Ever wondered why the same three letters (בקר) could, with a few vowels thrown in, refer to “morning,” “to criticize,” “cowboy” and “to visit”? Or why the Hebrew word for marker (toosh) sounds a lot like the American Jewish word for butt? Or why we say “l’chyim” before drinking? Worry no more! BaLashon: Hebrew Language Detective is here to save the day.
I know that we’re old friends, but I have to tell you: your timing stinks. I have a lot to do the next couple of weeks, and can’t really afford to be exhausted and draggy. How about this, I make you a deal: you leave me alone the next four nights, and you’re welcome to keep me up all night on Thursday? Yes? I mean it is the holiday where you don’t sleep anyway, no reason that you wouldn’t be perfectly allowed to come hang out.
yours,
Danya
This piece, written by the principal of the Toronto Hebrew Academy, was sent to me by a teacher of mine who evidently reads this blog now and again (*waves hello*). It’s been floating around the internet/blogosphere lately, and given its (sadly) timeliness and the fact that it’s one of the more productive things I’ve seen on the whole subject of gurus and power, I couldn’t not repost.
The Charismatic Teacher
by Paul Shaviv
The charismatic teacher (the ‘Pied-Piper”) is one of the most difficult
situations for a Principal to deal with. A charismatic teacher will
deeply affect and influence some students – but will almost always
leave a trail of emotional wreckage in is/her wake .
Charismatic teachers are often themselves deeply immature, but their
immaturity is emotional, not intellectual, and it is not always
obvious. They can be brilliant in inspiring students to go beyond their
wildest expectations, and are often regarded (by their following of
students, by parents, and by the Board or the community) as the ‘most
important’ or ‘best’ members of staff. There is always, however, a
price to be paid.
One of the effects of charisma is to convince the recipient that he or
she is the centre of the charismatic personality’s concern. A teenage
student (or a particular class) may feel as though he or she is the
protégé of the charismatic teacher. The moment they realize that they
are not (sometimes when the teacher ‘moves on to the next’), deep
emotions come into play. In the same way, many charismatic teachers
will lavish attention on a student or group of students – as long as
the student(s) do things the teacher’s way, or accept every piece of
advice or “philosophy” or Torah uncritically. The moment the student
shows independence or objectivity – they are dropped. As soon as they
are disillusioned or dropped, they are written out of the teacher’s
story. Often such students, very hurt, leave the school. Mild
characteristics of cult leaders may be observed.
Other parents, however, will rave about how their son/daughter “adores”
Mr./Ms/ or Rabbi X, and is learning “so much from them”. Events linked
to that teacher will be showcase events, and in certain cases the
Principal (or Head of Department) will come to be dependent on the
teacher. “We need something special for the prize-giving…or the
ground-breaking … or the community event… can you put something
together?” The teacher will protest that the time is short, and it’s
impossible, but will, of course, accept and do a fabulous job.
The problem is that at core, these are not educational relationships.
The emotional dependency and entanglement between teacher and student
leads to boundaries being crossed. The teacher throws open his/her
house to the students. Teens idolize the teacher, and fantasies begin
to develop. The charismatic teacher will solve the teen’s angst and
will sympathise with their intimate family problems. The teacher
becomes party to knowledge about students and their families that
reinforces the teacher’s view that they are the only teachers who
“really” are reaching the students. The teacher, however, is neither a
trained counselor nor a social worker. That knowledge becomes power. A
really charismatic teacher can end up running a ‘school within a
school’.
In the classroom, the teacher will often employ techniques (and texts)
which take students to the extremes of emotion or logic, and will then
triumphantly show them how they are holding they key to resolution (“At
this moment, you have agreed that life has no meaning — but here is
the answer”).
Part of the reason of why these teachers are difficult to deal with is
that they are often blissfully unaware (perhaps deliberately unaware)
of their own emotional power, and see their activities in the school as
huge self-sacrifice. “Look at how many extra hours I put in!”
Faced with this situation, the Principal is in a quandary. Parents are
telling the Board that this teacher should be promoted. Local rabbis
are letting it be known that “X” is “the only teacher at the school who
is reaching the kids”. And the truth is that ‘X” is contributing a huge
amount of positive things to the school.
The other teachers, in the main, cordially dislike ‘X’, for both good
and bad reasons. The more emotionally stable teachers see an adult
playing ‘mind games’ with the students, and feel that the influence is
‘unhealthy’. Other teachers are simply jealous of ‘X’’s influence over
the students, which they cannot even dream of. Those that choose to
drink coffee with ‘X’ in the staff room (although, in my experience,
charismatic teachers often avoid the staff room) are also ‘groupies’ –
themselves frequently the less mature teachers.
