I never really liked school, even though school is where I stayed for 20 years. I earned a Bachelor's of Arts degree in Political Science, then after some years of hard labor, a juris doctor (a U.S. "doctor of laws").

The two decades after that went to federal criminal and prisoner rights law, in federal courtrooms and prisons and living rooms around the country. I've passed written bar exams in the States of Maryland and North Carolina, and earned admission to the Bars of four United States Courts of Appeal, and six U.S. District Courts. I have practiced federal law from sea to shining sea.

But I've also served as a substitute teacher in Kentucky public schools, and now I'm watching up close as kids of my own boom into learning and reasoning. I know first-hand that education can change one's lot in life. I understand that school was not an obstruction to my real-life contributions, but the opening stages of making those contributions. Today for me, nothing beats the light entering the eyes before a mind that just understood.