When I was a child I used to read books by Gerald Durrell who founded Jersey Zoo. He had a job collecting animals for zoos and for a long time that is what I wanted to do. Later when I was a teenager I had a fantastic English teacher called Mrs. Stafford. Her enthusiasm made me decide to be a writer.

As the daughter of a schoolteacher I feel very strongly that the most important thing in school takes place right there in that classroom and the interaction between the teacher and the child.

Every child grows everything depends on the teacher.

I studied with a blind teacher from about 5 until I was 16 at two different schools. From the age of 12 until 16 I was in a boarding school-which I believe at that time was compulsory for blind children.

Both my grandmothers had upright pianos and I just knew how to play since I was a child. Nobody taught me. I sounded like a grown-up and then I learned how to read music. I played so well by ear I could fool the teacher to believe I could play the notes. She'd make the mistake of playing the song once and I could play it.

I need a teacher quite as much as Helen. I know the education of this child will be the distinguishing event of my life if I have the brains and perseverance to accomplish it.

The processes of teaching the child that everything cannot be as he wills it are apt to be painful both to him and to his teacher.

Find a good teacher as I found for my sons. I feel the worst thing you can do is to try and teach your own children yourself because there is a natural rebellion that occurs.

A father is a person who's around participating in a child's life. He's a teacher who helps to guide and shape and mold that young person someone for that young person to talk to to share with their ups and their downs their fears and their concerns.

Children are already accustomed to a world that moves faster and is more exciting than anything a teacher in front of a classroom can do.

When you become a parent or a teacher you turn into a manager of this whole system. You become the person controlling the bubble of innocence around a child regulating it.

I think there are so many ways to become interested in music. I believe signs of sustained interest gives a sense of the right time. Music if thought of as a language would perhaps indicate that as early as possible is not so bad. I do believe that a really nurturing first teacher that makes the child love something is crucial.

I was a mimic when I was a child. I mimicked the teacher and made friends that way actually. That was a very subversive activity because I was a goody-goody who never got in trouble. But if I went off in the corner and mimicked the teacher people loved it.

There are ways we can go do a better job of educating young moms and dads about the vital role they have as the child's first teacher. I think there are ways in which we can partner with local school districts and states to do a better job to provide nutrition options at school.

A little girl who finds a puzzle frustrating might ask her busy mother (or teacher) for help. The child gets one message if her mother expresses clear pleasure at the request and quite another if mommy responds with a curt 'Don't bother me - I've got important work to do.'

To the teacher weighed down with paperwork I say: you've been messed around too often. You came into teaching to spend your time teaching children not filling in forms.

Research is starting to show that a child should be engaged at least 20 hours a week. I do not think it matters which program you choose as long as it keeps the child actively engaged with the therapist teacher or parent for at least 20 hours a week.

The object of teaching a child is to enable him to get along without his teacher.

Please stop teaching my children that everyone gets a trophy just for participating. What is this the Nobel Prize? Not everybody gets a trophy.

We spend the first twelve months of our children's lives teaching them to walk and talk and the next twelve telling them to sit down and shut up.

One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings. The curriculum is so much necessary raw material but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child.

Children even infants are capable of sympathy. But only after adolescence are we capable of compassion.

Children require guidance and sympathy far more than instruction.

It's hard for children's authors to be accepted when they try to write adult books. J.K. Rowling is the exception because people are so eager to read anything by her but it took Judy Blume three or four tries before she had a success.