Control of Social Behavior

Right now Mexico is in the middle of a political crisis. The people of the state of Oaxaca are going through a social confrontaion. School teachers started a strike more than three months ago, and now they want the Governor to resign. Before the presidential election the federal government did not intervene, once the election was over and the candidate from this same federal government won, there is a threat of use of force by federal troops.

It is possible that the party in power now, did not know how to control the social behavior of Mexicans since they never had the presidency of the country before, but in any case the people of Mexico are suffering one of their worse political crisis in the last thirty years. On the other hand, I see crises in other parts of the world as well. Darfur is at the brink of a genocidal event in the near future. Maybe the warming of the Earth is making people's lives unbearable, and we are starting to see a global collapse like never before.

I teach in a high school in Illinois, I feel that some of my students are restless; they are not paying attention, this can be caused by me, because I may be a bad teacher, but maybe there are other factors involved. Do they understand that basic mathematical knowledge is a key to their future lives, or do they perceive hidden messages in their immediate world that seem to offer them a better future? Maybe is just that they are young and it is my job just to get them enthusiastic about learning.

Am I loosing control of my class, is President Fox in Mexico loosing control of the state of Oaxaca, is President Bush loosing control of the world?

These are big questions; I am only trying to do something about the first one.