Part of what was in the ether all around me growing up, until I was between 19 and 20, was a terrible, debilitating stutter. It was part of what made me very reclusive as a kid.

I learned quickly that if the student's perception is that you're not listening to them, and not understanding them, they discredit you.

I have my flaws and my issues, past and present and who knows what will happen in the future. I want people to know I'm vulnerable too and each one of us is.

I had this wonderful career and thought I would retire as a teacher.

My earliest memory of books is not of reading but of being read to. I spent hours listening, watching the face of the person reading aloud to me.

From education to broadband, from building roads and bridges to supporting the military, Barack Obama is delivering for North Carolina. And he is delivering for America. A growing middle class is the foundation for a strong America.

The Holy Spirit is our comforter, our teacher. That's why, in prayer, we can ask the Lord to open up Scripture and make it come alive to us, to open our understanding. He left his Spirit with us until we join him in Heaven.

Ensuring preschool education for all and investing more in public schools is essential if the U.S. is to avoid becoming a neo-feudal country where advantages and disadvantages are passed on from one generation to the next.