(applause) The President: I suppose you could call attendance first -- Jahana Hayes: I could. The President: -- but that might take a long time. (applause) Jahana Hayes: Wow. I am honored to be named
the National Teacher of the Year, and to be joined by
amazing educators standing with me today. (applause) -- and teaching in
classrooms all across the country. Thank you to my family for
joining me here today. The Connecticut delegation,
the Waterbury Public School District, and
especially my John F. Kennedy High School
family back home. Thank you to President
Obama, Secretary King, for hosting us this afternoon,
and for your unwavering commitment to
public education. And thank you to my mother. (applause) -- who is amazing,
and loves me dearly. Like every teacher, I
started out as a student, and like many students
around the country, I know what it feels like to have
a dream, and to exist in an environment where nothing
is expected to thrive. Schools where nothing is
said or done to nurture, or support a dream. I know what it feels like to
struggle to find sunlight and constantly be met
with concrete barriers. I see myself in every one of
those students, and I carry my own experiences as a
reminder that as a teacher, I have to be better. (applause) I have to seize every
encounter as an opportunity to create a positive
memory for a child. I remember vividly the
teachers who created those memories for me, and
encouraged me to challenge myself. I remember vividly the
adults in my community that inspired me to give
back to others. That is what
teaching is about. The passion, the commitment,
the joy, the stories. (laughter) As educators, we have a
unique opportunity to share our empowering stories with
students and communities, and elevate this profession. We are at a
critical juncture. Many states are facing
challenges attracting and retaining teachers,
especially minority teachers. (applause) We must lead the charge,
and change the dialogue surrounding conversations
about this profession. Multiple Speakers: Yes! Jahana Hayes: Teaching is
about special moments. As amazing as today is, it's
just one of many incredible moments I shared with my
students over the years. Those moments do not
occur in isolation. I will make this year about
bringing classrooms into communities, and communities
into classrooms. Creating moments, and
starting a national conversation about how we
can all be better for kids. This is not just about the
students in my classroom or your classrooms, this is
about every person who has a vested interest in our
children, our future, and our world. Everyone has something to
contribute, but we cannot do it alone. Find your gift. Tell your stories. It truly does
take a village. It is now my privilege - (applause) I'll stop. Don't kick me out. (laughter) -- to introduce someone who
understands everything I just said: the President of
the United States, Barack Obama. (applause) The President: Thank you. Well, welcome to
the White House. (applause) And thank you, Jahana, for
that wonderful introduction. Everybody please give the
National Teacher of the Year a big round of applause. (applause) It's a little surprising
that she got this award because you can tell
she's a little shy -- (laughter) -- and lacks enthusiasm. (laughter) And yet somehow she seems to
be performing pretty well in the classroom. (laughter) Look at that smile. So for seven years, I've
stood in the White House with America's finest public
servants and private-sector innovators and our best
advocates and our best athletes and our best
artists, and I have to tell you there are few moments
that make me prouder than this event when I stand
alongside our nation's best educators. (applause) Every year on this day, we
say publicly as a country what we should be eager to
say every day of the year, and that is: Thank you. That's what this
event is about. That's why it's one
of my favorites. It's a good day with all of
you guys here in Washington to say thank you for the
extraordinary work that teachers do all
across the country. It's also, I guess, a pretty
good day for substitute teachers because we
got a lot of folks -- (laughter) -- we got a lot of folks
playing hooky today. (laughter) This is a school day. (laughter) Ms. Hayes: It's a
learning opportunity. (laughter) The President:
It's a field trip. Now, among our country's
best educators happens to be our Secretary of Education,
Dr. John King, Jr. (applause) John is someone who, like
Jahana, found refuge in school as a youngster. And he found role models in
the classroom at a time when he needed them most. And that experience
instilled in him the empathy that makes him such a
powerful voice for students and for teachers and
for principals and superintendents and educators all across the country. I also want to acknowledge
Jahana's senator from Connecticut, Chris Murphy. He's around here somewhere. There he is. (applause) He's proud of you, too. I want to welcome her fellow
Teachers of the Year from all 50 states, D.C.,
and our territories. (applause) And we want to welcome the
hundreds of distinguished educators from all across
the country that joined us this afternoon. So thank you. (applause) I figured this is the last
time I was going to do this, so I wanted to invite as
many of you as possible -- (applause) -- because you are people
who are inspiring at every grade level, who are opening
minds to math and music; to basic literacy but classic
literature; to social studies and science,
Spanish, and special education. (applause) In their daily lives, the
men and women who teach our children fulfill the promise
of a nation that's always looking forward, that
believes each generation has a responsibility to help the
next in building this great country of ours and making
the world a better place. President Kennedy said, "Our
progress as a nation can be no swifter than our
progress in education." Now, the school where Jahana
teaches happens to bear President Kennedy's name. And it's fitting then that
the perspective, that approach that she brings
to the classroom suits the philosophy that
he articulated. This is what Jahana said
about how she approaches her responsibility: "It doesn't
