U.S. President's Speech to Students

U.S. President Barak Obama made a speech to students yesterday and, other than partisan political objections (which I hope are mostly ignored because it is irrelevant to his message), the speech seemed to be well received. Part of his appeal to students was to work hard as a patriotic effort for their country, but mainly he appealed to students sense of responsibility. As educators we can do everything in our power to provide students with a good education, but unless they are also motivated to learn, everything we can do will remain relatively useless.

I especially liked this part of his speech (the full text is available here):

No one’s born being good at things, you become good at things through hard work. You’re not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don’t hit every note the first time you sing a song. You’ve got to practice. It’s the same with your schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right, or read something a few times before you understand it, or do a few drafts of a paper before it’s good enough to hand in.

The attitude that I hear about math from a good portion of the general public is that you are either "born with it or you ain't." I think that we need to motivate our students to anticipate and believe that although mathematics is hard work, it is something that they can succeed and benefit from.