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I cried every day of first grade. In class. Which meant I ended up getting comfortable emoting in a place where it wasn't the norm.

I knew I had to find my own way of teaching.

I was trained to be very tough. My mom told me I shouldn't cry; I shouldn't be afraid of anything.

I was accorded the opportunity to learn by failing - albeit at the cost of a few honourable teachers' sanity - and now I realise what a rare and incredible luxury that is.

It's good to actually cry. Trust me, I've had a lot of practice over the years!

But by reading them again and again finally I was able to grasp the essential part. What emotion, enthusiasm, enlightenment and confidence they communicated to me! I wept for joy.

I always felt I needed to teach to survive.

I learnt pity, sympathy, and what it was like to be at the other end of the stick. Such lessons can't be learnt in lecture halls.

Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.