Homework #44.

From the Obama video:
-They have a high school student to do the whole introduction speech on how important school is.
-If I wasn't pursuing my education I wouldn't be here. We'll continue to have support.
-Teachers have to get us inspired, parents have to get us away from the tv, and OUR responsibility is to go to school and to put in the hard work that we're expected to do.
-"You have the responsibility for yourself to discover what that is." "You might not know that until you write that english paper... you might not know it until you do that for the science class."
-"I guarantee you'll need that education in order to do that. You cannot drop out of school and drop into a good job. The future of America depends on YOU." <-- but not pressure.
-We need every single one of you, to do this, to help us. "You're quitting on your country", if you quit school.
-"There is no excuse for not trying. Here in America you write your own destiny, you make your own future."
-"You believe what I believe."
I zoned in and out of his speech, but the things above are some of the things that I noticed. He's saying that as a mass of students, he's expecting all of us to do our best. That there's no reason for us to not try, and that if we quit school then we're quitting on the whole country. Yet I don't really know how if one student drops out of school, then the whole world will be altered? I don't think so. He says that we can't be successful if we don't have an education, yet I feel like there must be some people out there that are very successful and have either no education or not as much as we're forced into having.

From the Liberal Arts Education link:
-"..for developing the kind of intellectual power and propensity for action that the world needs to tackle the daunting challenges we face."
- if we read good works of literature, including Shakespeare, then it "can help clarify our own ideas and values and better understand the perspectives of others." So reading helps us understand our thoughts and the views of others.
-Science helps us test what we think and to analyze data.
-Studying art helps us appreciate diversity and "human imagination."
-It's not really what we learn in specific classes, but what we get out of it. And though 'our culture' tells us to focus on what we want to be, yet a lot of CEOs are looking for employees that have multiple skills.
-"The leaders of the future" are most likely going to be flexible.

Both of these articles expect us as a whole to help the world. They expect us to go to school, and develop our skills. I understand that we're the generation that is going to run things, and that adults are expecting us to go to school. But they all speak as adults expecting the kids to try hard in school so that they know they will be in good hands in the future. Obama acknowledged that students may have problems, and he named some examples of students -including himself- that overcame those problems. And, he said that there is no excuse for not trying. I don't like that both of these people are expecting US as a WHOLE to be GREAT.