okay. we are going to sing a song but we really have to participate, all of us. i think we have done a lot of talking. i stand now for you also to share with us. we are going to sing -- i'm going to sing in simple arabic and it's about women shining, all the women are shining. remember, men, you are also shining with us. so it goes this way. all i want you to say is shining, shining. the other thing you'll have to do when i mention your name, i may not remember all the names, i don't know all the names, but you just have to show us how you are really shining. so you really have to shine, okay? >> okay. >> okay. and clapping. i will ask you at some point to

stand up. [ singing in arabic ] [ singing in arabic ] [ singing in arabic ]

[ singing in arabic ] [ singing in arabic ] [ singing in arabic ]

[ singing in arabic ] [ singing in arabic ] [ applause ]

>> thank you. thank you, thank you. thank you so much. thank you. thank you. thank you. thank you. was that magnificent? okay, everyone. thank you so much for being here.

we're live this morning at the washington convention center here in washington, d.c. for coverage of the national education association's annual meeting. this morning, remarks from vice president joe biden and his wife, jill. she is a teacher at a college in northern virginia. they both will be introduced by nea president, dennis van rokel who yesterday called on members to re-elect president obama. the nea is the nation's largest labor union with over three million members representing public school teachers, support personnel, faculty and staff at universities, retired educators and college students who are preparing to become teachers. we expect this to start in just a moment. this is live on c-span 3.

waiting for the start this morning of the national education association's annual meeting. attendees will hear this morning from vice president joe biden

and his wife, jill. while we wait for this to get started, here's a quick look at some of the other programming coming up on our c-span networks. live right now on c-span 2, discussion on afghanistan's economy and its war transition. the country's central banks, as that country needs $6 billion to $7 billion in civilian assistance each year for the next decade. attendees hear from a former ambassador to afghanistan, former afghanistan and pakistan advisor to the u.s., agency for international development and a foreign policy fellow with the brookings institution. it started at 9:30 eastern and again, you can see it live on our companion network, c-span 2. on c-span this morning live in london, british prime minister david cameron will be fielding questions on the impact of the european debt crisis on the british economy. he will appear this morning before the british liaison committee which is made up of 33 chairmen of the house of commons select committees. yesterday, he reported back to the house of commons about the outcome of last week's european

summit meeting and today, again, you will hear prime minister cameron live on c-span starting at 11:00 a.m. eastern. and here on c-span 3 tonight, american history tv in prime time, oral history interviews with key congressional staff who are charged with investigating president nixon beginning at 8:00 p.m. eastern. francis o'brien, chief of staff of the house judiciary committee, chair in 1974, and at 10:00 p.m., bernard nussbaum, senior member of the committee during the investigation. it's american history tv in prime time. that's all this week on c-span 3. we're live again at the washington convention center awaiting the start of the national education association's annual meeting and remarks from vice president biden and his wife, jill.

live pictures from the washington convention center, waiting for the national education association's annual meeting to get under way this morning. attendees will be hearing remarks from vice president joe biden. he'll be joined by his wife, jill. she is a professor at a college in northern virginia. the two will be introduced by

the president of the nea. yesterday, he urged members of the nea to re-elect president obama. we expect this to start in just a moment. >> ladies and gentlemen, please welcome nea president dennis van rokel, dr. jill biden and the vice president of the united states, joe biden. [ applause ]

[ cheers and applause ] >> welcome! n nea delegates, are you ready for a great day? i understand the lines were better. yeah? so i was just thinking, if vice president biden wants to return as the re-elected vice president of the united states, we know how to do it right. now, it is my great honor to introduce a very special guest. actually, she doesn't really seem like a guest at all.

she seems more like family, because she is a life-long educator and a former member of the national education association. most americans know jill biden as the second lady but we also know her as dr. jill biden, because she received her ph.d. from the university of delaware and she wrote her dissertation, she wrote her dissertation on maximizing student retention in community colleges, and when we talk about access and equity in education, we understand the critical role community colleges play in meeting those needs, especially for those students who are trying to balance education, work and raising a family. dr. biden understands the needs of those students very well,

because she earned two masters degrees while teaching and raising her own family. she knows who we are. we couldn't ask for a more committed advocate for community colleges and public education in general. it is indeed a great honor and pleasure to introduce to you our friend, dr. jill biden. [ cheers and applause ] >> thank you. thank you. good morning, everyone.

you guys are rocking early. thank you for that kind introduction and it's so great to be here. i love being in a room of fellow educators. i just feel right at home. for those of you who don't know me, i've been a teacher really for longer than i care to admit. i've taught as a reading specialist in public high schools and i've tutored at-risk teens in a psychiatric hospital in delaware. for the last 18 years, i've been a community college instructor and i teach english at a community college right near here, northern virginia. i remember when the president and my husband were elected almost four years ago and as i was thinking about how i would approach my role as second lady,

i knew one thing was for sure. i knew that i would find a way to continue to teach. i know that you -- [ applause ] i know that you all understand being a teacher is not what i do, it's who i am. for me, there's no greater feeling than when a student grasps a concept i'm trying to teach. i see them get it and i know in addition to the knowledge that they're gaining, that i'm giving them the confidence that will make a real difference in their lives. like you, i see every day how important education is in the lives of all americans. i see how a good education can put kids on a path to success.

