The day I retired from teaching, again, was one of the most satisfying days of my life and it was sad, but when I — the day I retired, I went home and I was by myself and I was having a glass of wine. I was thinking about the lunch the teachers gave me that day. The retirement lunch. And I was able to look back on that life, that 30 years in the classroom, and say — I was able to congratulate myself. I'm glad I did that. That was good. I felt useful, that I don't think I would have felt if I had gone into business or something like that.

I'm the only president that's ever visited Africa south of the Sahara Desert. I went to two (African) countries while I was president, and I didn't know the potential of that continent, nor the challenges that faced those people. Now I do. To a much greater extent I didn't understand the [widespread] problems in our own country, from a personal point of view. I was dealing with billions of dollars that would be allocated for education or health or welfare or housing, or whatever. But I didn't know from a personal point of view the people that actually were in need or that were the recipients of those quite often inadequate and ill-designed programs.

Then at the time of retirement, that's a big problem in Sweden, as a retired person, because then you are pushed off. I was fortunate even from that point of view because I got a very good research collaboration agreement with Upjohn, the American Upjohn company. So that could help me to go on with my research.

But it happened and it was only after I retired tired and looked back on my career that I realized the strong connection between what I did and my success. And I know that I would not be in as good a place as I am today had I not done that.

I applied to one firm in every sector. This was the most half-hearted job search. “I’ll apply for that management consulting firm and this investment bank…” and I applied for five jobs altogether, because my heart wasn’t in it. And thankfully… I’m so glad I didn’t get any of those big jobs! Because that made this decision easier.

There were definitely teachers who made a huge impact. I think about a woman whose name was Mrs. Fish who was my seventh grade English Language Arts teacher. What I remember about her was just how hard she pushed. I thought I was a perfectly strong student at this point, but she just pushed everyone to their limits. That was very instrumental for me. In fact, all the teachers I remember had that same thing: they just had such high expectations and wouldn’t stop pushing. I think she just conveyed the idea that good wasn’t good enough, and I think the skill development and critical thinking skills that that year developed were also instrumental. But I also think, I don’t know, there’s something about that year that probably instilled within me that ethic that you just have to keep pushing to get better and better, and that if you work hard enough it will pay off.

Wendy Kopp: Education needs a systemic change - Mediamax.am

The Fountainhead , I think, pretty much saved me in the initial years of Teach For America. I loved that book, but I’m not sure books were the seminal thing that guided my path. ... I think it was sort of about “the creator against the world,” and I was probably feeling at that point that I was up against lots of boulders, to pull off the big idea of Teach For America.

And the most fulfilled, centered, grounded, happy people I know are people who made the choice to be part of an effort to actually make the world a better place. ... I would say, to me, the path of least regrets is to at least make a short-term commitment to say, “Let me work to make a real difference in the world.” The worst that could happen is you decide to move into something else later, but you’ll always take with you what you’ve given and what you’ve gained through that experience.

We focus on people and on cultivating local leadership: Wendy Kopp