schoolteacher and she taught in the d.c. public schools so i have great affection for the d.c. public schools and d.c. charter schools in particular and public education has been part and parcel of my own life beginning with my own parents. if that wouldn't be enough to make me defend schools and i don't think being a teacher is enough to make you offer the defense what you do in a paragraph in this book where you call it mirror of society that can't turn away kids and go on further so one can describe your own sense of what it's like to have to work in a transient district like many of nv's reno schools today. whenever they throw i knew you have got to teach. what's it like for somebody in that profession today throwing into the situation. ..

i do have some frustration when i hear people talk about the jurors or they talk about how productive the private schools are, why can't they be do with public schools are doing?

i supposedly picked our clients we could have the same results because it is a little disingenuous to say 99% of our kids go on to college when you have an entrance exam and you choose who you allowed in. you don't serve as special needs children and you are coming your requirements sort of filter out folks that maybe you don't want there. so, that is really not a fair comparison. it is apples and oranges. i love the public schools because they do take everybody and it can be a child, what we call children in transition in our school district which are homeless, it can be a child of course who is struggling with addictions. their family is very unstable. it can be very high and child who has a very supportive family, and strong education background in that family and pushing that child but we educate the spectrum, and we accept them all when they come through those doors with a they

are in wheelchairs, walkers, sneakers, no backpacks. we take them all. and, we get them wherever they are and we hopefully are moving them forward. it is hard work, it is hard work. i do feel like the public schools are a mirror to society and that often you can tell with the villages like by the school, and if you walk in that school you are going to say the same ills that are outside the school, because those children bring issues into the school. we need to find ways to help them and to deal with it and educate them. >> host: i am a great the votes the ofr catholic schools here, but have very much been against private schools. we have a voucher experiment thrust upon us against the will of the majority of the people here. republicans were in power and refused to bring a bill for batres to the floor but because they can do anything they want

to the district, they have done so. the results showed that the children who were already in private school are doing fine. but the experiment was children in the very same place, in the poorest performing public schools to compare them. that his ben loss. now they are comparing children who were already doing well with children who are in the public schools were as i am in the position of having gone to public school, but there has to be an alternative for a child at the public-school can do its job and we have an extraordinary, no longer experiment. a third of our children go to public charter schools, publicly supported. that means off with your head, if you are not doing what you are supposed to do. in a private school, especially

to worry respect freedom of religion. we can't go into that school to find out very much so there is a needless kind of controversy here when the people have voted with their feet for an extraordinary public alternative. i don't think it's happened anywhere else in the country but i was interested in your view because you have the kind of balance that we need to bring to education. a child in a different school for every child if the public school is not there but it ought to be publicly supported school that is accountable to the public if the public funds are going to go to those schools. >> guest: that is right. >> host: i was very intrigued by your role as an educator. that teachers don't know everything and how to continue to have their respective children while making them understand that and you saw your role according to your book more as a facilitator then a classic teacher, and you told a story about how the nevada or the reno

school system did not have enough social studies books. in fact it didn't have any so you used newspapers and they had these weird words. i guess they came from washington, the names of agencies that don't really describe what the agency that and you would say-- said you would ask a rather embarrassing question and he would say, well let's look it up. you used a phrase, passionately cary's from einstein. what you described, how you kept their respect even know you didn't know? >> guest: i think one of the most important roles to play at the teacher is to show that you are a learner and what a good learner means, and you sure don't know everything. there is no way everybody can know everything and i think particularly young teachers feel threatened if there's a question that is ask and they don't know the answers so maybe, not right now and they may be put that child of. you have just lost an

opportunity to show what it means to be an educated person and be learner because you don't need to know everything. what you need to know is how you find out. how we educate ourselves? and it is good to be curious, it is good to not know, it is good to ask questions. we want children to do that. we want them to probe and be curious. we don't want to shut them down because it is not in this chapter in were not learning that yet. let's explore. that is what education should be, and exploration in learning. >> host: well, ms. cahill once you get these passionate lawyers before you know what a political campaign, where you stand on some of the issues? they ask you these, they had some passionately curious questions for you. and you talk about questions like, what are your views on abortion? now, you are, you are raising this class to be insistence

