Instead of trying to come up and pontificate on what literature is, you need to talk with children, to teachers, and make sure they get poetry in the curriculum early.
We need to make sure teachers are in schools and that children have teachers.
Teachers need to integrate technology seamlessly into the curriculum instead of viewing it as an add-on, an afterthought, or an event.
Singapore gives 10% "white space" time to all of its teachers to come up with their own innovations outside of the official curriculum. This encourages teachers to turn to their colleagues for inspiration and ideas.
We need to make sure we have in every school teachers trained and qualified to make sure every child, including children with different learning styles, succeed.
And when it comes to developing the high standards we need, it's time to stop working against our teachers and start working with them. Teachers don't go in to education to get rich. They don't go in to education because they don't believe in their children. They want their children to succeed, but we've got to give them the tools. Invest in early childhood education. Invest in our teachers and our children will succeed.
Obviously input is helpful to faculty in trying to come up with a curriculum, but ultimately it's the faculty's job to know what students need to know. Make a decision about it and present it.
One day in Auschwitz I became so dispirited that I couldn't carry on. They had given me a beating, which wasn't exactly a pleasant experience. It was on a Sunday, and I said: 'I can't get up'. Then my comrades said: 'That's impossible, you have to get up, otherwise you're lost'. They went to a Dutch doctor, who worked with the German doctor. He came to me in the barracks and said: 'Get up and come to the hospital barracks early tomorrow morning. I'll talk to the German doctor and make sure you are admitted'. Because of that I survived.
Why can't it be a curriculum? Why can't it be a life skill that they learn just to look after themselves in terms of a healthy way of eating? I think we need to shake up that whole curriculum and give them a little bit more of a lifestyle early on, before they leave school at 18.
People cannot stand the saddest truth I know about the very nature of reading and writing imaginative literature, which is that poetry does not teach us how to talk to other people: it teaches us how to talk to ourselves. What I'm desperately trying to do is to get students to talk to themselves as though they are indeed themselves, and not someone else.
The whole character of Super Dave is a takeoff on people who pontificate. So one thing I never want to do is pontificate why this works, why this is funny. I have no idea what the appeal is. All we are trying to do is make people have a good time and laugh.
In the early 1970s in Atlanta, I attended what had formerly been an all-white school but had become a black school after integration and white flight. Perhaps because of this, the teachers created a curriculum that included a focus on African American literature and history year-round, not just in February.
Children need stimulation and stability. That can come from grandparents, cousins, teachers, nannies, childcare centres - as long as they engage with the children and are really fond of them. There are also times when children need to be left alone to learn to be independent and to encourage their imaginary friends.
I actually have a little routine I do before every shoot. I put a face mask on before bed and make sure I go to sleep early. Then, I get up early and make myself breakfast and get in a workout.
Teachers spend most of their daytime hours with children. Teachers at every level, coaches, counselors, cafeteria workers and yes, custodians, spend their hours trying to make children's lives different, if not always better.
We want to make sure children aren't left without any books. We want to make sure our children have the books, that they have a place in the castle. We want to make sure that their mothers have affordable day care. We want to make sure we give the older people the care that they need.
We want to make sure that we take care of people that most need healthcare, make sure they actually get healthcare instead of just an insurance policy that means they can't access the doctor they want.