What did you hear about Obama's speech to the high schools? Did you know he had a cabinet member visit Southern High School that day? And that his speech was played live in our school auditorium?

Our school was notified just before the Memorial Day weekend that EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson would be visiting the day we returned. This produced a frenzy of planning, and Tuesday dawned with a thrill across the campus.

Jackson stayed a long time, visiting with our Green Club and with the bulk of our student body in the auditorium before and after the president's speech. She said she grew up in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans and knows about needing determination and fortitude to get a good education, a theme the president later echoed.

When the president's address began, from a high school in northern Virginia, you could have heard a pin drop in our auditorium. His speech was more challenging than I had expected, as he recounted his own determination to get a good education. It was obvious that he knows something of the struggles that so many of our students endure.

He told the students that he has worked with their teachers, administrators, school systems and parents, and then asked, "Now, what will YOU do?" When he listed obstacles that many of our students face daily in attending and succeeding in high school, he added, "But none of those things are any excuse not to get your homework done, or to act out and be disruptive in school!" He told students to respect their teachers.

He spoke of dreams of NBA and music careers that will likely not come to pass, but pressed the message repeatedly that no one can take away your education. He said you are cheating yourself if you don't take advantage of the opportunities offered to you to get one.

I liked hearing the president align the goal of a good education with that of serving your country, a message I had not heard directed at our youth in many years. He told the young people that if they let themselves down, they also let down their country. The challenge and the directness of his message were inspiring to me, and I felt that our students were really listening.

Later that evening, I watched two senior girls interviewed, both of whom I taught in 10th-grade English classes. They were quite articulate and looked comfortable as they spoke; I felt proud of them. I thought how wonderful it must feel to them to feel proud of their school, proud of their president, and proud of themselves. Too often our school has been represented only by the negative. They both told me the next day that they did, indeed, feel all those things.

I have watched these same young people grieving over fellow students fallen to violence, I've seen a football player sobbing as he slid down the wall of lockers to the floor, crying out, "I should have been there, I should have been there," guilt stricken over a classmate "shot for no reason." I have held students as they wept over family conflicts and violence, and have wondered how they can even make it to school. Small wonder I was so thrilled to see these same students be exhorted by their nation's leader to reach for the stars.

May we echo the message in days to come that life is not as hopeless as many have come to believe. Our young people need to hear words of hope and encouragement. Even the president of our nation knows that.