i also know from experience that while teaching is rewarding, it is also challenging. and i can assure you that this administration is working hard to support education, to support teachers, and to provide real leadership in our schools. i can also assure you that a lot is at stake this november for students, for teachers and for the entire middle class. the president and the vice president have both been teachers and they know that a great school starts with great teachers. so i want to thank you all for being here today and thank you all for the work that you're

doing in your classrooms each and every day. and now, it is my great honor to introduce a man who has been an advocate for education and for teachers his whole life, my husband, our vice president, joe biden. [ cheers and applause ] >> how are you all? it's great to be back with you. it's nice to be with people you understand. ladies and gentlemen, my name's joe biden and i'm in love with a teacher. oh, am i in love with her.

you know, i was told by a news commentator when we did an event, an interview on valentine's day, this commentator, national -- one of the networks says people say you and your wife have a love affair and i said yeah, i said but i love her more than she loves me and she looked at me and said yeah, that's what everybody says. then as a consolation prize, true story, she went on to say you know, i did a study, a three-part series on what makes marriages last the longest and happiest and i said what was the conclusion. she said when the husband loves the wife more. so i'm going to be married for a long time, as long as i'm alive. ladies and gentlemen, look, dennis, i read your speech today

for real and as usual, it was first rate and it forced me to change my speech, literally, because much of what you say, said, expressed the sentiment i was trying to express except you expressed it better. you know, there's always been debates, i need not tell this prestigious audience, there's always been debates about how to improve public education. we have always debated, democrats and republicans usually with the same objective, how to improve public education, universal education, in the most heterogenous democracy in the world and we talked about and debated over the years that i've been engaged about early education, its value, what can you do, does it matter, what's more important, the very early years, the later years, how we parse that, how we allocate our resources.

about classroom size, whether it matters or doesn't. about subject competence of individuals in the classroom. about the need for quality facilities from laboratories to just moving from dilapidated buildings. we've argued, there have been treatises written about how much do these things matter, about standards. we went through periods in the early part of my career, we thought we should not demand particularly high standards for kids out of particularly difficult circumstances and we decided that no, we should demand high standards from everyone because everyone has the capacity. we had these debates as our nation changed, as the social morays changed, as the nature of the family changed, and always,

it was about how do we make public education better. i've always been guided by my mom's assertion, literally, when she'd say children tend to become that which you expect of them. children tend to become that which you expect of them. in those debates, didn't usually break down in terms of democrat and republican. they broke down in terms of the communities you lived in and the region of the country you lived in, what was more appropriate, what wasn't more appropriate. but ladies and gentlemen, today, we're not dealing with your father's republican party. this is a different party. this is a different party.

neither bad nor good, just different, a different party. look, folks, let me get straight to the point. you guys, educators, teachers, you're under full-blown assault. romney, romney, governor romney and his allies in the congress, their plan for public education in america is to let the states use title one dollars to boost enrollment in private schools. i'm not looking for boos. i think we should have just a straight honest-to-god talk about the difference between -- [ applause ] the difference between how president obama and i view education and how our republican colleagues today view it and again, i want to make it clear,

a lot of you know me pretty well -- by the way, where's delaware? oh, delaware. i'm not prejudiced but they're probably the best educators in the world. ladies and gentlemen, very seriously, i think governor romney's a good, decent man. he's a good family man. i think his intentions are all positive. i don't make any -- i don't make any moral judgments. i don't judge motive. i assume with good reason he cares as much about america and the education system as i do. but the truth of the matter is that we have a fundamentally different view and when i said that he would like to take title one money, give it to the states

and let them use it to increase the voice of private schools, strip you of your voice because he doesn't think that you all know much about how to educate, and he characterizes you and his allies characterize you as not caring about the students, but caring about yourselves. you listen to what they say. my jill is literal when she says teaching is not what she does, it's who she is. these guys don't get that. i think they don't understand why you chose to teach in the first place. i honest to god don't think they understand and by the way, like in politics, in business, in religious hierarchies, there's really good teachers and there's really lousy teachers. there's really great teachers

and there's some just plain good teachers. we're no different than any other profession in the world but we are a profession. we are a profession. this is a calling. you chose to be teachers because you care. you chose to be teachers because you want to make this country better. you chose to be teachers because you know every child, every child is entitled, entitled to do as well as they can. that's why you did it. but i'm afraid, i'm afraid the governor and his allies, they don't get it.