matter how bright a student is or where they rank in a
class, or what colleges they have been accepted to if
they do nothing with their gift to improve the
human condition." And Jahana cares about the
example she sets as much as the exams that she scores. (applause) All right, you just
need to settle down. (laughter) This is what makes
her a great teacher. You can't be great if
you're not enthusiastic. (laughter) You got to love what you do
-- and she loves what she does. And what's remarkable about
Jahana's natural talent in the classroom is that when
she was growing up in Waterbury, Connecticut,
being a teacher was the furthest thing
from her mind. In fact, there were times
where she didn't even want to be a student. No one in Jahana's family
had gone to college. No one at home particularly
encouraged education. She lived in a community
full of poverty and violence, high crime
and low expectations. And drugs were more
accessible than degrees. As a teenager, Jahana became
pregnant and wanted to drop out of school. But her teachers
saw something. They saw something in her. And they gave her an even
greater challenge, and that was to dream bigger and
to imagine a better life. And they made her believe
she was college material and that she had the special
gift to improve not only her own condition, but
those around her. And today, Jahana's
principal at Kennedy High says she gets through to her
students precisely because she remembers what it's
like to be one of them. And she doesn't forget that
everyone in her class brings their own different and
sometimes difficult circumstances. And she meets them
where they are. And she sees a grace in
them, and she sees a possibility in them. And because she sees it,
they start seeing it. And that's what makes Jahana
more than a teacher; she's a counselor and a confidant. That's how a woman who
became a teenage mom is now a mentor to high schoolers
in the same city where she grew up. And meanwhile, outside of
the classroom, Jahana has been a leader in the
afterschool theater program. She put together a "Teen
Idol" singing show. (laughter) She won the school's
"Dancing with the Stars" competition. (laughter) I wish I had met you before
I started tangoing in Argentina. (laughter) Could have given
me some tips. And this is something that
I think is particularly remarkable: Jahana inspires
her students to give back. I think she understands that
actually sometimes the less you have, the more valuable
it is to see yourself giving, because that shows
you the power and the influence that you can bring
to bear on the world around you. One year, she had been
assigned to a group that seemed unmotivated, so
she found out what was distracting them. Seven students in one class
had recently lost a parent to cancer. So she organized a Relay
for Life team through the American Cancer Society, and
it became an annual event. Last year, when Jahana went
online to register her team, she noticed not one, not
two, but fourteen teams led by former students had
already signed up. She organized her students
to walk for autism, to feed the homeless, to donate
clothes, to clean neighborhoods, and even
to register voters. And so it takes a unique
leader to get students who don't have a lot to
give of themselves. But because Jahana
understood those kids, she knew not to set low
expectations, but to set high ones and to say to
them, you can make a difference. And that's the kind of
leader our Teacher of the Year is. She knows that if students
learn their worth, then the class rank and the college
acceptances and the exam scores will follow. Now, if there's one thing
Jahana wishes she had in school, it was more teachers
who looked like her, as she already mentioned. And so she wrote and won a
state grant to inspire more students to become teachers
-- but especially to recruit more black and Latino
teachers in her district. (applause) And that's important. Not one of the teachers
standing behind me or in front of our children's
classrooms chose this profession because they were
promised a big payday or a short workday. (laughter) Although, you all do
need to be paid better. (applause) That I believe. But the main reason teachers
do what they do is because they love kids. They love our kids. And yes, we should pay
teachers more because what they do is invaluable
and essential. And the teachers here,
though, will tell you that what would be most helpful,
in addition to a little financial relief, would be
people understanding how important the
work you do is -- (applause) -- and to appreciate it, and
not take it for granted. And so part of the reason
this event is so important is for us to be able to
send a message to future generations of teachers, to
talented young people all across the country to
understand this is a dream job; that this is an area
where you will have more influence potentially than
any other profession that you go into. Audience Member:
Say it again! (laughter) The President: This is
profession where you have the potential to make more
of a difference than just about anything
you can go into. (applause) So over the past seven
years, we've looked at every element of our education
system with an eye towards boosting the
teaching profession. And thanks to our educators
and the opinions you've voiced and the leadership
that you've shown, we've come a long way since
we came into office. One of the first things we
did, in the middle of the worst economic crisis in
generations, when states and cities were slashing
budgets, was to keep more than 300,000 educators
in our kids' classrooms. That was part of
the Recovery Act. We've taken the first steps
towards making sure every young person in America gets
the best start possible. And keep in mind that in
2009, when I started here, only 38 states had their
own preschool programs. Today, all but four have. We've expanded Head Start
programs for tens of thousands of
kids who need it. (applause) We made turning around
America's low-performing schools a national priority. The year before I took
office, a quarter of our high school students
didn't graduate on time. More than a million didn't
finish high school at all. And today, high school
graduations rates have never been higher, dropout
