You’re quitting on your country

Barack Obama
As you may well know, Pres­i­dent Obama gave a tele­vised speech to America’s school chil­dren yes­ter­day.  The speech was deemed con­tro­ver­sial by some, and con­cerns that polit­i­cal agenda would be included in what should only be a “stay in school” style speech were voiced by many.  I was one of the many.

Before the White House released “Remarks by the Pres­i­dent in a National Address to America’s School­child­ren,” I was not sure what to expect from the speech.  In today’s polit­i­cally charged envi­ron­ment, I could not help but won­der how much agenda would make its way into the speech.  I was happy to have the oppor­tu­nity to read the speech before it was aired, and while my ini­tial con­cerns were quelled, a cou­ple of new ones took their place.

Now don’t get me wrong, I did think a much of Pres­i­dent Obama’s speech was spot on.  For example:

“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.”

- Pres­i­dent Barack Obama, “Remarks by the Pres­i­dent in a National Address to America’s Schoolchildren”

I could not agree more with that sen­ti­ment.  I believe that each and every indi­vid­ual has the poten­tial to do great things.  What those great things are can only be deter­mined through self dis­cov­ery, which is often a side effect of a good edu­ca­tion in a free coun­try where chil­dren and encour­aged to rec­og­nize their individuality.

What I do not agree with, is the idea that suc­cess in school should be asso­ci­ated with patri­o­tism or nation­al­is­tic pride.  A child should attempt to do their best in get­ting a good edu­ca­tion to bet­ter them­selves.  To open doors to a brighter future and a more ful­fill­ing life.  Not because their coun­try expects them to:

“What you make of your edu­ca­tion will decide noth­ing less than the future of this coun­try. The future of Amer­ica depends on you.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Don’t let your fam­ily down or your coun­try down.”

- Pres­i­dent Barack Obama, “Remarks by the Pres­i­dent in a National Address to America’s Schoolchildren”

While I am sure some will tell me I am over­re­act­ing to Pres­i­dent Obama’s words, I do not believe in telling chil­dren that doing poorly in school makes them bad Amer­i­cans.  Do we seri­ously want to asso­ciate dif­fi­cul­ties in edu­ca­tion to a lack of national pride or patri­o­tism?  And think of all the pres­sure this puts on chil­dren.  Could you imag­ine a child get­ting a bad grade and think­ing that they have failed America?

Many of the crit­i­cisms that I have read of Pres­i­dent Obama’s speech come from par­ents who feel that it is the respon­si­bil­ity of the par­ent to instill a sense of edu­ca­tional respon­si­bil­ity in their chil­dren, not that of the Pres­i­dent.  After read­ing and later watch­ing the President’s remarks, I am not at all sur­prised peo­ple feel that way.

When Barack Obama was elected as the 44th Pres­i­dent of the United States, I truly hoped we would see a pos­i­tive change after 8 hor­ri­ble years under the Bush admin­is­tra­tion.  But now, I can’t help but won­der what we’ve got­ten our­selves into.

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4 Comments Post a Comment
  1. Mike Homan says:

    Dude or Dude-ette,

    Read­ing this entry was the BIGGEST waste of my entire life (and it’s been pretty wasteful) — I feel like I have some­how become less of an Amer­i­can by read­ing your sense­less ram­blings and I have no doubt lost some brain cells as well…Don’t be bit­ter McCain lost – it’s over, help the coun­try get back together instead of…wth am i even writ­ing this for? U won’t change…As you were…

    • Burnman says:

      Thanks for stop­ping by Mike!

      I am sorry to hear you didn’t like my lit­tle write-up, but I appre­ci­ate your can­did opin­ion. I am not bit­ter McCain lost, in fact, I have never been a McCain sup­porter. I would love to help get the coun­try back on track, but I am not sure the path to doing so has yet been taken. Time will tell, and we shall see.

      Any­way, take care!

  2. Lynn says:

    As a teacher of 39 years and some­what immersed in the his­tory of edu­ca­tion in the US, I have to dis­agree with your thought that edu­ca­tion and Americanism/patriotism are unre­lated. Since the begin­ning of our coun­try, pub­lic edu­ca­tion, funded by the gov­ern­ment has had as one of its goals the prepa­ra­tion of an edu­cated con­stituency in order that democ­racy work. (See Jefferson’s writ­ings for some thoughts). Our vast industrial-type schools exploded onto the scene at a time when huge num­bers of immi­grants were flood­ing the coun­try and needed to learn Eng­lish and gov­ern­ment in order to par­tic­i­pate in our demo­c­ra­tic processes. IMHO, one of our great fail­ings seems to be that we have triv­i­al­ized what it means to be edu­cated and I can’t help but won­der if that isn’t some of what plagues us when we get these tem­pests in a teapot over the polit­i­cal ram­i­fi­ca­tions of the President’s edu­ca­tion speech.

    • Burnman says:

      Hello Lynn,

      I believe whole­heart­edly that a proper edu­ca­tion is an absolute neces­sity in life, and we should cer­tainly be encour­ag­ing the youth of Amer­ica to make the most of their edu­ca­tion. My point is that we should take care not to asso­ciate dif­fi­cul­ties in learn­ing with poor cit­i­zen­ship, which some of the lan­guage in Pres­i­dent Obama’s speech seemed to indicate.

      A stu­dent who strug­gles with their stud­ies is no less patri­otic, no less proud to be an Amer­i­can, than one which excels in their school work. Does a good edu­ca­tion make an indi­vid­ual bet­ter equipped to par­tic­i­pate in the demo­c­ra­tic process? Of course. But that does not auto­mat­i­cally mean that indi­vid­ual will be patri­otic, will­ing to con­tribute, or inter­ested in the demo­c­ra­tic process at all.

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