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

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.

None of you has ever failed. School may have failed you. Goodbye to failure, children. Welcome to success.

What all good teachers have in common, however, is that they set high standards for their students and do not settle for anything less.

I'm a teacher. A teacher is someone who leads. There is no magic here. I do not walk on water. I do not part the sea. I just love children.

Mr. Meant-to has a friend, his name is Didn't-Do. Have you met them? They live together in a house called Never-Win. And I am told that it is haunted by the Ghost of Might-have-Been.

You can't find me 20 children in Chicago, I don't care which section you go in - you can be on Michigan Avenue or here - and they won't be able to tell you that y is a vowel when it's the final syllable in a word, as in Nancy and icy. And no one bothers to teach the rules anymore - "i before e except after c."