President Obama

贡献者:馒头君 类别:英文 时间:2018-12-12 21:19:53 收藏数:13 评分:0
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Hello, everybody! Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. All right, everybody go ahead and have
a seat. How is everybody doing today? (Applause.) How about Tim Spicer? (Applause.) 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. (Applause.)
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 are some seniors out there who are feeling pretty good
right now -- (applause) -- 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 bit longer this morning.
I know that feeling. 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.
Now, as you might imagine, I wasn't too happy about getting up that early. And 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.'
(Laughter.)
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.
Now, 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.
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, 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.
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 -- 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 -- 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.
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 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 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 worse.
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, 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 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, 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.
Young people like Jazmin Perez, from Roma, Texas. Jazmin 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 -- is now in graduate school, studying public
health, on her way to becoming Dr. Jazmin Perez.
I'm thinking about 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 Shantell Steve, from my hometown of Chicago, Illinois. 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 Jazmin, Andoni, and Shantell
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 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.
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 can be more ready to learn.
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 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. 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. J.K. Rowling's -- 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.'
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 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 agowho 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 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? What will a President who comes here in 20 or 50
or 100 years say about what all of you did for this country?
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, 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.
Thank you very much, everybody. God bless you. God bless America. Thank you.
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