The Principal (although possibly under pressure to turn a blind eye to
what is going on – “x is doing so much good!”) must act to bring these
situations under control; curb any excesses that are taking place (some
of which may emerge during the meeting, as the teacher, protesting,
goes to great lengths to show how much he/she cares for the students
and how close he/she is to them); lay down guidelines for future
conduct; and try and save for the school the best of what the teacher
has to offer. The meeting will probably have to deal with:
• The teacher’s professional duties as a member of school staff.
• The teacher’s relationship to students.
• The teacher’s relationship to other teachers.
The exact list will obviously vary according to circumstances, but may
well include required undertakings from the teacher that:
• S/he will strive to act professionally and objectively, delivering
the classroom curriculum with equal attention to all students, and
maintaining proper professional relationships with colleagues
• Inappropriate discussions and/or introduction of inappropriate
material in the classroom will cease
• Contacts with students outside the classroom on matters not connected
with the curriculum, direct or indirect, will cease
• No meetings will take place with students off school premises or in
any non-professional context without prior consultation and permission
of the Administration
• Students approaching the teacher for counselling or advice on
personal matters will be directed to a school Guidance Counsellor or
other qualified professional. The teacher will not be concerned with
the emotional issues of students.
• The teacher will immediately disclose to the Principal any event or
incident concerning a student which may be construed as being outside
their professional responsibility
A letter summarizing the meeting should be sent to the teacher, with a
copy in their personal file. The charismatic teacher’s behaviour may
lead to situations that expose the school to legal and other action. It
is the Principal’s duty to safeguard the educational and professional
integrity of the school.
Last night was the big party for yom hastudentim (Student’s Day), which I guess is kind of like Spring Weekend in the States–a day to play and goof off and blow off some steam before buckling down for finals. (The semester goes ’till the end of June here; I have to leave a couple of weeks early and thus am extra crunched.)
Anyway, last night they took Gan Haatzmaut (Independence Park, one of the biggest parks in J’lem) and turned it into festival-land. There were the usual things: food stands, drink stands, vendors with hippie clothing or handmade bags or whatever (and, of course, a booth with the Kabbalah center) gimmicks by companies (the ice cream company had a video game boxing thing set up, the beer company was giving away frisbees, that sort of thing). I was not happy to see that a lot of the sponsorship came from a certain American pizza company known for funding the Religious Right and anti-abortion legislation, and that their sales seemed to be doing pretty well on-site. Hrrmph.
They had a ginormous crane rigged with an elevator-like contraption that was taking people bungee jumping! Like 70 meters (230 feet!) I’ve never seen it live. it was fascinating to watch people flailing in the sky like that. It was even better not to have to be one of them.
And they had a gigantic stage set up. It was one of those perfect summer nights, warm like you didn’t need sleeves but not awful sticky. The park was the perfect size–the wide-open space of, say, lawn seating at some big concert stadium in the States, but not as impossibly gigantic–definitely more intimate.
Moshe Ben-Ari played first (or at least first after when I arrived–I think there was an act or two before). I’d never heard him that I knew of, but I recognized a bunch of the songs, so I guess I had. I dug ‘em, may try to check out an album. (Anybody have a reccomendation? Is Sheva or the solo stuff better? Which is less crunchy?)
Then Coolooloosh* came on. They do that funk/hip-hop combination thing, they were OK. One of their main rappers/singers is a cat named Rebel Sun, and I have this to say to him: Dude! Learn Hebrew already!! You want to be an Israeli rapper living in Jerusalem? Then enough with the English! I know he’s having some problems with the government re: visas, being permitted to stay in the country, etc. If the campaign to Keep Rebel Sun in Israel succeeds, I may have to start my own campaign to send him to Ulpan. He did get three words in Hebrew, though. One song went, “It’s a beautiful day/Eze yom yafay” (what a beautiful (yafeh) day, with an East Coast urban accent.) Then he made the Israelis handle the rest of the Hebrew. Didn’t bother even trying to say “ma nishmah?” between songs or anything.
