Deborah Mailman Quotes

I liked English and art and did a lot of painting. And for some reason I was good at math, but I wasn't an A student. I really had to work hard to get good grades.

I went to public school, and I didn't do well in school. And it wasn't until, actually, I got into school at Juilliard - it was the first time in my life that I thought, 'Oh, maybe I'm not stupid,' because I was so inspired and passionate about what I was learning, and it was the first time in my life I had felt that.

My school friends thought I was outgoing and bubbly, but that masked a lot of insecurities, and maybe that's the reason I chose drama - to build a bit of self-confidence. I had a great teacher, and I won a few speech and drama competitions and just fell in love with it.

My early education was in the public school system of Omaha, where, retrospectively, I realize that my high school training served me in good stead for the basic subjects of mathematics, English, foreign languages and history.

I got into acting my junior year of high school. We got a new hot drama teacher and I was like 'Alright, I'll try drama.'

My acting teacher in high school was really influential, and we still keep in touch.

I think sometimes parents and teachers fail to stretch kids. My mother had a very good sense of how to stretch me just slightly outside my comfort zone.

It's funny: I always, as a high school teacher and particularly as a high school yearbook teacher, because yearbook staffs are 90 percent female, I got to sit in and overhear teenage girl talk for many years. I like teenage girls; I like their drama, their foibles. And I think, 'I'll be good with a teenage daughter!'

I wasn't good at examinations, but I went to a very good secondary school - Bolton-on-Dearne - with wonderful teachers, who taught me drama and encouraged me in every way.

Fear is not a good teacher. The lessons of fear are quickly forgotten.

English was great because I could just write my opinion, and that was good enough. I was terrible in Math, even though I had amazing Math teachers. My favorite subject was either English or History. I had a really awesome high school education.

I started out with the intention of studying physics. I was a terrible high school student outside of the fact that I did well in physics, but there's a big difference between being good at physics and being a physicist, so I jettisoned that very quickly.

I've had teachers that inspired me, yes. I think teachers play a really important role in people's lives. I had one teacher in particular who helped me through high school and really instilled a confidence in me by just holding me up to a standard I wasn't holding myself up to.

I believe in myself as I look forward to graduating from Hamilton Heights High School in 1991.

At school I was a disaster academically but being involved in drama helped me to find another pathway into things.

I didn't think I was good at anything, didn't do well in school. And then in the third grade, I was going to a public school. And the teacher was putting math problems on the board. And I said to myself - it's amazing how you can remember certain incidents at any age that made an impression - I asked myself why is she putting those up when the answers are obvious. And then I saw it wasn't obvious to anybody else in the class. So I said, "Hey, I'm good at something."

My teacher said my brain was the size of a pea. He made my life miserable by singling me out in the classroom as a failure.

Children don't drop out of high school when they are 16, they do so in the first grade and wait 10 years to make it official.

It's so sad, actually, how teachers and parents tell their kids, 'You're never gonna be anything.'

I got lucky. To be frank, I was surrounded by white teachers who never did the whole, 'You're never going to amount to nothing' thing you hear about in the South. Instead, they would say, 'You're really smart. You can do this.' If I hadn't gotten that, I don't know where I'd be.

Through my education, I didn't just develop skills, I didn't just develop the ability to learn, but I developed confidence.

I'm not good at many things. But I really like songwriting, and I get a good reaction from it. There's not much that I do that causes a good reaction, so it feels like if I want to have good things happen, then I should do the things I'm good at. I mean, in all seriousness, I left school at 15. I'm unqualified to do anything else.

I was not the best student. Thank God I had a lot of hockey talent.

Definitely had a lot of training since a young age. My teachers in high school have always helped me, gave me encouragement, taught me so much.

Information is available freely on the Net, but what's missing is passion. And only a teacher can impart that passion and deep desire for excellence every day. Moreover, a classroom environment helps overcome certain psychological aspects, including inferiority complex.