Watching Obama's Education Speech

I was happy that my son, W., who’s a fifth grader this year, got to watch President Obama’s speech in school yesterday.

I don’t know if any parents objected but W. said he didn’t think any kids in his class were sitting the speech out. Why would they? I fail to see why anyone would object to a president telling children how important it is to study harder, no matter what you think of his politics.

This particular president is in a unique position to make that speech because he himself grew up with a single parent and not much money. As he told the schoolchildren, according to a copy of the prepared speech on the White House website.

“I know a lot of you have challenges in your lives right now that can make it hard to focus on your schoolwork,” Obama told students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Va. as many of the nation's 50 millio schoolchildren tuned in.

“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. “

But Obama said even children who have difficult lives, still have a personal responsibility to do well in school. “Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up,” he said. “No one’s written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future. “

W. seemed impressed about Obama's childhood. "He had a hard childhood," W. said. W. was particularly amazed at Obama saying he used to wake up before dawn every day so his mother could tutor him when they lived in Indonesia. When he complainmed talked about his childhood being raised by a single mother. He talked about how she used to wake him up early in the morning to study and when he complained she said, “This is no picnic for me either, buster.”

W. said his teacher told him the speech was “important,” and he thought it was too. “I thought it was about telling us to do well in school because if we don’t do well in school then the future will be bad because we are the people of the future,” W. said.

“I expect great things from each of you,” Obama told the students. “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.”

Call me a socialist. But here’s a message that’s as American as apple pie and I’m proud that my son got to hear it.

Photo from the Associated Press