In a lot of ways, the real learning at RISD happened after-hours when you're working side by side with your colleagues.

Dog-fooding is using your own products so that you understand from inside out what it is you're providing the customers. It's another way to gain insights and to gain intelligence. You use it yourself; you eat your own dog food. Every time we do that, we discover something that we can improve.

We built a basic website, and Air Bed and Breakfast was born. Three lucky guests got to stay on a $20 airbed on the hardwood floor. But they loved it. And so did we. We took them on adventures around the city.

Every apartment I've ever lived in has had a space to make, create, and get stuff done within eyesight of my bed.

Our approach to education has remained largely unchanged since the Renaissance: From middle school through college, most teaching is done by an instructor lecturing to a room full of students, only some of them paying attention.

All of my education at Harvard, then Oxford, then Paris was in literature - even my thesis was on Shakespeare.

About 15 years ago I went though a period of a year or so when I just couldn't find anything good. My wife noticed I was having trouble reading menus. I bought some cheap reading glasses in a drug store. I got home and suddenly all these books that weren't good were good.

Cutting NASA education funds would most severely affect students from low- to middle-income families and students from non-Ivy League-level schools.