Children know perfectly well that unicorns aren’t real, but they also know that books about unicorns, if they are good books, are true books.

The content of most textbooks is perishable, but the tools of self-directedness serve one well over time.

Why administrators are respected and schoolteachers are not: An administrator is paid a lot for doing very little, while a teacher is paid very little for doing a lot.

My father used to say the people of Swat and the teachers would continue to educate our children until the last room, the last teacher and the last student was alive. My parents never once suggested I should withdraw from school, ever. Though we loved school, we hadn't realized how important education was until the Taliban tried to stop us.

When I read about the way in which library funds are being cut and cut, I can only think that American society has found one more way to destroy itself.

Many of us grow up thinking of mistakes as bad, viewing errors as evidence of fundamental incapacity. This negative thinking pattern can create a self-fulfilling prophecy, which undermines the learning process. To maximize our learning it is essential to ask: "How can we get the most from every mistake we make?"