Today in America, we are trying to prepare students for a high tech world of constant change, but we are doing so by putting them through a school system designed in the early 20th Century that has not seen substantial change in 30 years.
It was difficult when I was very young because I was so separated from my family. When I was at school or acting in a play, I felt very much part of something, and then it would always change, and I would be by myself.
There is, however, a change going on in the world. There's far more interest in drawing now than there has been in a long, long time. Schools are beginning to teach drawing again in a serious and meaningful way.
I would tell 17-year-olds to be proud of who you are. Don't try to change yourself for others. Focus on school and your future. Boys and friends will come and go, just focus on you and your future.
It's been 35 years since I left school. Almost nine of them were in government; all the rest were in the private sector. And I've proven over time to be a great leader.
I remember the first pangs of stress arriving at the end of school. Once I graduated I had to get a full-time job, worry about health insurance, saving money, paying rent - things I'd never thought about before.
To get away from poverty, you need several things at the same time: school, health, and infrastructure - those are the public investments. And on the other side, you need market opportunities, information, employment, and human rights.
Left to ourselves, we might pick the wrong health insurance, the wrong mortgage, the wrong school for our kids; why, unless they stop us, we might pick the wrong light bulb.
When I went to law school, which I put myself through for $100,000 dollars of debt, I didn't expect anybody to pay for my health insurance, which I had none of. No health insurance.
Did you know that nearly one in three children live apart from their biological dads? Those kids are two to three times more likely to grow up in poverty, to suffer in school, and to have health and behavioral problems.
Nancy Drew was always changing her outfits. I despised girls' clothing, I couldn't wait to get home from school and get out of it. The last thing I wanted to read was minute descriptions of Nancy's frocks.
I went to this Episcopalian school, and one day I came home and asked my mom, 'What religion are we?' She looked at me and said, 'We're artists.'
If you really want to be a music producer, stop watching 'Friends' when you get home from school. Start trying to make music. If you're not going to try, then it's impossible. When you try, it's always possible.
Writing has always felt like a compulsion. Even at high school there'd be times when people would ask me if I wanted to go and hang out and I'd sit home and write instead.
I never really take shortcuts. I was always one of those people who, instead of cutting across someone's yard on the way home from school, I would go to the end of the block and turn.
When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a civil engineer. No joke. I would come home from school and build bridges out of toothpicks and see how much weight they would hold before falling.
I feel sorry for the poor kids whose parents feel they're qualified to teach them at home. Of course, some parents are smarter than some teachers, but in the main I see home-schooling as misguided foolishness.
For some students, school is the only place where they get a hot meal and a warm hug. Teachers are sometimes the only ones who tell our children they can go from an Indian reservation to the Ivy League, from the home of a struggling single mom to the...
My mother never gave up one me. I messed up in school so much they were sending me home, but my mother sent me right back.
One of the things I took from my wartime experiences was that reality was a stage set... the comfortable day-to-day life, school, the home where one lives and all the rest of it... could be dismantled overnight.
I'm married, I have a couple kids, I've traveled a lot, I've done book tours a lot, I'm happy to stay home and take my kids to school and come to the office.
