Tuesday, September 08, 2009

Subliminal Messaging

Today, I present something truly controversial. Something so threatening the fabric of American society that it's caused boycotts and kept kids out of school. Prepare to be shocked. And remember, it's not what he actually says that matters. As one mother put it on a recent NPR interview - "He may be sending subliminal messages".

See for yourself. The prepared text of President Barack Obama's back-to-school address scheduled for today, as released in advance by the White House:

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 12th 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. J.K. 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.

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12 Comments:

Anonymous Josiah said...

Hmmm. . . not sure what to think, the guy is good with speeches that's for freaking sure.

Not sure I'm much of a fan of his, but that doesn't keep me from appreciating the concept of responsibility apparent in it.

10:57 AM  
Blogger Mary Robinette Kowal said...

I wish someone had given me that speech in school. Granted, I am strangely squeamish about education = patriotism, but I think that's because of eight years of being told that patriotism is equal to shopping. The concept has been devalued in my head.

11:27 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

The modern political world has become truly surreal when people want to keep their kids from hearing a message of personal responsibility because it might be "socialist indoctrination".

11:31 AM  
Blogger David Anthony Durham said...

Josiah,

Reasonable enough. I am a fan, but I don't require that everyone else be. I don't even think everyone SHOULD be.

But I do think it's fundamentally a good idea to accept that the holder of the office of the president has the right to do things like tell kids to stay in school and work hard. It wouldn't occur to me that it would be reasonable to protest that message even if it was coming from a president that didn't have my support.

I recall having Carter's portrait up in my school, and then Reagan's, and the Bush's. Whether I or my parents supported any of these wasn't really the issue. This guy or that one was president so they got their portrait up. Right now Obama is president so he gets to tell kids to stay in school if he wants to - just like Reagan and the first Bush did.

Mary,

I'm right there with you on being squeamish about educated patriotism. This does seem a rather benign version of it, though.

Sburnap,

I'm inclined to think the problem isn't particularly the message of personal responsibility. It's the messenger. Obama himself - just by being himself and being president - is a messenger of changes in American society that many people simple cannot except. This sort of thing is a manifestation of that.

12:23 PM  
Blogger Mark Lavallee said...

I think it's a good message, to be honest. I believe that parents today (not all but a lot) are just as lost as the kids their raising. We're seeing the "Gimme" generation have kids now while their still young, and half of them can't point out which state they live in on a map.

The truth is that the educational system in the US is crumbling... my little brother's school bought a 1.4 million video surveillance system but no books. We spend more on athletics than we do on academics.

There's nothing wrong with athletics - don't get me wrong coaches - but at no point should it be acceptable that the football field get new AstroTurf when there are no books.

In essence, we've consumerized education. It's less about learning and more about business. We forgo new books to buy stuff for the football team because the football team brings in money. We have reality TV shows in our schools.

So honestly, hooray for the president saying "work hard and stay in school" to our kids - someone has too.

(Note: I get what everyone's saying, I just thought I'd throw this out there as well.)

12:34 PM  
Anonymous Illia said...

I was a child when Bush Sr. (I was a year or two too young for Reagan) addressed students about drugs. I don't recall it being a controversy at all and was an appropriate general message even if I realize 20 years later that our war on drugs was misguided at points.

An education is more important than ever yet interest seems to sink every year. In a case where Obama is calling on students to take responsibility and make positive choices for their futures, we should see conservatives and liberals alike not only supporting but contributing to the message.

As others have said, education is seen as a money making venture. Sports reign supreme at the expense of education. I attend a public university that has placed an emphasis on looking nice and making students happy to get more alumni income while becoming a virtual diploma mill.

We have a very real and irrational fear in this country toward education that it is a elitist institution and will destroy democracy in favor of Marxism. Meanwhile places like China and India are catching up.

6:20 PM  
Blogger Mark Lavallee said...

Would it be too much for the subliminal message to say "David, next time you talk to Pat Rothfuss... tell him to finish The Wise Man's Fear... or we will come and get you..."

I mean really? If you're going to plant suggestions then do something useful. ;)

7:32 PM  
Blogger Constance Brewer said...

*checks out window* Hey, lookie here. Speech is done, and hell hasn't froze over.
I think we've reached a new low when the President has to have his speech pre-approved by everyone, for the fear someone, somewhere, might be offended. Since when is 'go forth, be responsible and do good' an inflammatory message?

I wonder how JFK's Inaugural Address would go over today...

8:20 PM  
Anonymous Josiah said...

Hello, Mary Robinette Kowal just did a podcast with Brandon Sanderson! ! !Good Show btw. Thought i would put that out there. : D

Yes, I would expect him to do these things seeing as how they come with the job really. And as for your comment "I don't think everyone should be" Amen! Some people don't understand that it takes differing opinions, views on life, and downright dissension at times to keep a democracy alive.

8:28 AM  
Blogger David Anthony Durham said...

Yeah. You guys are right to point the discussion toward the rather dire deficiencies in our education system and to the frightening commercialization of... well, everything.

Incubus Jax,

Alas, I have no power over Pat. Would that I did...

Josiah,

Agreed. We're at our best when we intelligently exchange differing opinions. That said, we are far, far from at our best right now. So much of our so-called "debate" isn't debate at all. It's espousing overtly untrue claims that are meant to derail intelligent exchange - to stop it from ever happening. That's something I have no patience for.

9:28 AM  
Blogger Shauna Leigh Atkinson said...

I'm a bit late on this, but wow, people didn't let their children hear this? WOW! I'm sure they let them watch TV though. Yikes. Freedom of speech for one thing and more than that, he is the President of the USofA. I thought it was a well written speech and very powerfully written in telling kids to stay in school and believe in themselves. Heck, it inspired me and I'm, um, well, older... Wow, is about all else I can say. Thanks for posting or I would have missed it!!! slk

3:13 AM  
Blogger Manifestation Magical said...

It’s great to come across a blog every once in a while that isn’t the same out of date rehashed material. Fantastic read. Get more info about subliminal messages in music

3:47 AM  

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