Reading journalist Mark Hertsgaard’s account of how Americans perceive and are perceived throughout the world. He quotes British journalist Rupert Cornwell:

No one wraps self-interest in moral superiority quite like the Americans do.

Hertsgaard, Mark. The Eagle’s Shadow : Why America Fascinates and Infuriates the World. 1st ed. New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2002.

In my work in Philadelphia, I’m struck by how often people declare that “the students are lucky to have _____,” whether it’s a good teacher, some exotic new technology, or some unexpected resource.

While luck has little to do with it — it’s not luck in Newton, or Radnor, or Edina –there’s another piece. What’s rarely considered is what the students bring to the table: students may be lucky to have some new computers, but the world is lucky that the students have a new avenue of expression. Students may have a great teacher but most good teachers know that it is their students who make them who they are.