Having been an educator for so many years I know that all a good teacher can do is set a context raise questions or enter into a kind of a dialogic relationship with their students.

Perhaps there is an idea among Japanese students that one general difference between Japanese and Western poetry is that the former cultivates short forms and the latter longer ones gut this is only in part true.

Poetry is the most subtle of the literary arts and students grow more ingenious by the year at avoiding it. If they can nip around Milton duck under Blake and collapse gratefully into the arms of Jane Austen a lot of them will.

Crabbed and obscure definitions are of no use beyond a narrow circle of students of whom probably every one has a pet one of his own.

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.

Ninety percent of the students take the 'preferred lender.' Why? Because that's the nature of the relationship. You trust the school. The school is in a position of authority.

The advice I am giving always to all my students is above all to study the music profoundly... music is like the ocean and the instruments are little or bigger islands very beautiful for the flowers and trees.

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 White House.

If we became students of Malcolm X we would not have young black men out there killing each other like they're killing each other now. Young black men would not be impregnating young black women at the rate going on now. We'd not have the drugs we have now or the alcoholism.

So I applied to medical school and received a scholarship at Washington University in St. Louis. Washington University turned out to be a lucky choice. The faculty was scholarly and dedicated and accessible to students.