is something a little different than what's scheduled.

Foreign policy, you can figure that out

by watching, I don't know, Rachel Maddow or somebody,

but — (Laughter) —

I want to talk about young people and structure,

young people and structure.

This was last Wednesday afternoon

at a school in Brooklyn, New York,

at Cristo Rey High School, run by the Jesuits.

And I was talking to this group of students, and take a look at them.

They were around me in three directions.

You'll noticed that almost all of them are minority.

You'll notice that the building is rather austere.

It's an old New York school building, nothing fancy.

They still have old blackboards and whatnot.

And there are about 300 kids in this school,

and the school's been going now for four years,

and they're about to graduate their first class.

Twenty-two people are graduating,

and all 22 are going to college.

They all come from homes where there is, for the most part,

just one person in the home,

usually the mother or the grandmother, and that's it,

and they come here for their education

and for their structure.

Now I had this picture taken, and it was put up

on my Facebook page last week,

and somebody wrote in,

"Huh, why does he have him standing at attention like that?"

And then they said, "But he looks good." (Laughter)

He does look good, because kids need structure,

and the trick I play in all of my school appearances

is that when I get through with my little homily to the kids,

I then invite them to ask questions,

and when they raise their hands, I say, "Come up,"

and I make them come up and stand in front of me.

I make them stand at attention like a soldier.

Put your arms straight down at your side,

look up, open your eyes, stare straight ahead,

and speak out your question loudly so everybody can hear.

No slouching, no pants hanging down, none of that stuff.

(Laughter)

And this young man, his name is -- his last name Cruz --

he loved it. That's all over his Facebook page and it's gone viral.

(Laughter)

So people think I'm being unkind to this kid.

No, we're having a little fun.

And the thing about it, I've done this for years,

the younger they are, the more fun it is.

When I get six- and seven-year-olds in a group,

I have to figure out how to keep them quiet.

You know that they'll always start yakking.

And so I play a little game with them

before I make them stand at attention.

I say, "Now listen. In the army,

when we want you to pay attention,

we have a command. It's called 'at ease.'

It means everybody be quiet and pay attention. Listen up.

Do you understand?"

"Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh." "Let's practice. Everybody start chatting."

And I let them go for about 10 seconds, then I go, "At ease!"

"Huh!" (Laughter)

"Yes, General. Yes, General."

Try it with your kids. See if it works. (Laughter)

I don't think so.

But anyway, it's a game I play, and it comes obviously

from my military experience.

Because for the majority of my adult life,

I worked with young kids, teenagers with guns, I call them.

And we would bring them into the army,

and the first thing we would do is to put them

in an environment of structure, put them in ranks,

make them all wear the same clothes,

cut all their hair off so they look alike,

make sure that they are standing in ranks.

We teach them how to go right face, left face,

so they can obey instructions and know

the consequences of not obeying instructions.

It gives them structure.

And then we introduce them to somebody who they come to hate immediately, the drill sergeant.

And they hate him.

And the drill sergeant starts screaming at them,

and telling them to do all kinds of awful things.

But then the most amazing thing happens over time.

Once that structure is developed,

once they understand the reason for something,

once they understand, "Mama ain't here, son.

I'm your worst nightmare. I'm your daddy and your mommy.

And that's just the way it is. You got that, son?

Yeah, and then when I ask you a question, there are only three possible answers:

yes, sir; no, sir; and no excuse, sir.

Don't start telling me why you didn't do something.

It's yes, sir; no, sir; no excuse, sir."

"You didn't shave." "But sir —"

"No, don't tell me how often you scraped your face this morning.

I'm telling you you didn't shave."

"No excuse, sir." "Attaboy, you're learning fast."

But you'd be amazed at what you can do with them

once you put them in that structure.

In 18 weeks, they have a skill. They are mature.

And you know what, they come to admire the drill sergeant

and they never forget the drill sergeant.

They come to respect him.

And so we need more of this kind of structure and respect

in the lives of our children.

I spend a lot of time with youth groups,

and I say to people, "When does the education process begin?"

We're always talking about, "Let's fix the schools.

Let's do more for our teachers. Let's put more computers in our schools.

Let's get it all online."

That isn't the whole answer. It's part of the answer.

But the real answer begins with bringing a child to the school

with structure in that child's heart and soul to begin with.

