My daughter just left a partner track at a law firm to run her own company. I remember when she came home from Grade 1 upset that her first questionnaire had been marked 'C' I told her 'honey, a first grade teacher doesn't give grades. That meant your answers were all correct.'

My wife was grateful that, all through school I never asked her over dinner about her grades. I alwys asked "What did you learn". She did though, learn that if she had a question, sometimes the best thing to do was to look it up in the Encyclopedia Britannica in the living room.

She attended Tufts as an undergrad because she felt most at home there. At the end of her first year, she was upset with herself because all of her friends had chosen majors and she still wasn't sure. My response was "I am not paying for you to go to Tufts to learn a trade. I want you to get a liberal arts education. Take the courses that interest you. But as a favour to your ol' papa do this: I know you'll never follow me into Computer Science, but please take two math courses, one in Logic and the other in Probability and Statistics. They'll put you in good stead. Bless her, she did, graduating in Political Science and Environmental Studies, and going on to Law School.

When we attended her cousin's high school graduation, her advice to him touched my heart: she said, as you go further in life, remember this advice (that I had taught her): never let your classes get in the way of your education. There is more to learning than what you get in a school-room.