For any reporter, education is a topic where everything else - money, politics, et cetera - intersects. I have four kids in K through 12, so I'm knee-deep in it. I'm really interested in the philosophy behind it all. Should you just memorize your multiplication tables, or should you understand the concept behind them?

My trademark at CNN was really asking insightful questions and making sure people are understanding the connections in humanity, and I think that is the core of education.

I have a philosophy that white people would be interested in Native Americans because, first of all, it's probably the only group as a country we all study and know the history and then never study again past the age of 10. So I think we have these things we believe are true, that are just not true about what an audience wants.

I covered Katrina, I've covered the tsunamis, all of them, the Haiti earthquake... you get to a certain point in your career where you say, 'I want to now cover what I want to cover.'

Teachers have told us across the country that what's severely outdated is the teacher at the front of the classroom as the font of knowledge, because as we know, access to knowledge and information is now ubiquitous. So instead, teachers want to help students learn how to think so that they can be lifelong learners.

My father is very dry and very quick-witted, and my mother is very silly. It was the perfect combination because I got an education in physical and verbal comedy.

Periods of tranquility are seldom prolific of creative achievement. Mankind has to be stirred up.

Spend enough time around success and failure, and you learn a reverence for possibility.