When I act tough they listen politely till the spasm passes. They know.

There's nothing sillier in the world than a teacher telling you don't do it after you already did it.

Teaching is bringing the news.

I am teaching. Storytelling is teaching.

Everything in my head was secondhand, too: Catholicism; Ireland's sad history, a litany of suffering and martyrdom drummed into me by priests, schoolmasters and parents who knew no better.

There's something hostile about the way they enter and leave the room that tells you what they think of you. It could be your imagination and you try to figure out what will bring them over to your side. You try lessons that worked with other classes but even that doesn't help and it's because of that chemistry. They know when they have you on the run. They have instincts that detect your frustrations.

You can't teach in a vacuum. A good teacher relates the material to real life. You understand that, don't you?

Nobody ever told them they had a right to an opinion.

To enter a room is to move from one environment to another and that, for the teenager, can be traumatic. There be dragons, daily horrors from acne to zit.