Suntem ceea ce învățăm

Astăzi, de ziua SUA, mi-am amintit că, la începutul anului școlar 2009 – 2010, am vrut să includ într-un raport de analiză elaborat pentru o școală privată câteva idei dintr-un mesaj pe care responsabilii cu educaţia din România ar fi putut să îl adreseze profesorilor și copiilor, cuvinte care să le dea încredere, să îi încurajeze, să îi motiveze, să le crească entuziasmul şi să le arate sprijinul şi calea de urmat. Dar pentru că nu am găsit un mesaj de acest gen la noi, am fost curioasă să văd dacă există astfel de inițiative în altă parte și atunci am descoperit cu mare plăcere discursul Back to School al lui Barak Obama. Intitulat  We Are What We Learn (Suntem ceea ce învățăm), speech-ul include câteva idei care sunt de reţinut pentru orice elev şi educator, oriunde s-ar afla în această lume. Adresându-se copiilor/ elevilor din țara sa, Obama le spunea la începutul anului școlar 2009:

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.

Maybe you could be a good writer – maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in a newspaper – but you might not know it until you write a paper for your English class. Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor – maybe even good enough to come up with the next iPhone or a new medicine or vaccine – but you might not know it until you do a project for your science class. Maybe you could be a mayor or a Senator or a Supreme Court Justice, but you might not know that until you join student government or the debate team.

And no matter what you want to do with your life – I guarantee that you'll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You're going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You can't drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You've got to work for it and train for it and learn for it.

And this isn't just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you're learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future.

You'll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment. You'll need the insights and critical thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free. You'll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy.

We need every single one of you to develop your talents, skills and intellect so you can help solve our most difficult problems. If you don't do that – if you quit on school – you're not just quitting on yourself, you're quitting on your country.