Much of my writing is politically motivated. I consider myself a liberal and generally write about policy and people who define it. My second love is education. I was an educator for most of my adult life and have strong convictions about schools, learning, and educational practice. Having worked in public and private schools, taught at the college level, and started a tutoring center that focused on students with learning difficulties, I concluded that the current evaluation of student ability and the emphasis on objective standards was detrimental for some and highly advantageous for others. In my later years, I have worked on practice that was centered on developing the talents each student possesses. The Howard Gardner School in Scranton, PA, is a charter school focused on individual strengths, outdoor education, and experiential learning. Gardner's work on multiple intelligences informed our practice.