The good teacher makes the poor student good and the good student superior.

Our children learn the phonetic method, which is why they're very good spellers, I suppose. Because rather than ABC or just saying a word, they'll have to go a as in apple and all the other a's there are in the English language. They learn that when they're four. Children all over America can tell you that a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y are vowels. But you ask them about that "sometimes y," and they can't tell you.

That's how I try to think of education - a school is a miniature society where children learn to function in a real world.

I think what we've done is given children a lot of things that they didn't ask for instead of what they do want.

We've been brainwashed into thinking that it takes more monies than it actually does to educate children. That's been one of the brainwash jobs.

I got so tired of hearing those proverbs when I was a child. Now I use them all the time. Sometimes they are the best way to say what needs to be said. I teach them to my students. I have a collection of proverbs for class discussion and writing assignments.

Excellence is not an act, but a habit.