JILL BIDEN

I have visited classrooms near military bases to learn more about what schools were doing to support their military kids. I met with teachers overseas to learn about the particular needs they face thousands of miles from America. And I listened to my own granddaughter, who dealt with her father's yearlong deployment to Iraq.

I had grown up with four sisters.

I'm an English teacher, so I'm used to reading and I'm used to reading out loud.

Education teaches us compassion and kindness, connection to others.

I am not a speaker. The more you do it, the easier it becomes, but I always want to be prepared, and I always practice my speeches; I never do it off the cuff.

I was in the classroom four days after the inauguration, because I said to Joe when we got elected, 'Joe, I really want to continue to teach.' And he said, 'Absolutely. You should be doing what you love.' Politics - that's Joe's life, really, his love. But teaching is mine.

Since Beau's death, I'm definitely shattered. I feel like a piece of china that's been glued back together again. The cracks may be imperceptible-but they're there. Look closely, and you can see the glue holding me together, the precarious edges that vein through my heart. I am not the same. I feel it every day.

When students come to the community college, they're focused. They know what they want to do, and they have a certain amount of time to do it.

Marrying Joe wasn't just about him. It was about Hunter and Beau as well. They had endured the loss of one mother already, and I couldn't risk having them lose another.

I'm good at separating things. When I'm in my classroom, I'm totally there. When I'm at an event, I'm totally there. And when I'm with my grandkids, my total attention is on them.

I think exercise is really important, not just for your physical self, for your body, but for your head.

For laid-off workers, community colleges offer job-certification programs that teach new skills and professions.

A lot of students who are 18 or 19 go to college partly for the social aspect of it. At the community college, people's goals are a little different. Their needs are more immediate.

The passage of the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 was a substantial victory for community colleges.

Actually, after many years on the campaign trail, there is not a particular food that I've come across that I would avoid.

I had a number of part-time jobs after school in Willow Grove, but I did work for two summers in Ocean City as a waitress at Chris' Seafood Restaurant. I loved it.

We have asked a lot of our military families and I believe they deserve the very best efforts of each of us to show them how much we appreciate their service to our country.

We need good reading programs, and we need equity in schools.

I grew up in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, with my parents and sisters, but my family would drive every weekend to Hammonton, where both my grandparents lived and where my parents were raised.

What I said was that Joe's family was different than my family, that he came from a very affectionate family. My family was very loving, but we didn't show that kind of affection. So for me, that took me a little while to get used to that.

Life is change.

I knew that it was harder to unite two lives than I had imagined growing up. I knew that relationships could be fragile.

I love the women who are coming back to school and getting their degrees because they're so focused.

I'm a grandmother.

Education is possibility set in motion.