Teacher Types

I don't know if I've posted this before or just referenced it, but I've updated it a bit, so here it is in its current form.

With my years in school and getting instruction from other venues, I've noticed several types of teachers. There are also probably ones I don't list below, but here's a start. A teacher may be more than one type, though some are rather mutually exclusive.

Informant: This is the teacher who comes across as someone who is giving you the straight story on how things in a particular field of study really are. These teachers will say things like, "Most people think that... but it's really...," or "Here's something that isn't mentioned in the text or that you'll ever hear anyone in the field say, but it's the way it really is." These instructors are useful if their information is true and not colored by their personal bias.

Gatekeeper: This is the instructor whose main focus is on determining who is and who isn't good enough to get past their class to go on to the next level. These are the kinds of teachers who you'll often find in "weeder" classes that are designed to weed out the weak or unacceptible in a field of study.

Mentor: This is the type of teacher who tries to shepherd students through a complex or difficult area of study. It's an "Us against them" type of dynamic, where the teacher is on the student's side.

Teletype: A teletype is an old computer device that gets information and delivers it onto sheets of paper. This type of teacher, like the device, reads from the book, takes all test material from the test bank, and doesn't impart anything outside the provided text.

Storyteller: This is the teacher who has an anecdote for every point they want to make, and these anecdotes often take far longer than the time it takes to cover the text. Good members of this style can keep the students engaged and keep their interest piqued, while the weaker members of this style bore their students to tears with "yet another boring personal story."

Timekeeper: This teacher starts on time, follows every line of the syllabus or teaching plan, and focuses heavily on following the rules and keeping things in a controlled and orderly sequence that never varies. These are the types of teachers who have nervous hives at the thought of a snow day. Extreme members of this style are known as Martinets, and they take this to an extreme. Frequent comments from this style of teacher are, "We have two more minutes of class time, don't start getting ready to leave quite yet," or "I'm sorry, but as the syllabus states clearly..."

Ambushers: These are the teachers who will make changes to the course in mid stream and add things that you never expected to the work load. They teach by the seat of their pants, and there's no telling what will wind up as the final body of work studied. In educational settings, these teachers often keep stacking work on the students, and the more self-aware of these types of teachers will use an open point system for grading instead of trying to keep everything into a set scale.

Crusader: This is the teacher with an agenda, one who is teaching to prove some point or to support a personal theory. This can be a dangerous situation if your personal theory is contrary to theirs. The more ethical members of this group will stop the progress of the class to debate the point with you, while the less ethical will give you a bad grade for erroneous logic as anything that might challenge their theory is dangerous to their cause. Tread carefully with these types. They can often seem like Informants at first, but when you determine their particular "ism" it's best to keep as far away from that group's points and rhetoric as possible.

Oxymoronic: This is a teacher who is teaching something, often based in social or cultural fields of study, that they can't exemplify. Examples are the teacher of a class in women's issues who defers to the men in the class and plays dominance games with the women, or someone teaching a class on applied metaphysics who can't implement the material in their own life. These teachers can give out mixed messages and confuse things.

Pseudo-Amateur: This is the teacher who doesn't know their material well enough to teach it, and often doesn't know it enough to even keep it straight in their own head. Be ready for confusing messages and instruction, changes in mid stream, and places where the students know more about the topic than the instructor does.

Partial: This is the teacher who tends to show favor to a specific group while making people not in that group work harder and suffer more criticism. Typical examples of this are teachers who favor men over women, attractive members of their preferred sex over those they don't find attractive, racists, and other types of bigots. Combined with the Gatekeeper teaching style this is a deadly combination for anyone not in their preferred group. If the person is also a predator, this can be extremely dangerous.

Guru: This is the teacher who tries to keep everything loose and touchy-feely. They're found a lot in creative areas of study. This is often an unsatisfactory experience, because since the teacher is so wary of treading on anyone's creativity, they don't really teach all that much.

Lawgiver: This is the teacher who treats every sentence as if it was unearthed from stone tablets and is the fundamental truth of the universe. All other viewpoints are nonsense promulgated by idiots, and their viewpoint is the only true path.

