I always had amazing food around the dinner table, a beautiful house to live in, cool clothes to wear to school, and help with my homework. I am so lucky.
It was almost like I was in the army: school, work, homework, fly to New York, get in at 2 in the morning, do a morning show at 5 A.M., then another one at 7, then a radio interview at 10, you know?
But I really feel strongly that our kids do way too much homework. The research is on my side. It's easy to make a fuss when you're right. That can be the tagline of my life: 'It's Easy To Make A Fuss When You're Right.'
Yes, I have four children. Four children with whom I spend a good part of every day: bathing them, combing their hair, sitting with them while they do their homework, holding them while they weep their tragic tears. But I'm not in love with any of them. I am in love with my husband.
I hate homework. I hate it more now than I did when I was the one lugging textbooks and binders back and forth from school. The hour my children are seated at the kitchen table, their books spread out before them, the crumbs of their after-school snack littering the table, is without a doubt the worst hour of my day.
I've always been surrounded by many great people and professors, but my family, especially my mom who was a teacher, was the person who encouraged me to study and pushed me to continue. When we're young, we don't understand why our parents bug us so much with school and doing homework, but it's a blessing to have that support at home.
The book that blew the doors off the house, grabbing me with its breathtakingly deep and irresistible view of the universe and our relation to it, was 'Intelligent Life in the Universe' by I. S. Shklovskii and Carl Sagan. I recall an enchanting all-nighter completing a college homework assignment to read the first chapter.
Being in construction my whole life - I was trained as an architect - I always had to work with guys. And I always did my homework and then challenged them to figure it out faster than me. They don't want to be shown up by a woman.
I get her to school, we do homework at night, and at this age, their social calendars are really quite hectic. She's not driving yet, so I end up chauffeuring her around.
KIPP schools would be just a shining example of schools where students aren't just given homework and taught imaginative ways, but they're really brought into a culture of education.
