It was the Democratic Party, it was the Presidential election. We elected a president [Barack Obama]; we didn't elect a king. So all the speculation in the next three months - people camped out at his house, and wondering who's coming to visit, who's going to be the Secretary of State - that all struck me as inane and stupid.

I don't know that I ever bought into the "American dream." I was a child of privilege. I grew up in the '50s and it was a quiet time in America, at least on the surface and I grew up in a kind of feathery bed of privilege.

I was involved in the anti-war movement.

I went underground. So I didn't see [my father] for 11 years. So that was pretty traumatic time for my parents for sure.

The massive anti-war movement, which I was a part of and which was a major part of my life, never stopped the war in Vietnam.

Teaching has always been, for me, linked to issues of social justice. I've never considered it a neutral or passive profession.

What was on the agenda was school and social life and those kinds of things. So I was the middle of five kids. So I had the great advantage of being able to play up to the older kids and play down to the younger kids and I think that's part of what propelled me to become a teacher at some point in my life. But it was a comfortable childhood. It was a privileged childhood.