Because I came from a small town outside Glasgow, nobody from my school had ever gone into the acting profession. It was just something you didn't do. You joined the bank or became a teacher or whatever you did.
I am a teacher, and I am proud of it. At Cornell University I have taught primarily undergraduates, and indeed almost every year since 1966 have taught first-year general chemistry.
I tend to think of a myth and then explore how it would play out if it were happening in the modern-day world. I modify all the myths I use, but I stick very closely to their structure - it is the hidden teacher in me.
Ask any successful person, and most will tell you that they had a person who believed in them... a teacher, a friend, a parent, a guardian, a sister, a grandmother. It only takes one person, and it doesn't really matter who it is.
We need to do teacher training to educate them about what temperament means. Shyness is painful and you want to help a child with shyness - but the underlying temperament of being a careful, sensitive person is to be honoured, valued and respected.
I do a lot of work with the Dyslexia Institute because, for people with dyslexia who do not have parental support, it is a huge disadvantage. I was fortunate because my Mum was a teacher and she taught me to work hard.
You never know what's going to happen. My mother was an English teacher. If someone had told her that I was going to write a book, she would never have believed that. So you can never say never.
When I was about 13 or 14, I had an English teacher who made a deal with me that I could get out of doing all of the year's regular work if I would write a short story a week and on Friday read it to the class.
There are better ways we can transform this virulent hatred - by living our ideals, the Peace Corps, exchange students, teachers, exporting our music, poetry, blue jeans.
Before I got Doctor Who, I went to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. I went back to take the final grade exam, which is the grade you have to take before you can take the teacher's diploma.
When I was young, all the politicians looked like ancient Latin teachers or greengrocers. They were mumbly, stumbly men with their hair blowing in their eyes, walking into trees, opening the wrong door. They had no idea how to present themselves.
My favorite English teacher in high school showed me 'Brazil' when I was 15, and it blew my mind. It's one of those movies that's revealed itself in different ways as I've gone back to it over the years.
Teacher Kitano: So today's lesson is, you kill each other off till there's only one left. Nothing's against the rules.
I'm a student. I want to do better, and I want directors who can find the actress in me and be my teachers. I'm interested in the whole process of editing, post-production and direction.
It is the present living generation that gives character and spirit to the next. Hence the paramount importance of accomplished and energetic teachers in forming the taste the manners and the character of the coming age.
To encourage more top-caliber students to choose teaching, teachers should be paid a lot more, with starting salaries more in the range of $60,000 and potential earnings of as much as $150,000.
I hated my teachers because I knew they didn't care, and I knew they had no control over me, so I hated them even more.
For my success I am immensely grateful to God, my parents, my family, my friends, my teachers and to the books I read.
There are two types of teachers. The ones who teach you to use the text to find answers, and the ones who teach you to use the text to find another whole world of answers.
I was accorded the opportunity to learn by failing - albeit at the cost of a few honourable teachers' sanity - and now I realise what a rare and incredible luxury that is.
Common sense tells us that we should focus our resources to benefit children, teachers and taxpayers by keeping dollars in the classroom.
