This link has been making the rounds of late; and as a superbly qualified expert commentator, what with a blog even, I feel obliged to pitch in my 2.1 yen (approx. 2 cents) and help drive information inflation a bit further.

My students tell me stories of public school experience 20 years ago where teachers would openly and haphazardly enact corporal punishment, with nothing to fear but having to waste a few minutes listening to the wan apologies of the parents after they discovered bruises on their child’s torso and knew decorum demanded they show remorse for his/her alleged poor behavior. Compared to this bit of imperious pecking-order brutality, the thought of the shoe being so completely on the other foot and in side splits way the hell away from each other offers at least a second of “they fuckin’ deserve it” relief. However, much like the employee/employer relationship, wherein one shows absolute sedan-chair-hoisting obeisance and the other can order his (yes, most likely his) subordinates to do unpaid overtime just as a test of loyalty and conformity, having the shoe on the other foot is a poor substitute for having 2 well-balanced shoes.

No one, except perhaps public school teachers, wants teachers to be mere IMPs of the school system anymore. No one except the parents, and here I mean each individual parent wishing this for him/herself and no one else, wants parents to be dastardly Perilisks who can fell teachers with only a threatening SQUINT. GrWolf parents would be ideal – tough enough to be threatening in bunches but not a game-ender. You just want teachers to think twice before doing something careless and shortsighted, not make something they have to do unnecessarily and arbitrarily difficult.

Those last 2 sentences were a reference to walking off the beaten path in the Temple of Fiends and Gurgu’s Volcano.