Thank you, everybody. All right, everybody go ahead and have a seat.

How's everybody
doing today?

00:31
How about Tim Spicer?

00:38
I am here with students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. And we've got
students tuning in from all across America, from kindergarten through 12th grade. And I am
just so glad that all could join us today. And I want to thank Wakefield for being such an
outstanding host. Give yourselves a big round of applause.

01:06
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's some seniors out there who are
feeling pretty good right now. With just one more year to go.

01:31
And no matter what grade you're in, some of you are probably wishing it were still summer,
and you could have stayed in bed just a little bit longer this morning. I know that feeling.

01:44
When I was young, my family lived overseas. 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.

02:12
Now, as you might imagine, 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 she'd say, this is no picnic for me either, buster.

02:29
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. 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. I've given
a lot of speeches about education, and I've talked about responsibility a lot. I've talked about
teachers' responsibility for inspiring students and pushing you to learn.

02:59
I've talked about your parents' responsibility for making sure you stay on track and you get
your homework done and don't spend every waking hour in front of the TV or with the Xbox.
I've talked a lot about your 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,
03:28
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 you fulfill
your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools, unless you pay attention to those
teachers, unless you listen to your parents and grandparents and other adults and put in the
hard work it takes to succeed.

03:57
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 that 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 great writer.

04:27
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, 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.

04:57
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.

05:27
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

05:57
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.
06:25
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 lives right now
that can make it hard to focus on your schoolwork.

06:55
I get it. I know what it's like. My father left my family when I was two 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.

07:25
And my life could have easily taken a turn for the worse. But 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, 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.

07:54
But 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,

08:23
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.

08:53
That's what young people like you are doing every day all across America. Young people like
Jasmine Perez from Roma, Texas. Jasmine didn't speak English when she first started school.
Neither of her parents had gone to college. But she worked hard, earned good grades, and got
a scholarship to Brown University as now in graduate school studying public health on her
way to becoming Dr. Jasmine Perez. I'm thinking about
09:23
Andoni Schultz from Los Altos, California, who's fought brain cancer since he was three.
He's had to endure 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. He's headed to college this fall. And then there's Chantel Steve from my hometown of
Chicago, Illinois.

09:51
Even when bouncing from foster home to foster home in the toughest neighborhoods in the
city, she managed to get a job at a local health care 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. And Jasmine and Donnie and Chantel aren't any different from any of you. They face
challenges in their lives just like you do. In some cases, they've got it a lot worse off.

10:21
than many of you. But they refused to give up. They chose to take responsibility for their
lives, for their education, and set goals for themselves. And I expect all of you to do the same.
And 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

10:50
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 can be more ready to learn.

11:17
And along those lines, by the way, I hope all of you are washing your hands a lot and that you
stay home from school when you don't feel well so we can keep people from getting the flu
this fall and winter. 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

11:46
being a reality TV star, chances are you're not going to be any of those things. The 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.

12:15
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.
12:28
J.K. Rawlings, 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 succeed.

12:58
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.

13:28
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.

13:54
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.

14:21
a 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.

14:49
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.

15:16
Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago, who founded Google and Twitter and
Facebook, and changed 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?
15:38
What will a president who comes here in 20 or 50 or 100 years say about what all of you did
for this country?

15:46
Now, 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, 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.

16:17
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. Thank you very much, everybody. God bless you. God
bless America. Thank you.