I take mentoring very seriously and I am on the board of an organization called Girls Write Now where we match teen girls and writing mentors because it changes their lives.

And I found out the other part of it is that I found out and in my desire to life successfully that baseball fit very well into my life. It's been a great teacher trainer mentor and you'll see what I mean in the next few minutes that I have to speak.

I remember the mentoring experiences of some teachers that I had like a second term home room teacher in public school that really was very helpful to me.

I claim Dickens as a mentor. He's my teacher. He's one of my driving forces.

My art teacher in junior high was a very out gay man and a mentor to me.

My art teacher in junior high was a very out gay man and a mentor to me. He would tell us about Greenwich Village and show us the 'Village Voice' and describe his life but it was all sort of subversive and below the radar.

I was lucky that I met the right mentors and teachers at the right moment.

My success was due to good luck hard work and support and advice from friends and mentors. But most importantly it depended on me to keep trying after I had failed.

If you feel your school is failing you the question is why. Is it a lack of parental involvement large classes school violence poor learning environment? Are there any standards to determine where problems are? Are there tutoring or mentoring programs? If the school is still failing after 3 years then what are your options?

Emotional 'literacy' implies an expanded responsibility for schools in helping to socialize children. This daunting task requires two major changes: that teachers go beyond their traditional mission and that people in the community become more involved with schools as both active participants in children's learning and as individual mentors.