I want to be a children’s hero… Children need heroes because heroes give hope; without hope they have no future.

I graduated from Bowdoin College and went to the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Then I left and took a job teaching really poor inner-city white kids in Boston. It was interesting to me because I'd never been around poor whites before.

When you see a great teacher, you are seeing a work of art.

When I was growing up, kids used to talk about snitching... It never extended as a cultural norm outside of the gangsters.

Movies portray men as tough guys.

When kids know that you refuse to let them fail ... they don't give up as easy. So sometimes they don't have it inside, [but] they're like,'You know, I don't want to do this, but I know my mother's going to be mad.'That matters to kids, and it helps get them through.

When the safety of America is threatened, we will spend any amount of money. The real safety of our nation is preparing this next generation so that they can take our place [in] thinking and technology and democracy.