Tomorrow morning President Obama is going to address the schoolchildren of America (no, it isn’t mandatory) with a speech about the importance of education.

Mr. Obama will discuss his own childhood experiences:

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, 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 longer this morning.

I know that feeling. When I was young, my family lived in Indonesia for a few years, and my mother didn’t have the money to send me where all the American kids went to school. So she decided to teach me extra lessons herself, Monday through Friday – at 4:30 in the morning.

Now I wasn’t too happy about getting up that early. 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 say, “This is no picnic for me either, buster.”

He will then talk briefly about a few other people and their respective stories of overcoming obstacles. It’s pretty standard speech stuff scattered with keywords to make the kids perk up, things like XBOX, rap, Harry Potter, Twitter and Michael Jordan.

Considering that the targeted audience is kindergarten through high school seniors it does run a bit long and may try the patience of younger students.  Maybe he should add a puppet or a sing-a-long.

That would be awesome.

Overall the speech is nothing new and hopefully most children have already heard similar words of encouragement from the adults in their own life, but having the most powerful person in the world dish out some common sense is a nice touch.  It’s very First Dad.

Also:

And along those lines, I hope you’ll all wash your hands a lot, and stay home from school when you don’t feel well, so we can keep people from getting the flu this fall and winter.

I wonder how many drafts Malia and Sasha have had to sit through.  First kid can be a tough gig.

The speech in its entirety can be found at the official website for the White House.

Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.

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