Brooke Shields

I always feel like the odd mom out, because trust me when I tell you I'm on my girls. And every time I am, I know from the outside it looks like I'm an overbearing, controlling parent. But I don't think we have any responsibility to anybody else but our kids and ourselves.

Being nice to everybody, saying hello to everyone in the room, signing every autograph; it was instilled in me at a very young age that this was what I was suppose to do. But I don't think it helps at all. I see more people who are rude or arrogant being rewarded - but, this way, I can put my head on the pillow at night.

Innate mechanisms endow the visual system with highly specific connections, but visual experience early in life is necessary for their maintenance and full development. Deprivation experiments demonstrate that neural connections can be modulated by environmental influences during a critical period of postnatal development.

We have an obligation and a responsibility to be investing in our students and our schools. We must make sure that people who have the grades, the desire and the will, but not the money, can still get the best education possible.