Obama’s Education Speech and Ignorant Educators

Posted on September 13, 2009 by Brian under Leadership, News, School, Videos.

Lately I have been hearing a lot about this Obama video to the students of America. Today my wife pulled it up and we watched it. First let me tell you that I have no allegiance to one party or the other. To be honest, I have never voted. I am 35 years old and I have not ever voted. I have my reasons and at this point in my life I choose to just observe and report. In my opinion this gives me a unique perspective on politics, I am not swayed to one side or the other. I kind of consider myself to be Switzerland when it comes to the politics of the United States.

What I keep hearing about this video is that schools across America would not allow their students to watch it. As a matter of fact, I have read a few articles that claim that some schools advised their students to not watch it at all, not even on their own time. I don’t understand this. I watched it and it sounds to me like Obama just told the children of America to get off there lazy fat asses and learn something. It sounded to me like he told the students of America that if they don’t make something of themselves then they have no one to blame but themselves. It sounded to me like he put the burden of self-improvement solely on the students of America. Personally, I have no problem with this. I have been preaching this to people for years. I look around at the youth off America and I fear for the future. Now let me tell you, I am no supporter of Obama. I don’t agree with many things that he has planned for the future. I applaud him for wanting to change many things that are broke in the country. He is one of the first to try to correct some of the problems instead of just talking about it. However, I think he is going about it all the wrong way, but that’s a conversation for another blog.

Back to the subject, this video. I listened to the video waiting for this “Call to the Hitler Youth” tone that I had been hearing everyone talk about, it never came. When the video was done I just looked to my wife and said “It’s about dammed time.” To sum it up, he basically went on TV and told the children that they need to get off their asses, get out from in front of the XBOX, PlayStation and Television and learn something. Make something of themselves by bettering their education. He even provided examples of other people their age (some older)how that have overcome adversity and have made something of themselves by applying effort and hard work to learning. He even pointed out that it is not easy, they will have to work at it and at times they may not like it. But the reward will outweigh the struggle. I only wish I had listened to my parents when they told me this years ago. I never liked school, all I wanted to do was draw and watch TV and movies. I was one of those students who said “I’ll never use this stuff in the real world” and never spent the time or effort to learn beyond what the teachers gave us. Hell, I barely learned what the teachers gave us. Now I struggle in life, I have had to learn everything that I need to get along in the real world on my own. Math, English, Grammar all of these things that I slacked off on in school I am finding that I need in order to do things in life. If I had listened to my parents, or had someone speak to the students of America like Obama did then maybe I would have turned out differently.

However, I had a choice. I was given this kind of speech from my folks and I CHOSE to ignore it. Most of the students of America had this choice removed. They were not given the opportunity to make up their own minds, they were not given the opportunity to think for themselves. A person within each of these schools decided that he or she did not want the students to think for themselves. These educators wanted them to continue to trudge along in life and not be something other than what they currently are. What if a student who is currently being pressured by gangs watched this video and decided that he had another option, then went on to create the cure for cancer. That option has been removed from his life now. He may now join that gang and not live past 25. What if another student is struggling with family hardships that are causing her to loose interest in school? Maybe this would have given her the strength to pull her head up and move past this and become the next President of the United States, maybe the first female President. That option is now taken from her because of someone else’s selfish actions.

Personally, I don’t see a problem with this video. I actually applaud it. I do now blame the teachers, principals and parents who kept their children from watching this video. The future that is going to be for your children is your making and I feel that by preventing them from watching this video you just darkened their future. Again, I am in no political organization. I lean towards no political party. I just feel that this was a powerful message that should have been heard and it’s an injustice to the children of this nation that the opportunity was taken from them.

Thank God for YouTube.

Read the transcript here.