Can be applied to home or school

I have come to a frightening conclusion,

I am the decisive element in the classroom.

It is my personal approach that creates the climate.

It is my daily mood that makes the weather.

As a teacher I possess tremendous power

to make a child's 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 will be escalated or de-escalated, and a child humanized

or dehumanized.

-Haim Ginott

Teacher and Child

Quoted in

The First Days of School