Northern Teacher Pilots Teacher-Accommodation Programme
Sarry Bilverberg, a humble English teacher by day, has begun to implement a new programme for teachers that could have far reaching ramifications for the entire education industry. Where other schools are at loggerheads with scads of LD wannabe pupils waving ‘hackallot’ (exam dispensations,) Bilverberg is granting hackalot for teachers ! And with Ossem results!
Shoshi Bizlee, one of Bilverberg's first clients, is ecstatic. “I was a flop as a Hebrew Lit teacher, “she relates. “All around me I saw teachers teaching more classes and getting far higher ratings with much less work. I felt stupid. I soon lost all motivation to go into a classroom, at least when occupied. When the principle told me that the kids had to pass even if they never read the stories and poems, I broke down completely.” She went to Bilverberg for testing, and was found to be Teaching Disabled. “Sarry told me that I needed a time accommodation: He gave me a piece of paper saying that I can’t be in a lesson for more than 25 minutes. In addition, I can also bring an electronic dictionary, an electronic thesaurus and an electric cattle prod. For the first time in my career, I felt compensated.
What is Teaching Disability? ( TD ) How does one get it?
TD is essentially what it sounds like: It is difficult to teach. God almighty, it’s difficult. Especially the last few weeks, especially in Yud Alef - 3. Some researchers claim TD is just something you’re born with - like an umbilical twin that never falls off, or an extra set of saliva glands. Others say it is an acquired condition, stemming from standing in overcrowded, noisy classrooms that, after prolonged exposure, erodes the pedagogical lobe of the brain. It might also be carried by a virus, for many veteran teachers show symptoms of deterioration right after opening their paycheck. And everyone has heard of Teaching AIDS. Radiation, too may be a factor. In some unexplained fashion, cases of TD have increased tenfold since the proliferation of home computers and cell phones.
Enter the Hackalot for teachers. In addition to those mentioned above, a teacher can ask to get a P’tor (exemption) from classes over a certain size, from pupils over a certain size, from noise level, and/or odor. Those who get particularly rattled by hall patrol, school staff meetings, or even being pelted with erasers while putting the date up must get a psychologist to testify that there is a mental difficulty. At 6000 NIS a shot, this is about as difficult as asking an escort girl if she’ll shake hands. (after paying.) There are also a number of drugs on the market that can be prescribed. While there is no scientific evidence that these substances make teaching easier, it certainly feels like it!
One of the most popular hackalot is hitalmut, which sounds like exercise but means to ignore. Most students who apply for dispensations get the default one of ‘ignoring their spelling errors.’ We all know that 90% of them can’t spell because they simply never tried, but once you’ve paid all that cash, you deserve at least a pink sticker. Now, teachers too can get a pink sticker that means ‘ignore.’ Some would ignore obscene behavior, others inept stupidity, squalid conditions -- some even choose to ignore their own faults! If you want to be a teacher, there’s a lot that you gotta ignore.
“But our Coup de Pigeon (French for ‘my greatest achievement’) was to create an accommodation that frees the teacher from dealing with any accommodations,“ boasts Sari’s associate Rami Fickation, “as these are one of the greatest causes of SHAT -- Student Humbug Acommodation Trauma -- today. Picture this: There’s this classroom, see, and the teacher is giving a test. The pupil is about to whip out his Hackalla, but the teacher draws first. Bang bang! You’re dead!”
Quick -fingered teachers have, in effect brought the percentage of accommodated pupils in places like Show-ham and Muddy-Ian down, from a scandalous 34%to a measly 3.5% in nine weeks! Hah!
Sarry Himself started out teaching English, but after a few years in the system, realized that he’d have a better chance of training a score of duck billed platypuses to perform Aida. This he did, but the show closed after two nights. In a desperate attempt to put food on the table he, like so many other hopeless failures, enrolled in a course for Coaching. ( Coach potatoes in your spare time! ran the ad). Then, it suddenly hit him; the plate his wife threw after he took the food out of her mouth and put it on the table: Why not call yourself a diagnostician and give people carte blanche permit allowing them to not do the things that they don’t want to do? The idea caught on like a brushfire in a crown of thorns, and soon the money came rolling in.
“And this is only the beginning,” exhorts Sarry, looking down at his shoes as he has a dispensation excusing him from face- to- face contact. There are difficulties everywhere, and when the going gets tough, the hackallot get going. Actually this would sound better in Hebrew where we could bounce the word קשה off the word ה-קלה. I also have a Hakkala that allows me to go off on senseless tangents and then forget where I was. Or even get the letters of my name all mixed up!”
/Rabbi S. Elgrebi Kiriat Nasrallah, March 2010
… … … Oh yeah. I was saying how we’re starting to branch out. . . Suppose a couple is having classic marital woes: At first, they try to dictate to a ‘neutral’ arbitrator. She says he doesn’t listen to her. So he goes and gets a “Mutt’am,” because there’s no listening on the Mutt’am. Then she goes and gets a ‘Ptor’-from- intimate- relations. So then he goes to a rabbi and gets a Ptor from Commandment #7 (this costs $1500 and you have to put the rabbi’s picture on your car bumper) With every P’tor, Bilverberg has more! After all, if you can’t be successful, at least try to be accommodating.