When I was growing up, I was told I was stupid and that I would never achieve. I suffered from dyslexia, and in those days it wasn't recognised.

I have had teachers who were brutal. If you look up 'brutal' in a dictionary, you will see their names. And I think that it's under the guise of wanting to change the actor's habit - wanting to break bad habits and replace them with brand-new ones you can use for the rest of your career.

If the country is going to be great, everybody has a gift, and I tell every child I meet, whether they have asked me or not, 'You have greatness inside you, and your job is to figure out what that is, dig it out, and give it to the world. Because the world needs everything, every one of you.'

It is the parent's job to see how their child learns and to make sure that the children's self confidence is buoyed at all times, or they will plummet like a stone.

They call Howard University the 'capstone of black education.' Howard was one of the historically black colleges where people want to go and send their children. Both of my grandfathers went through the medical school, and being in D.C., not far from New York City, it was a natural choice for me.

What we're doing now is we're saying that individual schools can spend the money on their own priorities, so that head teachers can decide what's truly important, because the big shift in approach on education that we're taking - which is different from what happened before - is that we trust teachers and we trust heads.

Education is a continual process, it's like a bicycle... If you don't pedal you don't go forward.

The cure for the Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice and Eric Garner tragedies is not education or exposure. It's the gospel.