As a teenager, Claire Danes starred as Angela Chase in the short-lived American TV series My So-Called Life. She lives with her attentive parents and her sister in a nice house in a nice neighborhood; naturally, she eschews them and is drawn to the miserable kids with miserable family lives.

In one episode, Angela’s best friend, Rayanne Graff, gets dangerously intoxicated. Rayanne’s mother, previously established as cool and laid back compared to Angela’s very square, anxious mother, is dismissive: “You are too drunk, young lady. Way too drunk.”

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It was the last day of school. It had been a bittersweet morning full of summer sunshine and goodbyes.

One of the last remaining students began to cry. “It’s over!” she wailed to her mother. “I don’t want it to be over!”

“It’s okay, honey,” her mom said. “You can have sleepovers with Emma and Sarah — you’ll see your friends! You’re going to camp! Remember how excited you were about that? And we’ll be back here again in just a couple of months!”

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A classroom isn't a factory, churning out the product of educated humans. We can't just go through the motions of something and assume that someone can learn. The process is highly collaborative and highly dependent on getting into the right emotional state. In order to learn, there needs to be trust.

It's easy to understand why children might have a hard time trusting adults. We, as a society (and sometimes teachers and parents in particular) are constantly telling children things that aren't true in an effort to manipulate them. It's "for their own good" sometimes, and sometimes it's "for our own convenience."

Is it any wonder that, after awhile, they become wary?

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As a freshman voice student, I was in trouble: I was supposed to sing opera, which I was terrible at.

My first teacher was an older man with a brisk, condescending demeanor. Our lessons together were bearable, but something was missing. By January or so, I didn’t feel that I had made a lot of improvement, and I’m sure he felt the same way.

One day, I asked him, “Do you believe that anyone can learn to sing?”

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Conversation with children has a different flavor than conversation with adults.

The usual give-and-take is not often present. The sequence of topics may be illogical by adult standards.

To be fair, however, the pacing and sequence of topics may be illogical by kid standards, too. And that’s because…

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