Schools are not equal. There are still the haves and the have-nots.

Writing really evokes empathy in a way very few things can do.

The stories my pupils told me were astonishing. One told how he had witnessed his cousin being shot in the back five times; another how his parents had died of AIDS. Another said that he'd probably been to more funerals than parties in his young life. For me - someone who had had an idyllic, happy childhood - this was staggering.

I realized if you can change a classroom, you can change a community, and if you change enough communities you can change the world.

When you're too robotic and scripted, the students tune you out. So I always tried to use different learning modalities - kinesthetic, auditory, visual, whatever might bring learning to life.

Because if they grow up holding on to such terrible feelings, it could lead to another war come time in the future when the fate of the country is in their hands.