At P.S. 224 in Woodside, Queens, where students raised $3,887.26 in pennies for the Red Cross, the principal, Rita Silverman, said she decided not to adopt the Fund for Afghan Children as a school project because students were so intent on helping their own city.
Alan Bennett identified with a sweetly sanitised Pre-Raphaelite painting of Jesus on the cross at his school, because, as a very late developer who hated the tortures of the gym room, he felt empathy for someone hanging from a bar with no underarm hair.
Venus and Serena Williams battled each other for what amounted to a school day because, as Venus said, "When you're little, you just keep hitting and hitting.
He chose the school because, as it was only eight years old, it had one of the most modern laboratories available.
In their neighborhoods, the girls said, their school is seen as "a school for nerds," in part because it does not have sports teams.
Nor can they recruit abroad, as a school or a hospital might, because even a nice foreigner rather undermines the idea of "national" security.
But what I'd say is you need a very sound and well-thought through plan, because as a school you're taking on significant extra financial and employment risks.
That didn't translate easily into something we could talk about unless it directly related to people's own personal experience, such as a school losing its drama provision because of the Gove reforms.
The lesson was aimed at the more able and talented pupils because as a school.
"I have to be honest with you, as a school we are now very proud because we are able to keep more pupils in school than was the case three or four years ago," says Geoffrey Kanola, the school's deputy head teacher.
