My role as a teacher.

While I am preparing for my class, this poem, Teacher and Child by Goethe, crossed my mind.  This reminds me of my role as a classroom teacher. 

I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. 

It is my personal approach that creates the climate; 

it is my daily mood that makes the weather. 

I possess tremendous power to make a life miserable or joyous. 

I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. 

I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. 

In all situations it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or  de-escalated, and a person humanized or de-humanized. 

If we treat people as they are, we make them worse.

If we treat them as they ought to be, 

we help them become what they are capable of becoming.

 Teacher and child. 

Photo taken April 23, 2011.  

Cultural Center of the Philippines complex ground.