"I think it's important," I said, although I didn't know if Steve was asking my opinion. Maybe it wasn't necessary to work here, but given what I had been told from staff and other kids, given what I had read in the library, I thought education was important because it exposed you to new ideas.

"I think it's important to always be learning," I clarified. "And I think education can help us do that by explaining things we might not know otherwise, which leads us to learning other, bigger ideas." I paused. "What's a GED?"