learners. so, they ask you, okay ms. cahill we want to know where you stand on abortion. everybody talks about it around here. how you handle a question like that after telling everybody were supposed to ask questions around here, and answer them. >> guest: first of all of you need to know i made a commitment to the parents and that is that i was not going to brainwash their children into being a liberal. that was not my goal. bigel was not to focus on the issues but focus on the process. when the child that corner me and ask me that-- i knew his parents were struggling and they were looking at a divorce. they were a very religious family so i would say christian conservative, and kids tend to like their teachers because they tend to look at them as a role model, another grown up that they have an attachment to. >> host: which is why it is so important that we both have freedom, academic freedom and that teachers take that

seriously by not brainwashing them. >> guest: that is not our jobs, absolutely. when that young man asked, he was very cute because he says, i won't tell anybody. i just really want to know what you think ms. cahill about abortion? my heart really kind of aid for him because i knew that he was trying to see if we lined up with his religious views. he liked me and he did not want to not like me. >> host: but he did not want the wrong answer. >> guest: he wanted his answer. what i said was, sweetheart what i really care about is what you think. i think what is important here is what he believed so what do you think about that issue? he said, i think it is wrong. i think it is they like and it could have been me. most children will associate those issues with themselves and i understand that. so, i apathetically said, i totally understand what you are

saying, i absolutely do but i don't think what i believe on the issue is important. i think what you believe is important and i really hope to talk to your mom and dad about it because it is important to have family conversations. >> host: that is a wonderful demonstration in the kind of cross-examination you want to teach them to do. you did not have to answer it, he answered it. his answer is legitimate. most of us would have been really flummoxed about how to get around that one, especially given your philosophy. to give our audience, ms. cahill, a sense of your gift as a teacher, i was very moved as a washingtonian, a third-generation washingtonian surrounded by these wonderful monuments, by the link you made between washington, its architecture, its monuments and democracy. would you say something about

that please? >> guest: sure, sixth grade social studies is essentially world history and civics so you start out looking at the great rivers in the civilizations of mesopotamia and egypt and then you go right into greece and rome. that is where the challenge presented itself is when we bring looking at greece and talking about democracy and the great general pericles. that is when one of my students dared me to prove the average american could run for office. so that is how this whole thing of all, was when we were in greece. but part of greek history that is so important not only democracy but is also looking at the architecture and the way communities function-- functions and they were very progressive for their time. and so, to look at how our founding fathers just to look back throughout history and pull those classic architecture, those classical years into our own government is key and kids

need to know that. [applause] i would just recommend to greeters a wonderful book called the greek way, to understand how we all are greeks and all that we value of about our system of life and our democracy and our people, ourselves as western people. it is a wonderful book. here, in linking the architecture, these things that are related to the greeks. they are not just some pretty monuments. children are getting a very sophisticated education from ms. cahill it sounds to me. i am not sure the average american has made that blank. ms. cahill, there was a remarkable passage in your book about a man who was pro-nra, anti-abortion and how you had affected his, his daughter.

i am going to just have you read this. just read this passage please. >> guest: yes maam. i cannot believe that my child is watching cnn brent thompson told me. though he was a right-wing conservative who is usually pro-nra and anti-abortion, he loved their campaign because of its impact on his daughter. laura, a natural leader in the classroom who is smart incompetence boucher centers stage now said the dinner table and grilled her family with questions about the government. considering the bill of rights and the 2nd amendement cut in individual have an f-14 with a rocket launching missiles she astor family quite seriously one night. what? what you talking about her father sputtered? that is bearing arms, where to draw the line? her father was pleased his daughter would come home and push the envelope, making him defend his way of thinking. she was not spouting off

anything i'd said. she was simply playing devil's advocate which we did in class all the time. >> host: playing devil's advocate. law school is all about the socratic method of the devils at the get. let me give you a hypothetical and what do you do with that? of this kid is ready for law school, and she learned it in the sixth grade ms. cahill. ms. cahill, last year audienced think the whole book is about high points in joy and wonder, remember how it started out. this was a single mother, no money, decides to run for congress. there were some low points in this campaign. you had a time, three part-time jobs. one of the lowest points for me was almost 10,000-dollar

