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I just want to make a point that it's not just great teachers that sometimes shape your life. Sometimes it's the absence of great teachers that shapes your life and being ignored can be just as good for a person as being lauded.

Sure, just like there are bad lawyers, bad doctors and bad politicians, there are people who aren't cut out to be teachers. But by and large, the people who are called to be teachers are passionate about the profession.

Often times the public school teachers are ridiculed or they are made to feel inferior but this is really undeserved.

I think good teachers are underpaid.

When we become a really mature, grown-up, wise society, we will put teachers at the center of the community, where they belong. We don't honor them enough, we don't pay them enough.

Teaching is a truly noble profession. It's sad the amount of responsibility that teachers have today. They're not only teaching kids: they're raising kids, policing kids - and they don't make a lot of money.

Well, teachers have been profoundly demoralized in recent years and are often treated with contempt by politicians. There's a great deal of reckless rhetoric in Washington about the mediocrity of the teaching profession - and I don't find that to be true at all.

Teachers have the hardest and most important jobs in America. They're building our nation. And we should appreciate them, respect them, and pay them well.

Teachers are out there with a very difficult job, which they pursue with tireless dedication.

Teachers are unparalleled in the role they play in children's lives.