Assignist: These teachers have constant assignments for their classes. It's not uncommon to have something due every class period, and often multiple things. There's two sub variants of this type, the High Density teacher who provides a lot of education in a short time and the High-Busywork teacher who loads the class down with useless essays on meaningless readings, excessive documentation, or stacks and stacks of problems every class period.

Shotgun: This is the teacher who has vast numbers of assignments to get a grade. They'll have lots of tests, quizzes, papers, and other assignments required for the grade. These are good if you sometimes flub an assignment or forget to turn one in, but it's a lot of work to do.

Derringer: The opposite of a Shotgun teacher, this is the teacher who has a very small number of grades or assignments in the span of the class. If this is a graded situation, this can be nerve-wracking, as everything rides on one good performance or at best a handful.

Technoid: This teacher always has a Powerpoint set for every lecture, videos and other multimedia examples, and it's run seamlessly. If you want to see this kind of instructor go into convulsions, steal the power cord for the computer or disconnect the projector.

Socrates: This teacher is interesting to listen to, because they have highly interesting lectures. But you can never be sure what will be on their tests, and in fact, they often don't know because their lectures can range far and wide.

Co-Pilot: This is a teacher who relies heavily on the text and on the students picking things up for themselves. They let the students direct the conversation in class, and generally have no prepared lectures. However, the place where this type differes from the Socratic teacher type is that the Co-Pilot doesn't ever direct conversation, and perceptive students will start wondering why they have a teacher in the first place as the teacher doesn't really add anything of value to the learning experience.

Attic: This teacher has vast amounts of stuff stored in his or her brain, and you never know what you'll find when the door is opened up. They're often experts or doctorates or other very experienced people in the field, and sometimes even a name in the field. Being in their presence can, if they have an organized mind, be an experience that can't be gotten anywhere else. In educational settings these teachers do very well with a "Menu" grading plan where the students can pick specific things for a certain number of points toward their final grade.

Expert: This instructor is considered to be an expert in their field, and they'll make sure you know about it. Repeatedly. They wear their credentials like a suit of armor, and not using their proper title is a crime akin to mass genocide.

Sprinter: This is a teacher who is at the end of their last lap in their career. Sometimes the class is literally the last class they'll ever teach. They've got years of experience, everything is pretty much etched in stone, and they're more interested in their retirement than running students through the wringer. Often also a Short Timer teacher as well.

Short Timer: This teacher is not going to teach again. It can be a teacher who failed to make tenure, someone who has decided that there's other things to do besides teach, or someone who is being forced out, but this teacher is gone at the end of the class. In educational settings you're pretty much guaranteed an A unless you never show up and don't cause bodily harm to the instructor or any of your classmates.

Clueless: This is someone who may or may not know their stuff, but they're totally out of sync with the people they're teaching. The classic of this is the absent minded science professor, but there are also the fashion challenged teacher and the aging hippie who thinks we're still in the sixties as two more examples of this type.

Nose Ring: a nose ring is placed in a bull's nose to make him easier to lead around. This type of teacher is easy to distract and get off on tangents by students who are either curious and unfocused or who are crafty enough to pick up on the teacher's tendencies. This can be a lot of fun if you have no interest in the subject and highly annoying if you're really interested in the subject of the class. Mix this with the Anecdotal type and you finish the class learning more about the instructor than the subject of the class. Mix this with the Timekeeper and you have a recipe for a long stay in a mental institution for the professor.

Dis-technoid: This is a teacher who would sooner hack off a limb than use Powerpoint. A classroom without chalk or dry erase markers is just as annoying to this type of teacher as a missing power cord is to their opposite. Extreme versions of this type don't even use email.

Prankster: This is the type of teacher that will occasionally throw a surprise into the lecture, something totally unexpected but usually topical, just to keep people on their toes.

Mr. Roboto: A sure cure for insomnia, this teacher is morally opposed to pitch inflection in the voice. Hopefully this teacher isn't also the type that tests exclusively from lecture notes.

Textless: This is the teacher who tells you that the book is optional because all tests will come from lecture notes. Usually these instructors know their stuff, so it's a good one to seek out, especially if mixed with some of the more benevolent types. However, don't miss anything, as absence can sink you quickly with this type of instructor.

