On the football field, 17-year-old Loyola Academy senior Alex Amato looks like your average high school quarterback—athletic, broad-shouldered and square-jawed.

“My children are the loves of my life!” Highland Park’s beautiful, blue-eyed Eileen Bennin beams as she shows me photos of her sons, Stephen and Howard, as blond, bright-eyed toddlers.

As a young Jewish girl, Anya Cordell read The Diary of Anne Frank, and wondered whether she would have had the same kind of courage as the people who helped the Frank family hide during the Holocaust.

The Julia Child of Japan lives in Evanston. Constance Chang taught Japan about Chinese food, just like Julia Child taught America about French food.

Every September, we entrust a major part of the care and mentoring of our children to a new teacher or teachers.