Two regrets

I was teaching a class of sixth formers mathematics. One day, after the end of year exam, a young Iranian or Iraqian (can't remember or didn't know) asked me how he had done in his exams; I told him he had failed. He said that failing might mean he would have to go home and there he would probably have to fight in the war going on between Iran and Iraq. I told him I couldn't do anything about it, the result was there and I couldn't change it.
Now I think I might change it if the same problem came up again.
Earlier I was teaching a class of thirteen year old boys one of whom, I knew, did a milk round before he came to school. I happened to mention that he seemed rather tired that morning "probably due to the milk round he does," I said. The Welfare Officer or whatever he was called - the fellow who looked into the attendance of pupils - pricked up his years. "He shouldn't be doing a milk round," he said. And lo and behold the boy did not have a milk round anymore.
Now I think I wouldn't have told the Welfare Officer.
The Welfare Officer, a decent fellow, whose job it was to bring back kids to school who had taken days off without permission, was not popular with those kids (naturally) or with staff who didn't want those kids, usually problem kids, brought back. One day I said to him: "I have a good idea for a crime novel; a Welfare Officer is killed but they don't know who has done it, a pupil or one of the teachers."
He grinned. "Yeah, I get it," he said.