Gentle and Strong

"But I realized that in order to work with children I needed to be gentle and strong. Gentle and caring with the children, but strong and tough with all that threatens to increase their suffering and dininish their chances to be healed." "Sometimes I have to protect them from their own parents. I protect them even from their own negative thoughts at times. I wouldn't be able to do that, to protect them, unless I was an adult, unless I was strong, unless I was willing to fight for them."

I felt such a  connection with this passage because we as teachers have to also be gentle with our students and at the same time strong to keep them from all that gets in the way of achieving their goals and of giving their very best.
In this picture the gorilla represents us as  teachers, strong, able to deal with administrators, other teachers, well meaning parents - or not, and even the children themselves, to increase their chances of learning and of becoming who they were meant to become. We have the power to hurt, if we abuse our power, or to gently guide our students, protecting them from anything that gets in their way. The kitten represents our students, small, moldable, trusting in us to care for them gently in every way.