rates have gone down. We're transforming
hundreds of America's lowest-performing schools. We're also bringing new
technology and digital tools to our classrooms to
modernize and personalize learning. Three years ago, less
than a third of all school districts could access
high-speed Internet, and a lot of low-income
communities were left behind. Today, 20 million more
students and most of our school districts have fast
broadband and wireless in the classroom. And by 2018, we're going got
make sure that we reach the goal I set: 99 percent of
our students will have high-speed Internet. (applause) We're making remarkable
progress towards my pledge to train 100,000 STEM
teachers by 2021 thanks to the great work of "100K
in 10" -- which, with new commitments to prepare
70,000 more teachers, I want to just announce today this
is a goal that we are going to achieve on time. We're on our way. And we unleashed a race to
the top, convincing every state to raise its standards
so students are prepared for success in college and
for future careers. And we listened to parents
who wanted subjects like computer science
taught in our schools. And we listened to teachers
who have shown why cookie-cutter solutions
don't always work. We're empowering states and
communities to set their own standards for progress
with accountability. And because nobody thinks
our students need to spend more time filling in bubbles
on standardized tests, we're starting to give educators
like those behind me the flexibility to spend more
time teaching creatively than they're spending
teaching to a test. (applause) Now, that doesn't mean that
all our problems are solved. You know it
better than I do. In too many states, we
are underfunding public education. And it is the job of state
legislators and of governors to recognize that the
wellbeing of their state and their communities and their
families and their kids requires them to step up. (applause) In too many school
districts, we still have schools that, despite great
efforts by a lot of great teachers, are still not
getting our kids prepared the way they need
to be prepared. And we've got to be willing
to be honest when something is not working and say, all
right, let's try something different. And sometimes, we won't
necessarily get it right the first time. But the reason I think --
I want to bring this up. This wasn't in my
prepared remarks -- (laughter) -- but I think
it's important. So often now, the debate
swings back and forth. You got some folks who say
resources and money don't make a difference, and the
problem is all the teachers' unions and they want to
break up the schools, and they think vouchers are all
the answer, or some other approach. And then on the other side
you got folks who just know that argument is wrong, but
too often it sounds like it's just a defense
of the status quo. And the fact of the matter
is, is that we do have to do better in too many
of our schools. We need more teachers
like this in all of you. We've got to make the
profession more attractive. We do have to have
accountability in the classroom. That doesn't mean forcing
you to teach to the test, but we've got to come up
with measures that are meaningful, so that if
somebody doesn't have the skills that Jahana or these
other teachers have, that they can start developing
it and we know what to look for. We've got to make sure that
we're setting our sights high. And although I am very proud
of the work that we've done, I know we're not there yet. And we may have replaced No
Child Left Behind, which was a relief for a lot of folks,
but the absence of something that wasn't working as well
as it should is not the presence of the kind of work
that remains to be done. So, in our country, it's a
little harder than in some other countries, because
we've got diverse populations, and we got
folks coming from different backgrounds and starting off
in tougher circumstances. But our Teacher of the Year
here stands as proof that you can't set expectations
high enough for our kids. There's magic in those kids. We just have to find it. We have to unleash it. We have to nurture it. We have to support it. We have to love them. And then we have to tell
them precisely because we love you, you're going to
work harder, and you're going to do better. And we're going
to stay on you. That's what we have to do. And we can't just leave it
to the teachers -- because if our notion is we drop
off our kids and then the teacher is doing everything,
and then our job is done, it's not going to work. So this is why my
administration launched Teach to Lead -- (applause) -- to give teachers a
greater voice in the policies that affect
them every day. And I'm going to close by
just talking about a letter I received at the beginning
of this school year from a teacher in central Virginia
named Danny Abell. There's Danny. (applause) There's a reason why
he got a good spot -- (laughter) -- because he knew I was
going to talk about him. So Danny asked his students
if any of them wanted to be a teacher when they grew up. And no one raised
their hands. And that worried him. So he wrote me to ask
what I'd say if one of my daughters told me she
wanted to become a teacher. And I mean this -- this is
the God's honest truth -- if Sasha or Malia wanted to be
teachers, I will tell them I could not be prouder
of what you've done. (applause) And I'd tell them to be the
kind of teachers who don't just show her students how
to get the correct answer, but how to be curious about
the world and how to care for the people around her,
and how to analyze facts and evidence, and how to tell
stories, and how to believe in their ability to
shape their own destiny. In other words, I'd tell her
to be like Jahana and to be like each of the educators
behind us here today, and the kinds of teachers that
you see in classrooms in every state and every
territory, and the District of Columbia. I'm so proud of all of you
for the high standards you set for your students,
for your fellow teachers. Thank you for making
our nation stronger. And now, Jahana, please join
me to accept this award from America's educators -- the
crystal apple -- as the National Teacher
of the Year. (applause)
