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

One of the things that even wealthy children need is an education, and I think the problems I saw really have nothing to do with economics. So I was unhappy with what my own children were getting even in the better schools, and then I was seeing so many children here recruited for failure.

I cannot change the world, but I do not have to conform.

I believe the more difficult a child is, the more I want that child. But I won't take a child until the parent brings him to us. So it is just the opposite - we get the ones that no one else will take. We get sawdust, and we have to make boards out of it.

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

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.

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.