Nice article of sorts...

I can also say that if you do care about all your students too much, you are only going to be left heartbroken. Sometimes you have to give them a lower grade than you was really expecting to, or they fail and you feel sorry for them etc. But at the end of the day, you've got a job to do.

Unless, you can somehow eat coal and shit diamonds, you can't always have the desired effect upon a student's future. Especially if you teach in rougher economically disadvantaged areas and find that a few of your sweet little kids ended up as drug addicted criminals that are constantly in and out of prison with kids of their own that are going in the same direction.

Previously, I did mention that not all teachers should be expected to be saints. Those that look a little too squeaky clean, tend to be the ones that have their fingers in the choir anyway.

I personally believe that teachers should just be human beings. Human beings with real experiences that have made both real mistakes and enjoyed real success in fairly equal measure. A teacher should try (but not try too hard) to be someone that the students can relate to, yet not be treated as a substitute for one's own children or brother/sister, as you said before.