I feel bad for the kids that are in school right now and the young people all across America who don't realize that the grownups who are supposed to be running this country are the verge of leaving them as the first generation of Americans worse off than the generation before.
My father was in Congress when I was born. He was mayor my whole life from when I was in grade school - first grade - to when I went away to college.
In the book, I write about children in first grade who were taught to read by reading want ads. They learned to write by writing job applications. Imagine what would happen if anyone tried to do that to children in a predominantly white suburban school.
It seems like I've been writing since birth! I started writing poems before I got to school. I wrote the class musical in first grade - both words and music. It was about a bunch of vegetables who got together in a salad. I played the chief carrot!
My father was Catholic, and my mother wanted me to go to Catholic school. That's what I did in first grade. But she couldn't afford the payments. I think it must have hurt her a lot, not to be able to give me a Catholic education.
I remember hearing in first grade, 'Oh, why does she get to skip school?' It wasn't like I suddenly started feeling different. I always knew that I was. I never felt I missed out.
I am a full-time mom; that is my first job. The most important job ever. I started my business when he started school. When he is in school, I do my meetings, my sketches, and everything else. I cook him breakfast. Bring him to school. Pick him up. Prepare his lunch. I spend the afternoon with him.
After 14 years of running DonorsChoose.org as someone who had never written a line of code, I did do a three-month night school course. After all these years, I could at least speak some of the same vocabulary and have a first-hand appreciation for what my colleagues on the engineering team are doing.
We class schools into four grades: leading school, first-rate school, good school and school.
No matter what happens in a child's home, no matter what other social and economic factors may impede a child, there's no question in my mind that a first-rate school can transform almost everything.
25 was my number in high school and college. But when I got traded to Lakers, it was retired, and Derek Fisher had 2, so I was stuck with 5. Nothing more special behind it than that.
When I went to law school, I had Roger Fisher for Civil Procedure. I never heard anything about negotiations.
I'm pretty caring, loyal and loving to those who are close to me. Two of my friends are from school, so I've known them for more than 30 years. My best friend, Paul Fisher, sat next to me in English when I was ten or 11. If you asked him, he'd say I was loyal. I don't think I've changed over the years.
Right after I graduated high school, I joined a sushi restaurant to learn how to make Japanese food. And then spent seven years. Then that time - that's enough. Then sushi restaurant - butchering fish and they make your body smell like fishy.
My father left school at 14 and became a fitter. He didn't want to be at school.
Whatever I was doing, even when I was at school, I never repressed anything that I felt. I wasn't flamboyant; I was actually quite reticent most of the time. But if I felt I had to do something, I did it.
Capitalism would have never let me be a filmmaker, living in Flint, Michigan with a high school education. I was going to have to make that happen myself.
I had been on the junior Olympic team in high school for trampoline; I could do twenty-six back flips in a row.
In high school, during lunchtime I would go in the room where the wrestling mats were and try different flips and different moves. Like windmills. I just started mixing martial arts with jazz and contemporary stuff and it would get mashed together and became my style.
I remember the first day of school my first year in the classroom. My stomach churned with a mixture of excitement and anxiety. Could I do the job? Could I connect with the kids? Will there be the chemistry to build relationships and get the job done, or will I totally flop?
