'You write your destiny,' Obama tells youths

ARLINGTON, Va. - President Obama, shrugging off controversy over his appearance at a Northern Virginia high school, challenged students yesterday to take responsibility for their education.

At Wakefield High School in Arlington, Obama used the post-Labor Day reopening of schools in Northern Virginia and elsewhere to meet with students and deliver a lunchtime pep talk whose TV broadcast was watched in many schools across the country.

"If you quit on school, you're not just quitting on yourself, you're quitting on your country," he told students. He talked of his own upbringing, raised by a single mother, noting that he "got in more trouble than I should have" as a youth.

"There is no excuse for not trying. No one has written your destiny for you, because here in America you write your own destiny," he exhorted them.

He made no mention of the controversy over his school appearance in his speech or in an earlier private meeting with ninth graders.

Some Republicans had attributed political motives to the appearance, though other presidents, including Republicans Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, delivered similar speeches to students.

The criticism arose, in part, from an Education Department recommendation that students write letters to themselves about "what they could do to help the president." That was later changed to a suggestion that students write about "how they can achieve their short-term and long-term educational goals."

Upon arrival at the school, Obama's motorcade was greeted by a small band of protesters. One carried a sign exclaiming: "Mr. President, stay away from our kids."

Wakefield is the most economically and racially diverse school in Arlington County, according to the Department of Education. Nearly 40 percent of graduating seniors pass an Advanced Placement test - twice the national average.

The closest the president came to a politically touchy topic was in response to students' questions in the meeting with the ninth graders.

There, he touted his health-care plan, saying he found motivation to overhaul the health-care system in some of the letters he receives from ordinary Americans.

"Some of those stories are really depressing," Obama said, according to a transcript. "And that motivates you because you say: 'Well, I can't make everything perfect. I can't prevent somebody from getting sick. But maybe I can make sure that they've got insurance so that when they do get sick, they're going to get some help.' "

One student asked him, "If you could have dinner with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be?"

The president replied: "I think that it might be Gandhi, who is a real hero of mine." Referring to the asceticism of the leader of India's nonviolent freedom movement, he quipped: "Now, it would probably be a really small meal."

Gandhi, known as the Mahatma, or great soul, "helped people who thought they had no power realize that they had power," he said.

When another student told Obama he "would like to have your job" when he grows up and asked for advice, Obama said that, for starters, everyone should be "careful about what you post on Facebook" because "when you're young, you know, you . . . do some stupid stuff."

Wakefield principal Doris Jackson told students to savor this experience - "take pictures with your eyes and recordings with your ears."

After brief introductions by Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Wakefield's student body president, Obama took the stage to cheers and applause.

The advance publication of Obama's speech was an effort to reassure parents after the criticism from conservatives.

But after reading the advance text, the Florida GOP chairman, who last week accused the president of trying to "indoctrinate America's children to his socialist agenda," said he had no problem with letting his children watch.

"It's a good speech," Jim Greer said. "It encourages kids to stay in school and the importance of education, and I think that's what a president should do."

In an interview with CNN Monday, former first lady Laura Bush said: "There's a place for the president of the United States to talk to schoolchildren and encourage schoolchildren" to stay in school.

Bush, a former teacher, said that regardless of partisan differences, it's "really important for everyone to respect the president of the United States."

Still, some were glad they kept their kids out of class.

"They don't need to be told by the president what their responsibilities are. It's the parents' responsibility to teach them that, not the government," said Ryan Christensen, a carpet cleaner who asked that his 10-year-old daughter be pulled from a fifth-grade class watching the speech in Caldwell, Idaho.

At Wakefield, an hour before the president's speech, bleachers on both sides of the school gym were full of students. Outside, streets were blocked off. Desiree Armstrong, 17, said she was excited to find herself walking past police and Secret Service agents to get into the building for her first day as a high school senior.

"Wakefield. . . . It's like the poorest school in Arlington," Armstrong said. The student body, full of minorities, she added, would be inclined to listen closely to Obama, the nation's first black president.

He told the students that they, and only they, were ultimately responsible for their own success.

"At the end of the day," he told the students, "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."

Watch or read Obama's speech via http:// go.philly.com/obama.schoolsEndText