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奥巴马双语演讲稿
我们为什么上学?
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,
(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,
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
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 and Twitter and
Facebook
and changed the way we communicate with each
other.
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