NYC teacher Ariel Sacks digs into ancient Eastern spiritual writings (and Facebook) to come up with a kind of koan on classroom management:
If the teacher does not have compassion for him or herself, the teacher will be looking to the students for approval—to see whether he or she is doing a good job. If the teacher—let's say me, since I've been in this position before—if I am looking for the students' approval of me and my teaching, then I won't be focusing on giving the gift of compassion to my students.
Meditate on that ...