Teacher

I became a poet in Pittsburgh. When I lived in the South, I was a basketball player and primarily a jock. An English teacher essentially suggested that I send the poems that I'd been writing - really just for him - to a few programs, so that when I wound up in Pittsburgh, it's where I figured out that I could actually be a poet.

I started studying music at the age of five and a half. My older sister was taking piano lessons. When her teacher left our apartment, I would get up on the piano bench and start picking out the notes that were part of my sister's lessons.

My big sister's an engineer, my oldest brother is a lecturer at Cambridge University, another is a kidney specialist, another is an engineer, one set up his own business, my other sister's training to be a teacher and there's me wanting to be a presenter.

I don't really consider myself a teacher. I think - like, I have opinions like everyone else, and I just share my opinions.

My father drove a truck, and my mother was a school teacher. They wanted their children to go the traditional route: get good grades, go to college, get a job.

We can not wait until we have enough trained people willing to work at a teacher's salary and under conditions imposed upon teachers in order to improve what happens in the classroom.

My mother was an art school teacher and my father was an interior designer. So we've been relatively open minded as opposed to my conservative maternal side.

I wanted to become a teacher, like my mother, or a charity worker. But my mom says that when I was younger, I told her, 'People are going to know me,' so I guess I always had that idea.

My brother is a policeman; my sister's an English teacher. When I hear what they make versus what I make, it's ridiculous.

There happened to be guitar classes at the college, and there was a guitar teacher there with whom I used to play. In addition, I also would go out into country schools and teach little kids basic guitar and singing a few times a week.

Found out I'm actually a pretty good teacher.

There's always someone asking you to underline one piece of yourself - whether it's Black, woman, mother, dyke, teacher, etc. - because that's the piece that they need to key in to. They want to dismiss everything else.

All I wanted to be was a teacher and perhaps give dance recitals from time to time.

Right from growing up I always wanted to be a teacher, but my dad discouraged me.

The crudest thing I've done as a teacher was to require students to write a national anthem for their country and sing it themselves.

I tell my son Corey that the greatest teacher is the teacher who says, 'Don't follow me; follow yourself. Because within you there is that kingdom, that life, that force.'

I wanted to be an endurance athlete from a young age. I remember being in a careers class at school and saying I wanted to be a professional athlete and the teacher replying, 'You're not going to make it; it's not possible.'

Shahid is a paternal figure to me. He's almost like a teacher. All my life, I've learned so much by watching him. I can't possibly consider him as competition to me. In fact, I would say, we're a team.

Like most people, I was not able to start selling my stories right away. So I had many other jobs along the way to becoming a writer, including toy maker, gravedigger, cookware salesman, and assembly line worker. Eventually, I became an elementary teacher and worked with second and fourth graders.

I thought I'd grow up to be a teacher, or maybe run for political office.