Study after study affirms what I saw in the classroom every day as superintendent of Denver Public Schools: Nothing makes a bigger difference for student learning than great teaching.
I worked privately, and sometimes I feel that might be better for poets than the kind of social workshop gathering. My school was the great poets: I read, and I read, and I read.
I left school and couldn't find acting work, so I started going to clubs where you could do stand-up. I've always improvised, and stand-up was this great release. All of a sudden, it was just me and the audience.
I'm into books - I love literature, so I toyed with the idea of being an English teacher. I had a fantastic English teacher at school. I think great English teachers make the world go round.
Work is a different type of pursuit than relationships. You can't take the skills that you know that have gotten you into that great school or into that great job and apply them to your relationships.
What nourishes us at home and in school is what inspires us. When we get awareness and learn about the great potential that we all human beings have, we are able to discover our leadership.
When I auditioned for my high school band the band director was excited because my father was known to be a great musician. When he heard me, he said 'Are you sure you're Ellis's son?'
There was a year between school and getting going as an actor when I basically just watched films. Video shops were the new thing, and there was a good one round the corner and me and my brother just watched everything, from the horror to the Europea...
In K-12, almost everybody goes to local schools. Universities are a bit different because kids actually do pick the university. The bizarre thing, though, is that the merit of university is actually how good the students going in are: the SAT scores ...
I grew up on the west side of Detroit - 6 mile and Wyoming - so I was really in the 'hood. And I would go to school at Detroit Waldorf, and that was not the 'hood. Growing up in Detroit was good. I had a good perspective, a well-rounded one, and not ...
What does good in bed mean to me? When I'm sick and I stay home from school propped up with lots of pillows watching TV and my mom brings me soup - that's good in bed.
The movies that I did in the '80s were either good or bad, but I never was oppressed with any feeling - I mean, I thought it was ridiculous to play high school or college students when I was 30. But at the same time, that was really done then.
I went into broadcast journalism. I loved every class I took, I just got anxious because I came to the realization that you're groomed in high school to get good SAT scores to get into a good college or else you're done for.
I became an actor by doing school plays and youth theaters, and then National Youth Theatre of Great Britain. And then I did study at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts. For me that was a good way to enter the field, to work in the theater...
For me, sports is a big part of my life. It helped me through high school. It helped me get better grades, because if you don't have good grades, you can't play sports.
I was a good student with mathematical ability and interests. As such, I took the usual college preparatory program in high school for one looking to become an engineer: all the available courses in mathematics and science.
Most of my good friends are my friends from high school or childhood, and they're not actors - they have 9-to-5 jobs. But I've obviously, over time, developed friendships with actors. It's two completely different worlds.
When I was 14 or 15, I was a really good volleyball player, so I thought, 'Well, maybe I'll just get a scholarship to an Ivy League school through volleyball.' Then I quit when I decided to focus on theater.
I wasn't a good student in high school. I mean, I got through it, but unless it had something to do with music, it didn't really interest me.
You know, I used to warm the thermometer on the light bulb... I was really good at being sick. I could forge my mother's signature on a sick note so well I was hardly ever at school.
The technology at the leading edge changes so rapidly that you have to keep current after you get out of school. I think probably the most important thing is having good fundamentals.
