How Many Kids NEEDED To Hear Obama Speak Today?

[KingOfLostSouls]

how many kids will not join a gang?

will not become a drug dealer?

will not drop out?

maybe will be inspired a little?

maybe will just do their homework?

will finally ask a question in math class they were afraid to ask before in fear of being called stupid?

how many kids will look in the mirror and realize the color of their skin, or the money their family has, or the clothes they wear does not define them, but the power of their mind and their will to succeed can drive them?



it's not the kids that already knew how to achieve that needed to hear it, but it undoubtedly reinforced their goals they already have.


it's the kids who were on the path to nowhere that needed to hear it. and not hear it from someone who doesn't look like them or talk like them or been raised in the lap of luxury in kennebunkeport and knows nothing of the lives they live in Compton, Oakland, Detroit, etc.

but from someone like them, who came from where they came, and who looks like them. from someone who understands the hardships of race, of poverty, of being raised in a single parent house hold. someone just like them.


how many kids NEEDED to hear our President, THEIR president, today?

how many of them needed to be inspired the way FDR or Kennedy inspired?


how many needed to be inspired the way we were?

Yes, we can.

[liberal N proud]

1. All of them

One never knows when they a child will be inspired, what will ignite the passion within them.

One never knows what influence they have on a child at the point of contact. You may have contact with a kid on a daily basis, but one statement is all it takes.


Imagine all the opportunities missed because school officials and psychotic parents have blocked a possible inspirational experience from their children.

[countingbluecars]

2. Great post!

K&R

[JuniperLea]

3. How many do we have?

All of them needed to hear it, no matter how well or poorly they are doing in school.

Thanks for a great post!

[blondeatlast]

4. Just one.

That child may make all the difference in the world.

[YOY]

7. The Starfish parable...

http://www.2ndchance.leon.k12.fl.us/School%20Information/Our%20inspiration.htm

[Creena]

5. For all those people who don't know the answer.

(Hint: they won't be on this message board)

I suggest they watch http://www.hbo.com/docs/docuseries/hardtimes/">Hard Times at Douglass High. But, I fear there is one characteristic that makes certain people not give a damn.

[JonQ]

6. None really

As speeches go it was fairly bland. It certainly wasn't the OMG socialism!!!!!!!! fear that some had, but it wasn't revolutionary either.

Mostly alot of common sense and basic advice that kids have been told over and over again.

Hearing "don't drop out of school" 20x isn't going to prevent a kid from dropping out if he was dead set on it, even if the 20th was from the president (any president). The kids most engaged in politics, in school, in the basic ideas laid out in the speech are those that are unlikely to drop out.

All in all it was much ado about nothing, the right shouldn't have gotten pissed about it, but the left should also avoid getting to emotional about it as well.

It was a fairly standard speech that could have come from any president or elected official, retreading the usual stuff. Nothing wrong with that, but it wasn't mind blowing, or wold altering either.