Obama, MLK, and me.

We made history as a nation yesterday. I saw the inauguration of Barack Obama as a teachable moment, and I chimed in with what I thought was one of the better motivational speeches of my career. I'm no Anthony Robbins or Billy Mays, nowhere near the same league as those real estate selling, yacht driving, model romancing dwarf twins of infomercialdom, but occasionally I sell kids on ideas that do not occur naturally to their teenage minds.

My speech was simple.

1. Why is today an important day?
2. What did we celebrate yesterday?
3. How are the two related?

They knew the answers to my first two questions.  Barack Obama was to be inaugurated as our 44th President, with emphasis placed on his heritage.  We didn't come to school on Monday so we could celebrate Martin Luther King day; they vaguely recalled that he had something to do with civil rights.  Question three was not a trick question concerning interwoven family lines in a Maury-esque paternity drama, yet several students wanted to interpret it that way.  I needed to clarify the question, and I posed it again in the form of "How are these two events, the inauguration of Barack Obama and the struggle for equality, related to each other?"

This was a higher level thinking question.  Many wanted nothing to do with the questions, suggesting that we should be preparing for our midterm instead.  I asked the question another way.  "Imagine going back in time 50 years.  How many people would be left in this classroom?"  They figured out the puzzle here and pointed out the few white kids that salted the room.  "Martin Luther King, amongst others, struggled so that you could have a spot in this classroom.  You should have had it all along, but we were a prejudiced country, and it took hard work to undo all of the wrongs made against minorities.  That fight is still going on today.  Barack Obama is our first African-American President.  Martin Luther King and everyone involved in the Civil Rights movement paved the way for Barack today, but he wouldn't be President if he didn't put in the hard work to get through high school, graduate from an ivy league college, attend Harvard Law School, and begin his career as a politician.  They both had dreams, and both dreams were realized through HARD WORK."

I continued, using Barack the student as a model, asking "Do you think Barack Obama walked into his classroom, sat down in his chair and started talking to his neighbor, completely ignoring the directions given by the teacher?  Do you think Barack Obama showed up late to class?  Do you think Barack Obama, our new President, skipped all of his homework assignments and didn't bother to study for tests?"

A few kids wanted to argue with me.

"I read his autobiography and he said that he was an average student."

My reply: "Average students don't go to Columbia University or Harvard Law School."

"Mister, you weren't there, you don't know what he was like, he could have been a clown.  He's a pretty funny guy."

My reply: "No, I wasn't there, but I know why successful people are successful - hard work.  Sure, he's witty and clever, but he probably knew when and where to crack his jokes.  He took school seriously."

You should have seen these kids after he won the election.  It was Obamamania.  I thought I could parlay the inauguration frenzy into a buzzer beater at midterm, giving them the pep talk they needed to dive headfirst into the next semester, but it mostly fell on deaf ears.  A few perked up and took my speech to heart.  Others wanted nothing to do with it, would rather quibble over the assumptions of hard work and dedication made in my speech.  I would say it was well received overall, but my 8th period class looked at me like I was some kind of Billy Mays infomercial pitchman for trying to sell them on Obama's ideas of hope and change.

I should add that before my 8th period class, one student took it upon herself to write "Happy Inniggeration!" on my white board.  She laughed and thought she was so witty, as if she were a dimwitted redneck who rubbed two brain cells together and saw that they made a shiny spark.  The young African-American girl who wrote it on my board looked to me for approval like a puppy who just crapped on my rug.  I told her to erase it immediately and let her know how disappointed I was by her comment.  I wrote her up and included the offensive term, which I'm sure will sit well with the minority led administration of my school.  Unbelievable.  I'm just happy none of her classmates possessed the attention span necessary to witness that 30 second transaction.  They're like goldfish, these high schoolers.