While growing up in Baltimore, Maryland, I dreamed of becoming many things: an archaeologist, an ambassador, an actor, an author.

I have earned wages as a waitress, a nanny, a librarian, a personnel officer, an agricultural laborer, an advertising secretary, a typesetter, a proofreader, a mental-health-care provider, a substitute teacher, and a book reviewer. In and around the edges of all those jobs I have written poems, stories, and books, books, books.

As an actor and as a performer, I've felt that the education system has really helped me in a lot of ways... there was always a teacher or a professor along the way that kept pushing me to the next stage.

At school, my favorite subjects were history, biology, chemistry, and physics. Especially the teaching in physics was excellent. Most of my understanding of it I got at high school, not at the university.

This is not a zero-sum game. We know that if we provide access and education, particularly where there are gaps in the market, we will create more jobs, we will create more growth, and we will create more activity in the U.S. market, which will be good for our economy.

My view, as one who taught it, is that the whole purpose of a literary education should be to tell people that these things exist. I don't think any teacher should try to 'teach an author,' but rather simply describe what the author has written. And this is what I tried to do.