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The sight of a homely woman in a baggy black dress helped steer a young El Paso girl in a direction that eventually would make her one of Forbes magazine's 10 most important women in the world.

Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor was in Albuquerque on Thursday night, telling that story and others and answering questions about the history and future of the courts.

Veteran ABC broadcaster Sam Donaldson moderated the event sponsored by the public policy group New Mexico First at the Kiva Auditorium and introduced the first woman named to the Supreme Court.

Donaldson and O'Connor spoke with New Mexico Chief Justice Edward Chavez and Roberta Cooper Ramo of the statewide law firm Modrall Sperling on a stage that looked every bit Masterpiece-Theatre-meets-Navajo-rug.

O'Connor fielded soft questions about how justices decide which cases to hear and gave young women in the audience advice on how to juggle their lives.

"Don't ever think that there's some magic formula," she said. "If you're a working mother, there never will be. I never had five minutes to myself."

The first public figure she was impressed with, O'Connor said, was also the first public figure she ever met: Eleanor Roosevelt. The first lady appeared as a guest speaker at O'Connor's primary school in El Paso, she said.

"She got out of the back seat of the car, and she was homely," O'Connor recalled. "She had on a baggy old dress that went down to her ankles, one of those furry hats, high-top shoes on, no makeup, and around her neck she wore one of those foxes where the head bites the tail."

O'Connor described the impression Roosevelt made on her that day as "amazing."

"I think that was the first public person I saw where I knew she was very special," she said.

O'Connor also spoke about her concern that high schools are starting to drop courses in civics, history and government.

"This is, in part, the unintended consequence of No Child Left Behind," she said.

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 focuses on steady improvement in students' test scores in core areas, which many educators say has forced them to downplay subjects that don't appear on the tests.

O'Connor said the act has led to cutting classes such as government and civics. She said she hopes to remedy the lack of interest and education in government with an interactive program in which children play the part of judge or jury member "to learn about the courts through doing."

"You have to understand the system of effective government, and you have to learn that in school," she said. "You're not going to pass that on to your kids through your gene pool."