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when I was young my family lived
overseas uh I lived in Indonesia for a
few years and my mother she didn't have
the money to send me where all the
American kids went to school but she
thought it was important for me to keep
up with an American education so she
decided to teach me extra lessons
herself Monday through Friday but
because she had to go to work the only
time she could do it was at 4:30 in the
morning but whenever I'd complain my
mother would just give me one looks and
she'd say this is no picnic for me
either
Buster so I know that 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
my father left my family when I was 2
years old and I was raised by a single
mom who had to work and who struggled at
times to pay the bills and wasn't always
able to give us the things that other
kids had there were times when I missed
having a father in my life there were
times when I was lonely and I felt like
I didn't fit in so I wasn't always as
focused as I should have been on school
and I did some things that I'm not proud
of and I got in more trouble than I
should have and my life could have
easily taken a turn for the
worst but I was I was lucky I got a lot
of Second Chances and I had the
opportunity to go to college and law
school and follow my
dreams my wife our First Lady Michelle
Obama mama she has a similar story
neither of her parents had gone to
college and they didn't have a lot of
money 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 Pres
in you to do things you know aren't
right maybe you could be a great writer
maybe even good enough to write a book
or articles in a newspaper but you might
not know it until you write that English
paper uh that English class paper that's
assigned to you maybe you could be an
innovator or an inventor maybe even good
enough to come up with the next iPhone
or the new medicine or vaccine but you
might not know it until you do your
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 cannot drop out of school and just
drop into a good
job you've got to train for it and work
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 the future of America
depends on
you 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 and your skills and your
intellect so you can help us old folks
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 I know it's not always easy to
do well in
school I know a lot of you have
challenges in your your lives right now
that can make it hard to focus on your
school
work I get it I know what it's like 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 none of
that is an excuse for neglecting your
homework or having a bad attitude in
school that's no excuse for talking back
to your teacher or cutting class or
dropping out of school there is 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
because 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 that's why today I'm calling on
each of you to set your own goals for
your education and 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 some 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 young people deserve a safe
environment to study and learn
maybe you'll decide to take better care
of yourself so you could be more ready
to learn but 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 that
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 chances are you're not going to be
any of those
things the truth truth is being
successful is
hard you won't love every subject that
you
study you won't click with every teacher
that you
have not every homework assignment will
seem completely relevant to your life
right at this
minute and you won't necessarily succeed
at everything the first time you
try that's
okay some of the most successful people
in the world are the ones who've had the
most
failures JK
Rollins who wrote Harry
Potter her first Harry Potter book was
rejected 12 times before it was finally
published Michael Jordan was cut from
his high school basketball
team 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's why I sued succeed these
people succeeded because they understood
that you can't let your failures Define
you you have to let your failures teach
you you have to let them show you what
to do differently the next
time so if you get into trouble that
doesn't mean you're a troublemaker it
means you need to try harder to act
right 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 all 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 the
same principle applies to your
schoolwork you might have to do a math
problem a few times before you get it
right you might have to read something a
few times before you understand it you
definitely have to 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 because
it shows you have the courage to admit
when you don't know something and that
then allows you to learn something
new so find an adult that you trust a
parent a grandparent or a teacher a
coach or a 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 they founded
this nation young
people 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 and Twitter
and Facebook and change the way we
communicate with each other so today I
want to ask all of 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 20 or 50 or 100 years say about
what all of you did for this
country you know 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
and the equipment and the computers you
need to
learn but you've got to do your part
too so I expect all of 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 down or your country down most of
all don't let yourself
down make us all proud
[Music]
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