Then came Dag Nachash, who were great. It also looks like I’m gonna have to get their new album–hadn’t cared for the single on the radio, but the other stuff that I heard last night was grand. They have a Dickie Dale-style surf rock ode to California whose chorus goes something like (this is from what I remember)
קליפורניה, את כל כך יפה, אני היתי עושה לך טובה
ie, “California, you’re so beautiful, I’d do you a favor.” (The second bit being an old expression for… well, I bet you can figure it out.) Anyway, any album with odes both to CA and Jerusalem seems like one I should own. For the one or maybe two people out there who can appreciate this, they put the melody for “U’va Leilot” by Ariel Zilber as a hook underneath “Ma Naaseh?” It was really pretty.
Anyway. It was one of those just sweet, lovely evenings. Nice crowd, nice music, nice yay. I danced my boogie hard–have all sorts of random muscles that are sore today, it’s a good feeling.
Yay fun! OK, now it’s time to write another paper. Wish me luck.
*The name is, I think, the best part of the band. It’s a Jerusalem-local word for a very specific part of a game that’s a little bit like marbles (kind of a cross between marbles and jacks.) The apricot pits with which one plays the game have very local names (in Jerusalem they’re called ajuim, and in Haifa they’re gogoim) and when you’re the cool kid who has managed to collect the most possible and sort of throws them in the air as a free-for-all for other kids to collect–only in Jerusalem is that act called coolooloosh. Great name for a band.
To compliment my other post on covers of a song I can’t stand, here’s a link
to at least 34 versions of Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart.”
Much more my own taste in old skool.
Amusingly, there seems to be a reggae cover band for every major group that’s ever been. Instead of Dred Zepplin, this time around, there’s Jah Division, singing “Dub Will Tear Us Apart.” When will the madness end?!?!?!?!?!
ETA: Oh, fun. The guy who did the Joy Diviz page has a whole covers project going. Check it here.
left to do by 6/12:
Shabbatai Tzvi paper
Hartman paper
Jewish ed paper
Divorce law paper
Other messianism paper (ETA: on the difference between Sephardi and Askenazi messianism, in the end
Talmud exam
Halakha exam
And prepare and give d’var Torah for Friday
Figure out travel/visiting situation
etc.
etc.
etc.
Thanks to the good R. Uri Cohen for passing this along… it’s a revised movie trailer for Charlton Heston’s The Ten Commandments.
So I’m supposed to be writing a paper on Sabbatai Zevi right now, so of course there’s a bit of procrastonation happening before I actually get my groove going. I’ve been ready for a background switch for a while now, to something that wasn’t So! Yellow! (Sorry, Dan, and thanks again for all your help). It took me a while to dinker inside the style sheets and figure out what was going on. So what do you think? It’s possible that I’ll keep playing with this a bit–I do have like three weeks of finals, after all–but this’ll do, at least in the meantime.
Aviel Barclay is the only living certified soferet S”M (Jewish scribe) in the world. And now she’s starting a program to train other women in the magical mysteries of the scribal arts. Sofrut coolness! Check out the shiny new website here.
ETA: Jen Taylor Friedman also does pretty pretty work, she just doesn’t have the official certification yet is all. Her site is here.
Tomorrow (Monday), twenty-ish of my friends and colleagues are going to enter the Rabbi-tron as mere gifted students of the Torah and are going to emerge, triumphantly, glitteringly: clergy.
It’s the coolest thing ever. Truly, truly. Watching an ontological change (as I believe ritual effects, and most certainly something like an ordination ritual) happen before your very eyes, watching people enter the final stages of one long process and simultaneously begin the very first stages of a whole other sort of process… it’s just beautiful. (OK, the ceremony is mostly just a bunch of guys talking and then a beit din of three holds Torahs and does some hocus pocus–but really, it’s pretty nifty.)
This was the class that schooled us, the class that was in its second year when we were first-years, that gave us the good proverbial bonking on the head about how to get through this agonizingly long, complex, and mysteeeeerious world called, “rabbinical school.” (OK, maybe they didn’t have any secrets. But they sympathized when we were on the brink of falling apart over that first semester Bible class and occasionally gave us a word or two of advice as to how to navigate beit midrash or whatever.)
There are a lot of excellent people in this group, and they’re going to make some seriously kick-ass rabbis. I’m really sorry that I can’t be there to make inappropriate amounts of cheering noise (really, they always look at me funny when I do ulluations and don’t just clap politely like all the civilized people) and celebrate with everybody, but I am still here, in the Holy Land, up to my eyeballs in paper-writing. I’ll have to cheer from afar and look forward to seeing at least some people when I get back to town.
Mazal tov, brand-spankin’-new rabbis!