If you do a search and replace for “charismatic teacher” in Mr. Shaviv’s article and replace the phrase with “abusive teacher” you would have an accurate, well defined argument.

However, to say that teachers who form emotional relationships spawning from intellectual relationships are problematic, is a stretch. The only problems that they cause are for Administrators like Shaviv that don’t like to be challenged in front of their boards or parental bodies.

As far as I am concerned, there aren’t enough “Charismatic Teachers” in the system today. It seems to me that passionate teachers that develop an appropriate relationship with their students are in incredibly short supply. If Shaviv were to have his way, the classroom would be no different than the boardroom; a sycophantic cold place, where everyone is exected to fall in line–and take passion out of teaching, or worse, learning.

Please don’t get me wrong. There are many educators that match Shaviv’s description; take the whole Baruch Lanner episode as an example. But to lump excellent, charistmatic teachers that take an interest in their student’s lives in with the ilks of the Lanner’s of the world, is just plain ludicrous.

As far as the emotional connection from the student’s side, this is not an unusual phenomenon in high school teens. It is how the relationship comes about, and then more importantly, how it is managed, that separate the abusers from the teachers.

Respectfuly,
An extremely alarmed CHAT Graduate

For several decades I have been an administrator in a social service agency. If an employee has an entourage of either clients or lower level fellow workers, it is a real red flag that a charistmatic employee is about to make a power play. First the administration is depicted as uncaring and withholding vital resources. Next the clients or lower level workers are prodded to make demands to be treated “fairly.” The pattern is very predictable, but the warning sign is always the entourage.

Good article. I am definitely going to email it to other administrators.

Tom Redd

Prophetic Charisma by Len Oakes

and

In the Shadow of Fame by Susan B Erickson (daughter of Erik H Erikson the psychoanalyst.)

Both authors had close ties to charismatic leaders. And both learned that many charismatic people become charismatic in order to compensate for areas of personal woundedness. Susan Erikson describes a fascinating ‘before-after’ dynamic, because she saw how her father changed before and after he became world famous–and what a strain his public image imposed upon his family.

Read together, these books may help us understand how charismatic people can do great help that is genuine–and great harm that is just as genuine.

In my case, I too had the benefit of a charismatic high school teacher. We were a bunch of adolescent wise-asses and Mr K walked into the room and awed us into silence.

He gave us tough assignments and we worked our butts off because we craved his respect.

To my knowledge Mr K never abused his position. It broke my heart to learn, years later, that he had died young from alcoholism.

He may well have condensed a charismatic personality to cover up areas of deep personal woundedness.

It is interesting that the other faculty members resented Mr. K because his students cut the other, less inspiring teachers’ classes so that we could get our assignments in on time to Mr. K.

Charismatic people can be beneficial and exert a destabilizing influence unless they are highly mature, have lots of insight and are very responsible in using their talents to serve the community so all will benefit, not just their ‘in-group.’

======== correct. Thank you for re-posting this piece, which to my astonishment has bounced all around the blogosphere. It is an extract from a forthcoming book (‘The Jewish High School – an operations guide’ – provisional title!) which should be available by the end of this summer. a) In the book, it is in a section which discusses management and supervision of several categories of problematic teachers b) the posting itself has qualifiers in the first few lines.

Paul Shaviv
Toronto

That, Yoseph, I think is the healthy kind– no mind games, no manipulation, no brainwashing, no favoritism.

The administraion, has to be aware of potential red flags though, and not sweep them under the carpet.

(while I’ve never had a charismatic, abusive teacher, I think I’d prefer the dry boring one, not that I’d enjoy that. it just doesn’t seem worth the emotional harm)

I don’t have a lot of optimism about helping people to grow out of their immaturity, certainly not in an on-the-job context. That’s not the appropriate place for the individual to do that work, in any case.

Is emotional weakness something very difficult to grow out of in positions of authority or administration? Could we have a way of building that sensitivity, desire for the student’s well being over their own pleasure somehow instilled deeply without having to lose exciting personality and the possibitlity of real care an involvment of a teacher in a student’s life?

informal poll: did people out here have more trouble with boring, uncaring and dry teachers or charismatic, abusive ones? the former might be, might have been, more destructive, and maybe not.