you’ll need an education to do it.”

We don’t live in a vacuum. We live in a country. We are part of something bigger than ourselves. I’ve written many times that everyone is a leader or no one is. That said I don’t think it is necessarily political when the president says: “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.”

Nor do I think this is anything less than self-evident: “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 quite on school – you’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country.”

He uses himself as an example of “second chances” claiming he wasn’t always focused. “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 President Obama didn’t. He got educated.

Next he addresses a problem that I can relate to, and that is influences or the lack of same at home. My da was pushed to the bottom and expected his children to stay pat, be safe hires, never cause any commotion, get in and out of school as quickly as possible and help support the family. My mother was of a different mind. On balance, my advantages were a product of her will. She meant for me to stay in school no matter what.

“Some of you might not have those advantages,” says the president. “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.”

At the end of the day, given the immense freedom we all have as Americans, there are no excuses “for neglecting our homework, or having a bad attitude,” or taking our wrath out on our teachers.

“Where you are right now,” the president reminds us, “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.”

Often I’ve written about the damage our celebrity culture exacts on the psyches of young people. The president addresses this observable fact: “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. The truth is being successful is hard work … and you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.”

To illustrate his point, he uses an NBA basketball great: “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.”

The president follows this with a powerful truism: “You can’t let your failures define you – you have to let them teach you.”

Anyone who has ever been successful knows this only too well. People have come up to me after a speech, and have said, “I want to travel the world like you have, I want to write books like you have, I want to be a psychologist like you are, I want to give speeches and so on.” They see the product but are not interested in the process, which had involved a lot of hard work and many failures in the preparation for the moment.

“No one’s born being good at things,” the president reflects, “you become good at things through hard work.” There is no other way.

The president winds down his speech addressing common experiences of all good students: “Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do every day. Asking 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.”

Then he talks about finding a mentor: “Find an adult you trust” to help you. “Don’t ever give up on yourself. Because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country…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.”

The president ends his message saying he is doing everything he can to create the climate, develop access to and sustain the culture that promotes education as a vehicle for building the will and success of the nation.

Sixteen years ago, I published a memoir as a novel that tracked many of the points made here showing how a quite ordinary person can experience what the president outlines. No one could be less of a political ideologue than I am, so I can say with great enthusiasm, “I approve this message!”

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