Devil's Advocate: Similar to the Socratic type, this type of teacher uses opposition to instruct. First you'll be asked to state your position. Then you'll get an opposing viewpoint from the instructor, usually one that is well thought out and hard to refute. Then you have to defend your viewpoint. This can be engaging or tiring depending on how you handle adversity.

Treekiller: This teacher always has a substantial multi-page handout for each class.

Predator: This teacher type isn't in it for education, but instead for personal gain. This is the type of teacher who sleeps with students, uses them as leverage, and my use their influence to gain influence themselves. Beware of this type in academic settings, and avoid this type in non-academic settings like the proverbial plague.

Groundbreaker: This type of teacher is one who has the skill and ability to teach a class in the order they want to instead of following the text. Frequently one of the most enjoyable types to study with, but not a strong choice if you're just taking the class to cover a requirement, as their tests tend to test how well you know the material. If you're interested in the material, this is a very strong teacher type to find, especially if paired with a Mentor, Textless, or Attic

Examiner: This teacher gives fairly basic lectures then tests on minute details and esoteric concepts on examinations. This teacher is extremely hard to gauge, because the lectures don't imply how hard the tests are, and the first test is usually a very unpleasant shock to many of the students. Best avoided if possible.

Test-Resistant: This is an instructor who is the polar opposite of the Examiner type -- tests are far easier than the lecture and outside work would imply. An easy one for a decent grade, but you won't get an accurate measure of how much you know from this instructor.

Engulfed: This instructor is in way over his or her head. This may be their first class to teach, or it may be that their workload is too heavy, or even that another teacher was unavailable and the class dropped in his or her lap. They're always running fast and hard to catch up, and sometimes it seems like the students know more than the teacher does.

Codetalker: This teacher seems to translate everything the students say into Japanese and then Swahili and then through two or more languages before parsing it in their mind, so that the poor students are constantly getting answers and reactions that don't even faintly reflect what they do or say. These teachers are extremely frustrating and should be avoided in all situations. This may be due to some agenda the teacher has, a lack of social skills, or possibly even a real language barrier.

Fog Jockey: This instructor seems to not understand people. Closely related to the Codetalker, this instructor is completely out of sync with the students and the material. This can be highly frustrating because you're never sure you're actually learning anything of value.

Scorpion: This teacher is one who you never want to contradict, because if you do then he or she will do everything in their power to get back at you. Spite is the name of the game here, and if you dare disagree with them you're asking for very large amounts of trouble. Mixed with teacher types like The Expert will result in a teacher who is very dangerous to interact with at all.

Dislocated: These teachers are ones that have unreasonable expectations for students. Examples of this are instructors who treat college students like High School or Graduate students, teachers at liberal arts colleges teaching math or science who think they're at MIT or CalTech, professors who treat every student like they're at Harvard, or ones that expect all students to cheat and plagerize. These people will drive a student body crazy with the constant pressure.

Spotlighter: This teacher type can't interact well with a room full of students, instead preferring to interact with individuals instead, so they tend to call on individuals all the time instead of addressing the entire class. These teachers are best in situations like private lessons or one on one instruction situations.

Therapist: This teacher type always has an answer why each student is or isn't doing well in his or her class, and these answers always involve something about the student and never anything about the instructor.

Pseudo-Life Coach: This is a teacher who feels it's their duty to shepherd every student through the course material and through their career. These instructors take an inordinate amount of interest in their student's professional and often personal lives. Coupled with the Gatekeeper this can be a major headache for anyone who isn't someone they think belongs in the field of study, while coupled with the predator this can be extremely dangerous.

Tolstoy: This instructor feels it's a crime against education, nature, and all existance if any paper assigned is less than eight pages, and it is similarly a crime against all anyone holds dear if a class goes by without something due. Buy a binder just for this class, as you're going to need it, and go ahead and pick up a spare toner or ink cartridge for your printer as well.

Nitpicker: This is the instructor who counts off serious points for every little grammar error. One of the required texts is a style guide, and the class isn't an English or literature class. In classes in fields where the style is very different from the more normal ones this can be a headache as the student spends more time reading the style guide than the regular texts.