Entry #5: Connections

President Obama’s national address at Wakefield High School in Arlington, VA, to students around the United States showcases concepts similar to those written about in I am Malala. In his speech, President Obama addresses the importance of education, stating that, “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.” Similarly, Malala Yousafzai hopes her education can help others. She states, “People prayed to God to spare me, and I was spared for a reason–to use my life for helping people” (301). Both the memoir and the speech emphasize the idea that one’s education will not only benefit the person being educated, but everyone around them. Both works also suggest that education is crucial to the betterment of our world, because those who are educated will be able to improve it.

Obama’s speech and I am Malala address other similar concepts as well, including how despite rough circumstances in kids' worlds these days, it is important that they not let themselves get tied down by their problems but rather continue to attend school. This perseverance, even defiance, is necessary to making change. Obama speaks of several students, who defied all the problems in their lives that set them up for failure, and moved on to use education as the path to a better life. Malala and her school friends, as well as all the girls going to school in her country, acted defiantly just by getting an education in a society where the education of girls is not supported by many extremists, like members of the Taliban.

Additionally, the tone in both the president's speech and Yousafzai’s memoir are hopeful because Obama and Yousafzai speak of their belief in a world of change. Yousafzai says her dream is to have, “education for every boy and girl in the world” (313). Throughout the memoir, she speaks with hopefulness that her dream will come true by stating things like “the Taliban are not our rulers”(311). Her words imply a hopeful tone because she makes it seem as though the obstacles that stand in the way of achieving her dreams can be overcome, just as she was able overcome the Taliban’s attack on her. Obama ends his speech with a similar statement of hopefulness, which is one that also prevails throughout his national address. He says, referring to students in school, “So don’t let us down – don’t let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it.” Because both Yousafzai’s memoir and Obama’s speech contain a hopeful tone, defiant theme, and the suggestion of the benefits of education, they are very similar, even if they refer to two countries on opposite sides of the world.