Schoolhouse Barack: Speech Focuses on Responsibility

By Marcus Gilmer in News on Sep 7, 2009 6:40PM

Photo by Pete Souza/White House

For all the debate over President Obama's speech to schools tomorrow, the speech itself - at least in its current form - is a pretty straight-forward pep talk. Based on an advanced copy of the speech released to the media, it seems more like the standard "Stay in School" speech, underscoring students' responsibilities and, as written, could easily have come out of the mouth of any number of Presidents regardless of political party affiliation.

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.

Obama even mentions Google, Twitter, and Facebook as a way to connect with the kids these days. Of course, who knows how many rewrites the thing has gone through, but if this is the finished product, it seems that all that hand-wringing was for naught.