When I was in the seventh grade, I had a girlfriend. I used to save up some of my pocket money to get her gifts on Valentine's Day.

I was sort of traumatized by girls in the third grade. Because there was a girl in my third grade class I had a crush on. I bought her a box of Valentine's Day chocolate. And I put it in her cubby with a note that said something like, 'I am deeply in love with you, Your Secret Admirer.' And I didn't sign my name.

When you invest your time, you make a goal and a decision of something that you want to accomplish. Whether it's make good grades in school, be a good athlete, be a good person, go down and do some community service and help somebody who's in need, whatever it is you choose to do, you're investing your time in that.

I started acting in second grade - my first role was in the Thanksgiving play. I was the Indian chasing the turkey. All the other mom's encouraged my mom to get me into acting after that. Also, when I saw 'The Sound of Music' at Music Circus, I knew I wanted to act.

I'm not a gadget freak, so to say. I own an iPhone, which I love, and would sorely love to upgrade to MacBook Air from my current MacBook Pro. But what gets me going is the technology behind the gadgets, new websites, new apps. And I'm way too much into social media - FB, Twitter and Instagram are always open on my phone.

Community colleges need to be upgraded. We got to have training for real jobs. We've got a lot of jobs that are going unfilled because we don't have the technology in the heads of graduating college students to deal with them.

My parents made it clear that I should never display even the slightest disrespect to individuals who had the power to let me skip a half grade or move into more challenging classes. While it was all right for me to know more about a topic than my sixth-grade teacher had ever learned, questioning her facts could only lead to trouble.

I had a Spanish teacher in high school. I rarely got in trouble in her room because I felt I was disappointing her if I got a bad grade. That had more power over me than teachers who told me I talked too much. That level of respect I had for her made me not want to fail for her.

I'm blessed because I had my mom as a teacher - sixth through eighth grade - and she is one of the best teachers I've ever had.

I was a good student. My mom is a teacher, and her side of the family is all teachers. She put a big emphasis on getting good grades.

When I was able to go to school in my early years, my third grade teacher, Ms. Harris, convinced me that one day I would be a writer. I heard her, but I knew that I had to leave Georgia, and unlike my friend Ray Charles, I did not go around with 'Georgia on My Mind.'

One of the first serious attempts I made to write a novel was when I was in Grade 6 and I had read 'Matilda.' I wrote my own version and my teacher had it bound and permitted me to read it to the class - cementing my love of reading, writing and Roald Dahl!

I remember my fourth grade teacher reading 'Charlotte's Web' and 'Stuart Little' to us - both, of course, by E. B. White. His stories were genuinely funny, thought provoking and full of irony and charm. He didn't condescend to his readers, which was why I liked his books, and why I wasn't a big reader of other children's' books.

My younger sister had kids before I did, and managed to earn a master's degree while raising them as a single parent. Now she's a brilliant second-grade teacher. I'm in awe of her ability to juggle everything and still be a great mother.

In the fourth grade, my history teacher gave us a project: Why was the auto industry located in Detroit, Michigan? I didn't know I was going to be an economist, but I knew I was going to do something that was involved in answering questions like that one because I thought that was a fascinating question.

I do home schooling. I went to regular school until fifth grade, and then I started doing home schooling, which it's completely different. I have a teacher on set with me and I just work with her, one-on-one.

Quite honestly I never had a desire to be an actor. I tell people, I did not choose acting; acting chose me. I never grew up wanting to be an actor. I wanted to play football. In about 9th grade an English teacher told me I had a talent to act. He said I should audition for a performing arts high school so I did on a whim. I got accepted.

Before I got Doctor Who, I went to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. I went back to take the final grade exam, which is the grade you have to take before you can take the teacher's diploma.

The Sunday School teacher talked too much in the way our grade school teacher used to when she told us about George Washington. Pleasant, pretty stories, but not true.

I'd like to say I was smart enough to finish six grades in five years, but I think perhaps the teacher was just glad to get rid of me.

I created 'Captain Underpants' when I was in the second grade. I was constantly getting in trouble for being the class clown, so my teacher sent me out into the hallway to punish me. It was there in the hall that I began drawing 'Captain Underpants'. Soon I was making my own comic books about him.

In a sinful world, no community can exist for long where nobody is ever held accountable: no teacher would grade a student's performance; no citizen would sit on a jury or call a failed leader to account.

I love to read. I'm still pen pals with my ninth-grade English teacher, Mr. Shanley. He tells me what books to read.

My mother was a first-grade teacher, so I credit her with this lifelong intellectual curiosity I have, and love of reading and learning.