She was near retirement. Some people thought of her as being old and "over the hill," but she had an idea. The idea was fresh and memorable. She was a schoolteacher in Michigan. Many people thought that schoolteachers made little or no difference in life compared to the powerful people in business and politics. They were wrong.

She told her students to write down as many "I Can'ts" as they could think of. She wrote her list as the students wrote their lists. She included: "I can't get John's mother to come in for a teacher conference." "I can't get my daughter to put gas in the car." "I can't get Alan to use words instead of fists." It seemed like an exercise in negatives.

A little girl wrote: "I can't kick the soccer ball past second base." "I can't do long division with more than three n…