People have to live by rules in the world. Why do we pretend in school that they don't?

Until kids decide, 'I am a miracle. I am unique. There is no one else exactly like me,' they can never draw the conclusion, 'Because I'm a miracle, I will never harm another person who's a miracle like me.' In this slippery world, they all need something to hang on to.

Teaching children to read was one thing; keeping them interested in reading was something else.

Character is what you know you are, not what others think you have.

There is a brilliant child locked inside every student.

There is a lot of money to be made from miseducation, from the easy to read easy to learn textbooks, workbooks, teacher manuals, educational games and visual aids. The textbook business is more than a billion-dollar-a-year industry and some of its biggest profits come from 'audio-visual aids' - flash cards, tape cassettes, and filmstrips. No wonder the education industry encourages schools to focus on surface education.

When our students fail, we, as teachers, too, have failed.