Prepared text of Obama's speech to school students

Notice how he didn’t mention what school he went to in Indonesia? His mother taught him at 4:30 am?
He had no daddy? What about his stepfather in Indonesia? The one who signed him up as a muslim in school there.....
Give me a break!
He’s told so many lies about his childhood, I think he believes his own lies.

[BHO is proven to be an excellent orator.]

What did he say? I went to sleep halfway through the article.

Satan gives nothing.
Obama’s gifts are God Given.
Satan has only led Obama to use his gifts against God.

Yes! show us where you traveled with that foreign passport.
Show us how you were enrolled as a foreign student in college.
How about those months you spent in Paaakistaan?

In this speech, Obama used “I”, “I’ve” or “I’m” 56 times. Bill Clinton used to do the same thing. President Bush had a way of speaking that after he said, “I’m glad to be here”, he rarely used “I” again.

Just because he doesn’t interject “you know” into each sentence? That makes his handlers pass him off as a great orator.
You are right, he is merely, a decent reader of other people’s material. In other words, an actor.

The speech is WAY too long. Some of it is good. Some of it is horrible. But it’s just too long which means he older kids will tune it OUT. And it is WAYYYYY over the heads of the young children - kindergartners, first and second graders should NOT be seeing it for that reason.

President Obama makes his school speech all about himself. Uses the word "I" 56 times.

Text of School Speech Below.

Prepared Remarks of President Barack Obama
Back to School Event
Arlington, Virginia
September 8, 2009

The President: Hello everyone – how’s everybody doing today? I’m here with students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. And we’ve got students tuning in from all across America, kindergarten through twelfth grade. I’m glad you all could join us today.

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, 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 longer this morning.

I know that feeling. When I was young, my family lived in Indonesia for a few years, and my mother didn’t have the money to send me where all the American kids went to school. So she decided to teach me extra lessons herself, Monday through Friday – at 4:30 in the morning.

Now 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 say, "This is no picnic for me either, buster."

So I know 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 a lot about responsibility. I’ve talked about your teachers’ responsibility for inspiring you, and pushing you to learn. I’ve talked about your parents’ responsibility for making sure you stay on track, and get your homework done, and don’t spend every waking hour in front of the TV or with that Xbox.

I’ve talked a lot about your government’s responsibility for setting high standards, supporting teachers and principals, and turning around schools that aren’t working where students aren’t getting the opportunities they deserve. But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world – and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed.

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 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 good writer – maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in a newspaper – but you might not know it until you write a paper for your English class. Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor – maybe even good enough to come up with the next iPhone or a new medicine or vaccine – but you might not know it until you do a 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 can’t drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You’ve got to work for it and train 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. 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, skills and intellect so you can help 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 that’s like. My father left my family when I was two years old, and I was raised by a single mother who struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn’t always able to give us things the other kids had. There were times when I missed having a father in my life. There were times when I was lonely and felt like I didn’t fit in. So I wasn’t always as focused as I should have been. I did some things I’m not proud of, and got in more trouble than I should have. And my life could have easily taken a turn for the worse.

But I was fortunate. I got a lot of second chances and had the opportunity to go to college, and law school, and follow my dreams. My wife, our First Lady Michelle Obama, has a similar story. Neither of her parents had gone to college, and they didn’t have much. 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 – that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That’s 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. 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. Hardly anyone in her hometown went to college, and neither of her parents had gone either. But she worked hard, earned good grades, got a scholarship to Brown University, and is now in graduate school, studying public health, on her way to being Dr. Jazmin Perez. I’m thinking about Andoni Schultz, from Los Altos, California, who’s fought brain cancer since he was three. He’s endured 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, and 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, she managed to get a job at a local health 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.

Jazmin, Andoni and Shantell aren’t any different from any of you. They faced challenges in their lives just like you do. But they refused to give up. They chose to take responsibility 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 to 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 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 kids 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, I hope you’ll all wash your hands a lot, and stay home from school when you don’t feel well, so we can keep people from getting the flu this fall and winter.

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 the 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, when chances are, you’re not going to be any of those things.

But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every subject you study. You won’t click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.

That’s OK. Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who’ve had the most failures. JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was rejected twelve times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team, and 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 is why I succeed."

These people succeeded because they understand that you can’t let your failures define you – you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time. If you get in trouble, that doesn’t mean you’re a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to behave. 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 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. It’s the same with your schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right, or read something a few times before you understand it, or 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. It shows you have the courage to admit when you don’t know something, and to learn something new. So find an adult you trust – a parent, grandparent or teacher; a coach or 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 found this nation. 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, Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other.

So today, I want to ask 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 twenty or fifty or one hundred years say about what all of you did for this country?

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, equipment and computers you need to learn. But you’ve got to do your part too. So I expect 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 or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it.

Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.

I’m no fan of the president’s policies, but in my opinion this was a good speech.

Yes, and Obama encouraged THIS:

Islam on Capitol Hill website.

At the bottom, it says, "Our Time Has Come". Islam believes in state rule, explicity. Either Americans have to rise up and say "No more!" or this nation is finished.

So praising good things, like patriotism, is also a refuge of a scoundrel.

Neither of her parents had gone to college, and they didn’t have much.

