The Venice Wave

As I mentioned in the 826LA Blog, students in Venice’s journalism workshop watched Obama’s education speech, encouraging children to do well in school and help their country succeed. Two students of “The Venice Wave” wrote their opinions of the president’s speech.

Jocelyn Ramirez

Nowadays, kids and students are simply not trying their hardest in school as they used to. Barack Obama’s speech was aimed directly at students and its objective was (in my understanding) to encourage and inspire kids of all ages, races, ethnic backgrounds, and socio-economic classes to continue their education.

His speech was quite moving and made a lot of students (and some adults, too, I assume) reflect upon their achievments and work that they have done throughout their school years. Apart from the fact that his speech was moving, it made one relate to Barack’s past childhood memories that he recalled and used it to inspire kids in his same situation. Throughout his speech, he came across many topics, including social networking sites Twitter and Facebook. It seemed irrelevant at first, but looking deeper into the subject, it made kids realize that they too could create something as popular and quite useful to society and/or the country.

With simple examples like this, it made (and me, personally) think of all the possibilities I could have if I kept studying and trying a bit harder at school. Because  just a little bit more of studying, a bit of homework, will add to a larger amount, and that amount is what is going to help us succeed in this country. Just like Barack Obama said we could. And, coming from the president, this might result useful after all the hard work we did and achieving out goals. Right after hearing this speech.

Alexia Diaz

President Obama’s speech about education was nice. I think a lot of people will be inspired by it. President Obama made the speech really relatable because he added some of his personal experiences in it. The speech inspired me to do my best in school and it reminded me that if I drop out of school, I will not be able to reach my goal in life.