I couldn’t agree more:
HAMPTON, Va. — President Barack Obama, addressing graduates at historically black Hampton University on Sunday, said that it is the responsibility of all Americans to offer every child the type of education that will make them competitive in an economy in which just a high school diploma is no longer enough.
Moreover, Obama said, the era of iPads and Xboxes had turned information into a diversion that was imposing new strains on democracy. “You’re coming of age in a 24/7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don’t always rank that high on the truth meter,” he told the students. “And with iPods and iPads, and Xboxes and PlayStations — none of which I know how to work — information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation. So all of this is not only putting pressure on you; it’s putting new pressure on our country and on our democracy.”
Obama told the nearly 1,100 graduates assembled in the university’s sun-splashed Armstrong Stadium that they have the added responsibility of being role models and mentors in their communities.
Obama said education can help them manage the uncertainties of a 21st century economy. For much of the last century, a high school diploma “was a ticket to a solid middle-class life,” he said. But no more, as jobs today often require at least a bachelor’s degree – or higher.
“All of us have a responsibility, as Americans, to change this, to offer every single child in this country an education that will make them competitive in our knowledge economy. That is our obligation as a nation,” the president said.
Obama said the graduates also must be role models and mentors in their communities. And they must pass the sense of an education’s value on to their children, as well as the sense of personal responsibility, self-respect and the “intrinsic sense of excellence that made it possible for you to be here today,” he said.