This is a real crock. Her parents did pretty well and did it largely through patronage jobs in the city of Chicago.

I don't want to read it, OR hear it.

I got a weak stomach.

A good speech, if he delivers it as written. Since he knew the parents of many would be paying very careful attention, I do wish he had had it in his wicked heart to address adults to volunteer to mentor kids who need it. Perhaps Axelgreasy will include that in the next installment of obamaindoctrination.

I call him the ‘affirmative action figure, fradu-in-chief’. Kind of like a Barbie Doll or a flawed GI Joe action figure.

I found the speech more depressing than inspiring. It’s filled with the assumption that all kids are struggling and don’t like learning. He makes getting an education sound very dreary.

I am going to vomit. What the hell kinda a speech is that. He spends allot of the speech bitch’n and moaning about bring poor and put upon. As far as I am concerned no insperation just more “it’s all about me”.

Want to hear a Great Orator?

Look no further than Daniel Hannan!

He, my friends is a Great Orator.
(Not an “uh” anywhere to be found in any of his .. ‘orations’)

Honestly, don't lower your orator standards to accommodate the politically correct obsessed with skin color rather than MERIT. I will say this, Obama is an even better LIAR than Clinton but an "excellent orator" - NO WAY! He doesn't compare with someone like Reagan.

I agree. In fact, I think Obama is a lousy orator. His syntax is horrible. He never engages the audience. He clearly does not learn his material. He talks in a virtual monotone coupled with a metronome like delivery. (Next time you're bored watch him speak and imagine a metronome in the lower corner of the screen)

I doubt my old speech teacher would ever give him better than a "C" for a grade.

A quick-read, quick critique...

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.

Sounds condescending. But what do you expect from an elitist.

I know that feeling. When I was young, my family lived in Indonesia for a few years, and my mother didn't have the money to send me where all the American kids went to school. So she decided to teach me extra lessons herself, Monday through Friday — at 4:30 in the morning.

Ah yes, injecting himself into yet another situation. Oh, and making a convenient excuse as to why he didn't go to school "...where all the American kids went to school..." Odd, he didn't say "...where all the other American kids..." which would include himself with the American kids.

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.

Ah yes, obama doesn't know much about real work other than the traditional careers - and government.

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. What you're learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future.

Point of grammar, I thought it was bad form to begin a sentence with "and" ...???

The great socialist - you owe it to your Country.

We need every single one of you to develop your talents, skills and intellect so you can help 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.

You can almost picture the kids goose-stepping off to class.

I get it. I know what that's like. My father left my family...

Oops, went too long without injecting himself into the situation again. You can almost see the obama light blinking in the corner of the teleprompter. Needs more cowbell? No, to obama, it needs more obama.

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 — that's no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That's no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That's no excuse for not trying.

Is any of this going to be addressed to middle class students? Or is this one big pep rally for the "victim" students?

I'm thinking about Andoni Schultz, from Los Altos, California, who's fought brain cancer since he was three. He's endured 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, and he's headed to college this fall.

Would he even be alive if obamacare were the rule of the day? Would obama's vision of grand socialized medicine have cared to even try to save him? Or would some anonymous federal flunky have decided those resources were better used somewhere else?

Maybe you'll decide to get involved in an extracurricular activity, or volunteer in your community.

Just had to slip in one more socialist commercial.

Maybe you'll decide to take better care of yourself so you can be more ready to learn. And along those lines, I hope you'll all wash your hands a lot, and stay home from school when you don't feel well, so we can keep people from getting the flu this fall and winter.

Setting the stage for his fat-tax, and for his H1N1 "epidemic" or, as his buddy is fond of saying, a crisis that gives them an opportunity to do things you wouldn't normally think you could do. Even if that "crisis" is overblown by a friendly MSM and really not a crisis.

Don't be afraid to ask questions.

Just don't ask about obama's birth certificate. Don't ask for details on porkus. Don't ask questions about his czars. Don't ask for time for reasoned debate on bills before rushing them through. Don't ask for limited government. Don't dare question your very own elected representative at a townhall. Don't ask why the White House wanted people to rat out their friends. Don't ask why the government basically nationalized the banking and automotive industries. Don't ask why the government wants to nationalize and socialize healthcare to gain even more control over our lives at the expense of our liberties.

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.

Man, doesn't that just want to make you throw up a good stiff-armed salute and shout "sieg heil!"? If you won't do it for yourself, do it for your Country, for your dear leader...

Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google, Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other.

But, ahem, obama wants to control the Internet too, and have the ability to shut off these very same sources of information.

So today, I want to ask you, what's your contribution going to be?

You know, when Kennedy said "Ask not what your Country can do for you, but what you can do for your Country." it sounded inspiring. obama just sounds creepy working in all these not-so-subtle socialist commercials.

What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a president who comes here in twenty or fifty or one hundred years say about what all of you did for this country?

Hopefully, that we won it back from the socialists.

So don't let us down — don't let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it.

This is just sick. He is pushing the idea that we should all work for the good of the Country, not ourselves. I'm all for teamwork, God and Country, patriotism... But his approach is all wrong.

I’m shocked that a political cartonnist with MSNBC drew this picture.