MO EDU-SAIL Learning Packages Teacher-Student Relationships | Page 24
Professional Development to Practice
Teacher and Child
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 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 is humanized or
de-humanized. If we treat people as they are, we make
them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we
help them become what they are capable of becoming.
(Ginot, 1972)