I watched the president's speech yesterday with 23 of my newest best friends.

I was at Bryant Middle School in Salt Lake City, in Mr. Roland Dearden's eighth-grade history class, where, through the miracle of a device called television that was invented by a schoolkid from Utah (Philo T. Farnsworth, Beaver), Barack Obama suddenly had control of the classroom.

"Hello, everyone. How's everybody doing today?" said the commander-in-chief. And just like that, everybody stopped talking.

It was quite a moment if you stopped to envision the scene that moment all across America — from sea to shining sea, every school teacher in the land could shut down for about 18 minutes and let somebody else do the lecturing.

Well, everywhere except the Nebo School District in central Utah, where, in an attempt to dispel any and all notions that they are balanced and fair, they banned the president's education speech.

But up in Salt Lake City, Bryant Middle School and Mr. Dearden certainly had no problem giving over their hearts and minds to someone else.

I sat next to two kids named Adam and Garrett, who without a word cleverly showed me how a homework binder can double as a pillow once the lights go out.

But then the president said, "Some of you are probably wishing it were still summer and you could've stayed in bed just a little longer this morning," and that perked them up.

Hey, he was talking to them.

I looked around the classroom. People who think of Utah as this homogenized, one-party, vanilla state — like we're all one big Nebo School District — should have been where I was sitting. The room was a huge swath of diversity. Polynesian kids sat next to Hispanic kids, who sat next to African-American kids, who sat next to Caucasian kids.

"Here at Bryant, we've got kids from everywhere," said Mr. Dearden.

As the president spoke, the kids from everywhere did what kids from everywhere do — they stretched, shifted around in their chairs, looked out the window, yawned.

But they also listened, because the president kept hitting on chords they could relate to.

He told them about how he came from a single-parent family, that he didn't have much money growing up, that he had to study when he didn't want to, that it wasn't easy.

He told them that every one of them has something they are good at — and school will help them find it.

He told them that it's OK to fail — failure is the building block of success.

He told them to work hard and never give up.