Today’s obviously not a brilliant day.

These children come to school on Tuesday afternoons after already having been in school for six hours, and on Sunday mornings, when they’d rather sleep in and then play all day. My job is to try to teach tired, antsy children. It isn’t to frighten them.

There is no need to threaten them. I have had to raise my voice exactly once this year. The problem is that they are nine years old, and nine-year-olds have a completely different way of seeing things than adults.

A teacher who needs to scare her students into obeying her is an incompetent teacher.

“The Look” was not worthless. It indicated that the student getting it was misbehaving. The problem is that nine-year-olds think everything new and different is neat, and the ones who weren’t getting the look weren’t abashed into stopping their behavior—because they weren’t doing anything wrong. They were the ones who said, “There it is again!”

Tat, did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning? Bemoaning the fact that I’m not terrifying children into learning? That’s not you.

Like any diplomacy that is not backed up by believable threats, “the look” is worse than worthless when used on someone that knows you’re bluffing.

Or lost.

Yeah, that’s the ticket.

I lost it.

That is a hallmark of women and fathers everywhere.