The principal did not like the fact that the teachers would take my side. I always left an impression when I left the school - not for who I was but for what I did there.
I emphasize the dual mission of the Life Cube Project: involving as many members of the community as possible; and encouraging people to write down their goals, ambitions and wishes. I hope that the concept has an impact on these students' lives - that would be my dream.
Once in a while our school has half days, and the teachers spend the afternoon 'in service,' which I think must be a group therapy for having to deal with us.
Teachers make a difference in individual students' lives, yet they do not get the respect they deserve.
The evidence would suggest that there are some great alternative certification programmes and some lousy ones. There are some wonderful traditional education schools, and some that aren't so effective. What's important is less the pathway than the impact on students.
I feel that is more important than my work, the influence I have on my students.
It is, all in all, a historic error to believe that the master makes the school; the students make it!
In the long run, much public opinion is made in the universities; ideas generated there filter down through the teaching profession and the students into the general public.
I feel that I learned far more from my students than I could possibly have taught them.
Dartmouth is a small school with high-caliber teaching. Our classes were all taught by professors, not teaching assistants. I felt like that was a school where I could make a big splash. The opportunities would be grander and more robust for me there than at a school with 40,000 students.
If you have a class of 35 children, and they're all smiling, and there's one little bastard, and he's just staring at you as if to say 'Show me', then he's the one you think about going home on the train.
