We have the sense that medical students come to medicine with a great capacity to understand the suffering of patients. And then by the end of the third year they completely lose that ability, partly because we teach them the specialized language of medicine.

When I was a medical student in the 1950s, we practically never spoke about Alzheimer's disease. And why is that so? And that is because people didn't live long enough to have Alzheimer's disease.

Many medical students, like most American patients, confuse science and technology. They think that what it means to be a scientific doctor is to bring to bear the maximum amount of technology on any given patient. And this makes them dangerous.

When I ask my medical students to describe their image of a woman who elects to birth with a midwife rather than with an obstetrician, they generally describe a woman who wears long cotton skirts, braids her hair, eats only organic vegan food, does yoga, and maybe drives a VW microbus.

There have been some medical schools in which somewhere along the assembly line, a faculty member has informed the students, not so much by what he said but by what he did, that there is an intimate relation between curing and caring.

Congress should pass a law repealing birthright citizenship for children of foreign citizens, with the sole exception being children of legal permanent residents. Children born to business travelers, foreign students, tourists, and illegal aliens would not be automatically citizens of the United States.

Every year, some 65,000 high school students - many of them star students and leaders in their communities - are unable to go to college or get a good job because they have no legal status.

Instead, California is one of only 10 states that provides in-state college and university tuition to illegal immigrants. That's grossly unfair to a legal high school student who moves out of California for a year, then returns to attend college.

I've led a school whose faculty and students examine and discuss and debate every aspect of our law and legal system. And what I've learned most is that no one has a monopoly on truth or wisdom. I've learned that we make progress by listening to each other, across every apparent political or ideological divide.

Learning should be engaging. Testing should not be the be all and end all. All students should have a broad curriculum that includes the arts and enrichment. Students should have opportunities to work in teams and engage in project-based learning. And student and family well-being should be front and center.

Education in our times must try to find whatever there is in students that might yearn for completion, and to reconstruct the learning that would enable them autonomously to seek that completion.

Technology has enormous potential to address educational needs more efficiently, help teachers improve their performance, and enrich and individualize student learning.

We are all in the business of sales. Teachers sell students on learning, parents sell their children on making good grades and behaving, and traditional salesmen sell their products.

Learning options will indeed mushroom for business students and leaders, but it will take prudence and shrewdness to find and utilize the best option.

The day I think I've achieved everything will be the day I fail. There is no end to learning, and I want to continue being a student.

A graduate student who is still learning courses is not really taking a maximum advantage of a research university's offerings. He should already be finished with course-taking, as he would then be able to shape his own taste about what is a good subject for research work in the graduate school.

My one thing is I continue to be interested and want to be a student. I don't want to be a master. When I'm learning something, I'm in my element.

The top experts in the world are ardent students. The day you stop learning, you're definitely not an expert.

Mind mapping is a technique based on memory and creativity and comprehension and understanding, so when the student or a child uses the mind map, they are using their brain in the way their brain was designed to be used, and so the mind helps them in all learning and cognitive skills. It simply helps them in what the brain does naturally.

As long as I keep it real, I learn something from everyone. And when you view yourself as a student and not as somebody who's bigger, there is still learning that can be done every day, and that keeps you open-minded and more ready to learn about life and love.

With every book, you go back to school. You become a student. You become an investigative reporter. You spend a little time learning what it's like to live in someone else's shoes.

I believe that the testing of the student's achievements in order to see if he meets some criterion held by the teacher, is directly contrary to the implications of therapy for significant learning.

Every student has something to offer, and every student deserves a nurturing learning environment.

Work-based learning is a game changer. It's like test driving a career, and I have seen it in action with our registered apprenticeship programs for high school students.