I have long been one of those tedious people who rails against the coronation of 'student-athletes.' I have heard the argument that big-time athletics bring in loads of money to universities. I don't believe the money goes anywhere other than back into the sports teams but that's another story.

For some students school is the only place where they get a hot meal and a warm hug. Teachers are sometimes the only ones who tell our children they can go from an Indian reservation to the Ivy League from the home of a struggling single mom to the White House.

I've always been a writer because I've always been a student. My mom's a retired professor so I come from a very academic background. I love writing you know?

If we became students of Malcolm X we would not have young black men out there killing each other like they're killing each other now. Young black men would not be impregnating young black women at the rate going on now. We'd not have the drugs we have now or the alcoholism.

I was proud to share the stories of my friends at Georgetown Law who have suffered dire medical consequences because our student insurance does not cover contraception for the purpose of preventing pregnancy.

So I applied to medical school and received a scholarship at Washington University in St. Louis. Washington University turned out to be a lucky choice. The faculty was scholarly and dedicated and accessible to students.

Quite frankly Barack Obama knows what it's like to pay a mortgage and student loans. He knows what it's like to watch a beloved family member in a medical crisis and worry that treatment is out of reach. Barack Obama knows our struggles. And my friends he shares our values.

I spent some time at White Memorial Medical Center as a senior medical student doing a rotation in surgery however I felt I wasn't getting enough time assisting.

Corporate governance is a huge issue too. We don't have women on these corporate boards. More than half of the students in law school are women more than half of the women I think in medical school now are women.

There have been some medical schools in which somewhere along the assembly line a faculty member has informed the students not so much by what he said but by what he did that there is an intimate relation between curing and caring.

The sad truth is that the civil rights movement cannot be reborn until we identify the causes of black suffering some of them self-inflicted. Why can't black leaders organize rallies around responsible sexuality birth within marriage parents reading to their children and students staying in school and doing homework?

Instead California is one of only 10 states that provides in-state college and university tuition to illegal immigrants. That's grossly unfair to a legal high school student who moves out of California for a year then returns to attend college.

I've led a school whose faculty and students examine and discuss and debate every aspect of our law and legal system. And what I've learned most is that no one has a monopoly on truth or wisdom. I've learned that we make progress by listening to each other across every apparent political or ideological divide.

Every year some 65 000 high school students - many of them star students and leaders in their communities - are unable to go to college or get a good job because they have no legal status.

Responsibility for learning belongs to the student regardless of age.

Students who are interested in learning about the environment should not be dissuaded from doing so but only if they have proved their proficiency in other basic courses such as U.S. history. Until then we need to focus on producing well-educated citizens steeped in their country's history and mindful of their civic responsibilities.

My one thing is I continue to be interested and want to be a student. I don't want to be a master. When I'm learning something I'm in my element.

My number one goal was not getting 'A's' - and I proved it. I was a 'C' student. You have to be ready to learn. If you're not interesting in learning it doesn't work. As I grew older and wanted to learn and desperately wanted inside information learning was a lot easier.

The top experts in the world are ardent students. The day you stop learning you're definitely not an expert.

I tell students 'If you are learning from YouTube I almost don't want to teach you because what you learn from YouTube it takes 10 times as long to unlearn.' They do an approximation of the centre of the note an approximation of the interpretation a cloned version.

The lopsided attitudes of college professors pose a serious challenge to learning because students are so susceptible to becoming lopsided sheep.

I can always see what I've done wrong. I'm always learning. I'm the perennial student.

The novel is about five students of classics who are studying with a classics professor and they take the ideas of the things that they're learning from him a bit too seriously with terrible consequences.

I'm happy to be helping people that are passionate about empowering parents for student learning.