I stopped and gazed on the little dull man who was being paid to be a teacher of teachers. I turned and walked to the door slammed it closed with a bang and broken glass crashed to the floor. There was uproar behind me in the class which did not interest me at all.

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.

As the daughter of a schoolteacher I feel very strongly that the most important thing in school takes place right there in that classroom and the interaction between the teacher and the child.

My mother was a teacher my father was a community organizer. I come from a working class background.

I was terrified of being a teacher. To stand in front of a classroom the responsibility is boggling. Imagine! Standing in front of people!

In the depth of the near depression that he faced when he came in Barack Obama and Democratic leaders in Congress provided 'recovery funds' that literally kept our classrooms open. Two years ago these funds saved nearly 20 000 teacher and education jobs - just here in North Carolina.

There happened to be guitar classes at the college and there was a guitar teacher there with whom I used to play. In addition I also would go out into country schools and teach little kids basic guitar and singing a few times a week.

Cultural dominance of middle-class norms prevail in middle-class schools with a teacher teaching toward those standards and with students striving to maintain those standards.

I took an acting class. After the first day the teacher quit so they said take another. When I saw 'How to be a Stand-up Comedian ' it resonated. I realized I'd rather make 200 people laugh than make one person cry.

I wasn't a ballet baby. My first dance class was in an outdoor pavilion when I was three. It was called 'creative movement.' The teacher gave us chiffon scarves in beautiful colors. She turned on some music and said 'Now go dance.' So for me dance has always been about self-expression.