Who is more powerfull

This blog is about responsibility: mine or yours, our responsibility as teachers and as parents. When I first realized my answer to the question: who is more powerful I could not calm down for a while because it was against anything I had been taught.
It started easily, I was thinking of how much power I have over the lives of my students. I am the only one who decides if they pass or fail, if they can move on or get stuck in the same grade. How often I was considering to pass or to fail a student who produced a minimal amount of work, but could pass a test and could talk with me about the subject on equal terms. How often I was considering to pass or to fail a student who worked every day used a ton of paper and ink, but could not pass the test and would run away if I asked to talk about the subject. How many times I was holding a life of a student in my hands and deciding should I or should not I let him or her go on with their lives. Yes, as your life once depended on your teacher's decision, your child's life depends on another teacher's decision to pass or not to pass. We have this power over everybody at least once in their lifetime.
Subconsciously you know that. Nobody ever told you that, but you knew when the grade was not fair and you could not change it. You knew the power was not in your hands, not you, not your parents, not the principal could change this grade. A teacher could overused the power, by making you to retake a course. It can happen with young teachers who don't know their power yet. That happens less and less now, at least, in New York city.
I could talk a lot about the topic of grading, but it is not my question for today. I can talk about grading on another occasion. Today I am talking about power.
The day I realized how much power is given to me as a teacher over the lives of some strangers' children I, naturally, turned to my own children and it became obvious to me that I am completely powerless. They have all the power in the world over me. They can turn my life around with just one word.
Yes, we are physically bigger and stronger when they are just born, but they change our life so that it never goes back to what it used to be. We learn to live our new life which is turning around these new beings, our children. Their happiness make us happy, their dispare makes us go nuts with worry. You cannot sleep not just when they have colic, but also when they didn't come home on time. Don't blame the kids for not sleeping, it's not their fault, its their power talking and they are still learning how to use or not to use it.
One last thought: if you think you can overpower them imagine he or she ran away. Your life is over after that. They will be OK, they'll find how to survive without you.

Another view on civilizations

Recently I had an argument about culture and civility, and what a civilized person would or would not do. I don’t remember exactly what I was saying and what the opposite opinion was, but during this argument one young man said that to improve schools we have to start beating children with sticks to take care of the discipline problems. I know that there are too many people who would agree with him and this is why I am writing here: to answer to all those people. How do you define civilization? Do cars make us more civil? Or maybe television sets, telephones and computers make us civilized society? Maybe our tanks and bombs make us more civil? What do you think? Does technology make a society civilized? I think that there are no gizmos in the world that can make a barbarian into a civilized man. Every person who believes in “an eye for an eye” is still a barbarian in my opinion. Every bully on a school yard is a barbarian. Every father and mother who hit their children to discipline them are barbarians. Every leader who is trying to solve a conflict using force is a barbarian. What really makes our society civilized is how we treat small and weak members or smaller and weaker countries. So I have to research this topic some more, but so far on Earth we do not have a civilized society IMHO. Sorry :( All people, who think that since their parents used to beat them up and they came out well often think it’s OK to beat up their own children to get the same results, continue the cycle of violence and live their barbaric lives.

can we learn how to be good parents from books?

I am a mother, I don’t want anybody to tell me how to raise my children. However, I did read everything there about pregnancy and labor. I did want to educate myself to be a better mother to my newborn. Just reading was not enough; my mother helped me a lot with hands on and many other advices. My mother learned how to take care of newborns from books, she didn’t have her mother to help her, Dr. Spoke was her advisor :) and she was so sorry later that she obeyed him religiously. I learned that even when you read a book or an article and agree with the content life will always correct and improve your knowledge. Can you learn to be a parent from books? The problem is that the older my children got the fewer books I read. I was lucky compare to others, my job required learning about child development and I have dealt with kids every day of my adult life. I applied what I learned in my classes and at home. When I think back I feel awe, what would happen to my kids if I didn’t learn from books and from talking to my students.