President Obama delivers remarks at education event with Education Secretary Arne Duncan

And part of the reason why we wanted to talk to you guys is, you're right at the point now in your lives where what you do is really going to start mattering. My daughters are a little younger than you -- Malia is 11, Sasha is eight -- but when you're in grade school, you're playing -- hopefully somebody is making sure you're doing your homework when you get it, but to some degree you're still just kind of learning how to learn.

By the time you get to middle school, you're now going to be confronted with a lot of choices. You're going to start entering those teenage years where there are a lot of distractions and in some places people will say you don't need to worry about school or it's uncool to be smart or -- you know, all kinds of things. And, look, I'll be honest, I went through some of that when I was in high school and I made some mistakes and had some setbacks.

So I just want everybody to understand right now that nothing is going to be more important to you than just being hungry for knowledge. And if all of you decide to do that, then there are going to be teachers and principals and secretaries of education who are going to be there to help you. So hopefully you guys will take that all to heart.

All right. Okay. Now we're going to kick out everybody so I can let you -- you guys can ask me all the really tough questions without having the press here.

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