An Inspiring Speech to Students K-12 Who Are Deprived of it One Way or Another

This speech is intended for all students in kindergarten to 12th grade who were prevented or not allowed to view President Obama’s speech to students for any reason at all, whether it be because of parental or personal political views or just because there was no opportunity to watch or read it. I have altered this speech in terms of personal experiences to fit my own life.

Now some of you may be wondering why I am doing this. I am a UCSD college student. I am neither a Democrat nor a Republican. I have no hidden agenda, except the best for my peers and for my country. Well, I have no such affiliation or agenda, and I am giving pretty much the same speech right here. I believe that this type speech is vital for students to hear and I am doing this to allow access to it to everyone.

Thank you.

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How are you all doing today?

I am here by myself in my room recording this speech, and I hope I’ve got students tuning in from all across America from kindergarten through 12th grade. I’d be glad if you would hear me out for just these few minutes.

I know that for many of us, school has just begun. And for those of us in kindergarten, or starting middle or high school, you are 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. I was a high school student not too long ago. I would wake up before sunrise every morning just to go to sports practice, which was held before first period. My parents worked hard every day and sometimes I wouldn’t even have a ride to school that early in the morning, so I’d have to take two city buses on a transfer ticket just to get to the school, which was through the city gang area–all before the sun was up.

Now I wasn’t too happy about getting up that early. A lot of times, I’d sleep right through the alarm and miss practice, even get to school late for my first period class. But I would still go.

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 our education and what’s expected of all of us in this new school year.

I haven’t really given many speeches, but for this one I’d like to discuss responsibility. There are speeches about teacher’s responsibility for inspiring students and pushing us to learn. There are speeches about parent’s responsibilities for making sure we stay on track and we get our homework done and we don’t spend every waking hour in front of the TV or with the computer.

There are speeches about our 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 us fulfill our responsibilities. Unless we show up to those schools, unless we pay attention to those teachers, unless we listen to our 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 us have for our education. I want to start with the responsibility we have to ourselves.

Every single one of us has something that we’re good at. Every single one of us has something to offer. And we have a responsibility to ourselves to find out 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 or join journalism or whatever. 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 we want to do with our lives – I guarantee that we’ll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? A nurse, 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. We can’t drop out of school and just drop into a good job. We’ve got to work for it and train for it and learn for it.

And this isn’t just important for our own lives and our own futures. What we make of our education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What we’re learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future.

We’ll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills we learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment. We’ll need the insights and critical thinking skills we gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free. We’ll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all our classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy.

We need every single one of us to develop our talents, skills and intellect so we can help solve our most difficult problems. If we don’t do that – if we quit on school – we’re not just quitting on ourselves, we’re quitting on our 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 family immigrated to the United States with nothing but the clothes on their backs. My parents and six older sisters struggled to make a living without help from welfare, while not even knowing the language of this country, and we couldn’t always get things other kids had. I often felt overshadowed by the hard work of my parents and sisters. There were times when, even in such a big family, I was lonely and felt like I didn’t fit in.

So I wasn’t always as focused as I should have been. I probably caused more trouble than I should have. And my life could have easily taken a turn for the worse.

But I was fortunate. I found my inspiration among a few dependable adults in my life and now I have the opportunity to go to college with government financial assistance even in this economic depression.

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 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. I understand that.

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 our destinies for us. Here in America, you write your own destiny. We make our own future.

That’s what young people like us are doing every day, all across America.

Those people aren’t any different from any of us. They faced challenges in their lives just like we do. In some cases, they’ve got it even worse than us. But they refused to give up. They chose to take responsibility for their education and set goals for themselves. And I expect all of us to do the same.

That’s why today, I’m calling on each of us to set our own goals for our education – and to do everything we 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.

Whatever you resolve to do, please 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 still, I mean, even Denzel Washington, a famous actor, had to study his butt off to get where he is.

The truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every subject you study. You won’t click with every teacher you have. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this very 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. JK 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. Thomas Edison, when asked about his numerous failures before he revolutionized the lightbulb, once said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10000 ways that won’t work.”

As for myself, this particular speech took me a few drafts to get it right, and it’s still not perfect.

Anyway, 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 study more.

Most people aren’t 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. Trust me, it took me until senior year. You don’t sketch a masterpiece the first time you pick up a pencil. You’ve got to practice. Like from this to this. It’s the same with 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. 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 you can 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 you ever give up on yourself. Because when we give up on ourselves, we give up on our 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 we sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where we 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 we 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 our contribution going to be? What problems are we going to solve? What discoveries will we make? What will a person in twenty or fifty or one hundred years say about what all of us did for this country?

Our families, our teachers, are doing everything they can to make sure we have the education we need to answer these questions. The president may be working hard to fix up our classrooms and get us the books, equipment and computers we need to learn. But we’ve got to do our 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 us. 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.

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Whew! Long speech. Well, actually it’s pretty short, but long for me.

At this point, I want to ask you if anything I said was wrong. Is there anything I said that was not true. I ask this, because a lot of people have been giving our president a lot of backlash for this speech, saying that he’s only doing this to forward his own political agenda or brainwash kids.

If what I said in the speech is completely alright, then why is it that the president’s speech must be so political? Why is it impossible [[that he, as a fellow American just like you or me,]] also wants to promote our education and future? Why must we be so cynical as to doubt every word that he says…even though they are true? Please, think about it. Thank you.