When does the learning process begin? Does it begin in first grade?

No, no, it begins the first time

a child in a mother's arms

looks up at the mother

and says, "Oh, this must be my mother.

She's the one who feeds me.

Oh yeah, when I don't feel so good down there,

she takes care of me.

It's her language I will learn."

And at that moment they shut out all the other languages

that they could be learning at that age,

but by three months, that's her.

And if the person doing it, whether it's the mother

or grandmother, whoever's doing it,

that is when the education process begins.

That's when language begins.

That's when love begins. That's when structure begins.

That's when you start to imprint on the child

that "you are special,

you are different from every other child in the world.

And we're going to read to you."

A child who has not been read to

is in danger when that child gets to school.

A child who doesn't know his or her colors

or doesn't know how to tell time, doesn't know how to tie shoes,

doesn't know how to do those things,

and doesn't know how to do something that

goes by a word that was drilled into me as a kid: mind.

Mind your manners! Mind your adults! Mind what you're saying!

This is the way children are raised properly.

And I watched my own young grandchildren now come along

and they're, much to the distress of my children,

they are acting just like we did. You know? You imprint them.

And that's what you have to do to prepare children for education and for school.

And I'm working at all the energy I have

to sort of communicate this message that

we need preschool, we need Head Start,

we need prenatal care.

The education process begins even before the child is born,

and if you don't do that, you're going to have difficulty.

And we are having difficulties in so many of our communities

and so many of our schools where kids are coming

to first grade and their eyes are blazing,

they've got their little knapsack on and they're ready to go,

and then they realize they're not like the other first graders

who know books, have been read to, can do their alphabet.

And by the third grade, the kids who didn't have

that structure and minding in the beginning

start to realize they're behind, and what do they do?

They act it out. They act it out, and they're on their way

to jail or they're on their way to being dropouts.

It's predictable.

If you're not at the right reading level at third grade,

you are a candidate for jail at age 18,

and we have the highest incarceration rate

because we're not getting our kids the proper start in life.

The last chapter in my book is called

"The Gift of a Good Start."

The gift of a good start. Every child ought to have a good start in life.

I was privileged to have that kind of good start.

I was not a great student.

I was a public school kid in New York City,

and I didn't do well at all.

I have my entire New York City Board of Education transcript

from kindergarten through college.

I wanted it when I was writing my first book.

I wanted to see if my memory was correct,

and, my God, it was. (Laughter)

Straight C everywhere.

And I finally bounced through high school,

got into the City College of New York

with a 78.3 average, which I shouldn't have been allowed in with,

and then I started out in engineering,

and that only lasted six months. (Laughter)

And then I went into geology, "rocks for jocks." This is easy.

And then I found ROTC.

I found something that I did well and something that I loved doing,

and I found a group of youngsters like me who felt the same way.

And so my whole life then was dedicated to ROTC and the military.

And I say to young kids everywhere, as you're growing up

and as this structure is being developed inside of you,

always be looking for that which you do well and that which you love doing,

and when you find those two things together, man, you got it.

That's what's going on. And that's what I found.

Now the authorities at CCNY were getting tired of me being there.

I'd been there four and a half going on five years,

and my grades were not doing particularly well,

and I was in occasional difficulties with the administration.

And so they said, "But he does so well in ROTC.

Look, he gets straight A's in that but not in anything else."

And so they said, "Look, let's take his ROTC grades

and roll them into his overall GPA and see what happens."

And they did, and it brought me up to 2.0. (Laughter)

Yep. (Laughter) (Applause)

They said, "It's good enough for government work.

Give him to the army. We'll never see him again. We'll never see him again."

So they shipped me off to the army,

and lo and behold, many years later,

I'm considered one of the greatest sons the City College of New York has ever had. (Laughter)

So, I tell young people everywhere,

it ain't where you start in life, it's what you do with life

that determines where you end up in life,

and you are blessed to be living in a country that,

no matter where you start, you have opportunities

so long as you believe in yourself,

you believe in the society and the country,

and you believe that you can self-improve

and educate yourself as you go along.

And that's the key to success.

But it begins with the gift of a good start.

If we don't give that gift to each and every one of our kids,

if we don't invest at the earliest age,

we're going to be running into difficulties.

It's why we have a dropout rate of roughly 25 percent overall

and almost 50 percent of our minority population

living in low-income areas,