to reiterate

I think I'll make a sign, or better yet a series. Paper the hallway down to my door with a Burma Shave shout-out no one would get.

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.

--President Barack Obama

I read those words and remember why I work in a school.

I read, from the same speech, a straight-talk encouragement that every teenager should hear, and I say, "Amen."

"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 the "controversial" "propaganda" I cannot share with my students. How did it come to this?