A few weeks ago, I received a letter from the Washington School District that I was supposed to give to my parents about the speech. The letter stated that the school would not be showing the speech to the district's students but provided a link to view the speech online.

The following week, I received another letter. This one stated that the school would be showing the speech during social studies classes, but I needed to get a permission slip signed in order to view it.

Let me get this straight: I need to get permission to hear the president speak?

Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush both gave speeches to students about education, and nobody batted an eye. So why is Obama's speech a different situation?

There is a very simple answer to all of this. If President Obama was Republican, the public would not make such a big deal out of this speech.

I watched Obama's speech during my American history class Sept. 16. Obama stressed the importance of hard work and said that anyone who has ever made a great impact on today's society started out as what I am right now: a student.

Obama said that students shouldn't get the idea that the path to a happy lifestyle is through a reality show or professional sports.

There was nothing bad or wrong about what Obama said, but there also wasn't anything out of the ordinary, either. When his speech ended, I immediately wondered why I needed permission to watch it.

Looking at the controversy surrounding the speech, one would have thought that the president was about to reveal a big government secret that we weren't supposed to know about. Instead, he simply told us to work hard and stay in school.

Last January, I got to watch President Obama be sworn into office while I was in my English II class. I didn't need permission to watch him then. Do Obama's opponents think that on that day Obama was talking to everybody except students?

In his 15-minute speech, there was nothing President Obama said that anybody would find offensive. He said that he is counting on all of today's students to strive to be their best, work hard and stay in school.

Today's students have enough on their minds already. If we are going to watch a speech by the president, we should just watch it.

If this is such a big deal, the teachers should simply give students the option to watch the speech. In a recent article in The Missourian, Dr. Lori VanLeer, superintendent, said the viewing of the speech was strictly voluntary and parents could have chosen for their child not to watch it.

If a student does not want to watch it, that is his or her decision, but that student should keep one thing to mind: the country is counting on them, and they don't know about it.