commission you got, i would say cheated of, the suicide line. tell us about that little boy or those three low points. >> guest: well, the commission. i sold real estate part-time on the weekends to support my teaching habit, and i had worked with the family for a number of months, and they ended up going to another agent. they walked into an open house and bought that house from that age and that was sitting there instead of me, after spending months and months with them driving around and showing them homes and that kind of thing, so that was rather disappointing particularly because they were high-school friends i had grown up with. i was really shocked that they would be so careless as to not think about the ramifications of that and how that would impact their family. that was a disappointment for sure. unfortunately i had a hernia and did have to have surgery for

that and then had been entrapped and ervin had to go back in for a second surgery. it was still little stressful. and then the third thing you mentioned, the suicide line. i get ill little embarrassed when that is brought up because i did grow up irish catholic and certainly that is not something i would want to talk about much, but it wasn't that i was wanting to commit suicide. i was just in such a low place and really struggling financially. there were a number of times our power would be cut off or we just didn't have enough money to go and buy more milka or more bread and it was making do with what you had, those kinds of lessons like my grandparents had to suffer through during the depression. it wasn't that i felt so sorry for myself but i really didn't know who i could vent on. i could not burden my mother with that. she would worry too much. i didn't feel like there was

anyone i could talk to about just these kind of overwhelming issues that really haunting me. so i called a suicide hotline because i thought i could be anonymous and just event, and cry and be angry and all of those things and then be done with it. when that gal on the other line realized, you are not going to hurt yourself? oh gosh no, i would never do that. >> host: not in the middle of a campaign. >> guest: i could not say who i was because that would be in the paper. i just needed to be anonymous and fans. she was ill little annoyed with me, like, why are you wasting my time if you are not going to kill yourself? why are you calling? i just needed somebody to talk to. she was a little annoyed with me. >> host: she did a good thing. >> guest: she did to get a good thing. acheson needed to be anonymous and get it off my chest. >> host: here is the low point perhaps to you but i want everybody to listen to this.

this is a low point for our country. let me read from ms. cahill. the holiday season was always reminded me of how little we had and how unfair i felt it was to my children. tierney is talking about her own three children. they were also little kids and i felt so guilty that no matter how hard i worked, there was never an africa we are talking about a mother who was a schoolteacher and worked three jobs in order to support her family. people don't think of teachers as underpaid but my own children qualified for free and reduced lunches. which meant that we fell below the poverty line. house that is that? socioeconomically our family ranch in the bottom 25th percentile, even though i was

college-educated and an award winning teacher. if that does not get you, let's try this. ms. cahill helped an elderly black grandmother deliver groceries at thanksgiving or christmas, one of those holidays. guest. she is a saint. >> host: after doing her duty, helping deliver the groceries-- we read this later on in a book that is never self-pitying but it is unsparing in telling the truth. i left feeling grateful for what i had come up but tremendously discouraged about the plight of this poor family. as it finished the night in bid her good-bye she made me put a basket of food in my car to take home. unbeknownst to me, the principal had listed mine as being a family in need.

i cried the whole way home and let me tell you ms. cahill i cried right there when you said that. tell us about your pay, how it is possible that a gifted teacher in a state that at least until recently, when people don't go to nivat enimark, head money, had to work three jobs just to put food on the table? >> guest: well, not to be a pity party because i have dignity and i feel like i am a hard worker and i don't ask for public assistance or any of those kinds of things, but being a single mom and not receiving child support was difficult in being able to afford a home in a town that was booming in those days. >> host: were you not able to receive child support? >> guest: i should clarify that because my ex-husband is a very good friend of mine. he is a good man and a good father but we both felt we were

very good parents and the way we chose to work better divorce was i have the children for a week and he had the children for a weekend because we shared custody there was no child support or anything so you carry your own expenses when you have the children but that meant you still have to provide a home for those children all month long even if they were there only every other week. ate was very, very difficult to afford much of anything. >> host: the pay of teachers left unthey poverty category? >> guest: it did, it did. >> host: i know that your own union worked hard on that but i was interested to hear about the initial discipline and you had with two organizations with which you have been deeply affiliated, the democratic party and the national education association. what was that this appointment and how did it resolve itself? >> guest: initially the nea, i was not sure if i was going to get their backing and part of it

