Traits of a Toxic School Teacher
Before you roll your eyes to this article, whether you like it or not, not all teachers are the angels that the media portrays them to be. Even though there are a selected few amazing teachers who deserves the world because they help develop some of the most amazing people in this world, there are many teachers who have sabotaged a lot of people’s futures due to their selfishness. Below is a list of traits you’d see in a toxic teacher.
1. Teachers who teach you nothing.
If a teacher tells you to read the first few pages of a chapter of a textbook and make your own notes, they’re basically getting paid to do nothing and they’ve taught you nothing. This is a good idea for a teacher occasionally when they’ve already gone through the basics, but if this is what makes up most of the lessons and you’re learning on your own, then this teacher is clearly not responsible and lacks the abilities a teacher is supposed to have.
2. Teacher who always reconfirms that you’re too stupid for their class.
If a teacher doesn’t help you in the field where you are struggling in when you seek their help and instead tell you that you haven’t put in enough effort or tried as hard as others, then this teacher is toxic. It takes a lot of courage for a struggling student to voice up their concerns and if a teacher isn’t willing to spend a little more time in explaining but instead compare you to other students, they don’t want you there and this makes students lose interest for school. Making a young person lose interest in school is horrible because a lot of the essential skill for an individual is developed from school.
3. Biased teachers.
Yes, it’s great when a teacher loves you, but what if they hate you? These teachers are usually those who give out awards and praises to other students for every small reason but never shows any appreciation for the work you’ve done even if you’ve done exceptionally well. Those teachers who always talk about the importance of mental health as part of the state curriculum, yet they push your mental health down via these passive attacks, are atrocious beings!
4. Judgemental Teachers – “I am the teacher; I am always correct”
If a teacher discriminates a student about something that isn’t within the state curriculum that they are teaching from, they are toxic. If it’s putting a maths class into groups based on mathematical abilities that is perfectly fine. But, for an example if a teacher purposefully picks a more visually appealing student to be Romeo of a school play and not let another student try to be the same role due to their physical attributes (e.g. race, skin colour, accent, height, weight), this is discrimination and is a trait of a toxic teacher.
5. Greedy Teachers
If your schoolteacher treats you based on the number of gifts you bring them, they are a toxic teacher. As bad as it sounds, many teachers, especially in the primary years, expect students to bring presents for occasions such as Easter, their Birthday and Christmas. Teachers are supposed to treat all students with equal respect and not be biased to students who provide them with more monetary benefits/gifts. Isn’t the best gift from a student the student’s success and improvement?
Well, there we go! That’s just a short list based off some research on the internet about negative teacher traits and some of our student/parent’s input. Do you have any to add to this list? If you do, let us know! To contact us, please email admin@australiantutoring.com.au or call us at (02) 9247 0835. Or you can also direct message us on Facebook.