was because of my own naivete. the social security, at least in our state, we don't receive social security. there is a huge issue and i hope it is resolved in your time in the house. teachers are not public employees so it is considered double dipping if you receive social security even though i pay into it through have been which is then all of those kinds of things. i won't receive it. so i think i answer that question wronged and when i did my interview, but they did come around and support me in the campaign, which we were very happy with. they did give money to our campaign. they gave us when thousand dollars, but i do think as much as i love my teacher union and what the attempt to do for educators i do think we need to think out of the box and sometimes a few challenge those old ideas people get their feathers ruffled, so back in put

you in hot water with those folks but i am happy to be in that hot water. >> host: how about the democrats? >> guest: the democrats unfortunately, our relationship did not start off the varies mostly. i have called because the kid said, you should probably call and let them know what we are doing and give them a heads up, give them our contact information and all of that. when i did that they think they were in shock. what do you mean you were doing this as a class project? is this a joke? you are kidding, right? i am not kidding, i am running for congress and here is my contact information. they just were not very supportive. when national public radio to their peace on us and ask the question, have the democrats helped you in any way, have they given you any money? i answered honestly, know they have not. i don't think they appreciated that, although it was on this.

it was sort of a rocky relationship. sometimes i was not sure if who was my enemy if was jim gibbons or the democratic party because they just were not very helpful. >> host: did that resolve itself? >> guest: in the end they made some apologies and said if i ever ran again, they respected me and thought i was a hard-working candidate and they were surprised by how well we did. >> host: why don't you tell them what everybody is waiting four, how well did you do? >> guest: we ended up with 106,000 votes. >> host: you did not give that $10,000. how much money did you raise? >> guest: we raised $7,000. >> host: $7,000, 106,000 votes, taught that. ms. cahill the book should be read also because of the-- you make this understand that the, you make us understand reno. i just want to read one passage before we get to your

relationship with mr. gibbons and his wife. this will help you understand reno and nevada. threat the city neighborhoods were pete with pollitz mansions, the grounds that look like parks and been made water features, a large enough to bathe a small family of elephants, but up against new housing tracts that looked decidedly lower middle class. no, transition, no buffer zones, no gates, just a pronounced difference from one side or one and up the street to the other. this is the district that tierney cahill was trying to represent, a district just independent, libertarian, hard to describe it. yeah they were republicans but they were certainly taken by this teacher. ms. cahill, perhaps every story

should have a happy ending. in this case, he struck up a relationship with your opponent's wife and in the end the happy ending is the opponent comes to school to celebrate with you. tell us about that. >> guest: i e-mailed my opponents why. she was a state legislator in nevada, assemblywoman and i was really looking for help. one of my students won an essay contest on what it means to be an american and she helped us with a number of issues, and we ended up being great friends. she is still a friend of mine today. mr. gibbons, to his credit, came to our school and help celebrate at the end about the political process and how great it was to be american and you can run a positive campaign and that any american can run for office. >> host: governor gibbons utah thought the lesson ms. cahill was trying to teach your children in a way that taught them everything about good sportsmanship. she understood how to lose, and

you understood how to win and anybody who wants a good read will learn it and understand it by reading "ms. cahill for congress." thank so much for coming to washington and i certainly hope the president does in fact have time to read your book. i also recommended to the secretary of education. he knows which side he is on and he is way outside the box. >> guest: i look forward to hearing from him. thank you for having me. edith gelles senior scholar at stanford university and michelle clayman recounts the 54 year marriage of abigail and john adams. book passage bookstore in court to madera california hosted the

event. it is an hour. [applause] >> thank you for coming out on this beautiful day history lovers. we were driving up here, and i live in palo alto so my husband and i were driving up here and i thought, you know, we are the most fortunate people on the planet in all of history to live in california. it is just so gorgeous up here. palo alto and the south bay is beautiful and it changes character. the terrain, the entire environment changes character actor you go over that wonderful golden gate bridge and here we are in beautiful corda madera, so is a pleasure to be here. you can't hear me? is this better? okay. i will speak up also. i am going to start buying

talking about how i happened to write this book and we have to go back into history, all of three years, if you will recall, three years ago it seemed certain that a woman who is going to be the democratic candidate for president of the united states, and then when the election. things change a lot in very quickly but there was three years ago no competition on the horizon. and, so, as i thought about this woman, who was about to become a first woman president of the united states, i realized that she had been a first lady and i had worked on a first lady for three years of my career. i had worked on the political relationship of a very famous first family, the adamses. it seemed appropriate then to write a book