Home » Education

How You Can Avoid Being a Great Educator

Written by Kimberly 10 January 2012 12 Comments

Does the thought of making a positive impact on the future generation scare the pants off you? Are you looking to get by your evaluations with just enough credibility and success to avoid any repercussions or tough questions? Here are a few tips for you...

teacher avoid

How You Can Avoid Being a Great Educator

1) Keep Your Head Low

Strive for mediocrity. Avoid becoming an expert on something...anything! If you become great at something, it’s only a matter of time before someone finds out, or it has a positive impact on your students.

2) Ignore Your Students as Much as Possible

Immediately shut out any curiosity you have about your students. Don’t get to know them, and don’t figure out what motivates them and makes them want to learn.

3) Don’t Try Anything New

When you come across an interesting lesson plan idea or concept, or think of something creative on your own, forget about it as quickly as possible.

4) Never Ask for Help (Especially from Your Students!)

Take this attitude - if you don’t know how to do something on your own, then it’s not worth doing. Period.

5) Keep Your Tips to Yourself

Never share the successful lesson plans, activities, and resources that you have. You can’t afford for anyone else to find out about them or for you to gain recognition for your work.

6) Teach How You Were Taught

Nevermind that you are 10, 20, or 30+ years older than your students, if a method was good enough when you were in school, it's good enough for today's kids!  Higher education, the workforce, and the world as we know it hasn't changed much...right?

7) Don’t Look at What Your Peers are Doing

Keep your eyes on your own paper! Learning about what your peers are finding successful might lead to tips #3 and #5 – trying new things and sharing your successes, and that’s just a few steps away from becoming a great educator.

Follow these guidelines and you’ll be well on the road to Nowhereville (please add your own tip as a comment on this post so we can all get there even sooner).

12 Comments »

  • Audrey said:

    How about: Don’t do any kind of self-reflection or self-evaluation. That way your students won’t either, and no one will grow.

    Kimberly Reply:
    January 10th, 2012 at 8:59 am

    Great one!

    10 January 2012 at 8:56 am
  • Ann Bennon said:

    Avoid all seminars, conferences, and webinars! They are a waste of time that can be better spent sleeping through the movie you always show on those dates. Who cares what other teachers do?

    10 January 2012 at 10:35 am
  • sultan said:

    How Grade the language or sequence the instructions in the classroom. it’s a complete waste of effort and time.

    10 January 2012 at 11:14 am
  • David Phillips said:

    Complain loud and long any time your administrators schedule professional development. If you learn something, you might have to change the way you teach.

    10 January 2012 at 7:57 pm
  • Lee Smith said:

    Undermine the efforts of teachers who are not doing all of these things.

    12 January 2012 at 9:52 am
  • @tchlrn_ak said:

    Make sure you are the center of every lesson so there is no chance of your students managing their own learning.

    14 January 2012 at 1:25 pm
  • And How You Can Avoid Being a Great Educator.. « wasibettertodaythanyesterday said:

    [...] can we be the best teachers we can be?’ post I have just discovered this article on the Simple K12 website.  This article offers brilliant advice on how to avoid becoming a great educator.  Here is the [...]

    15 January 2012 at 2:22 pm
  • A message about what not to do… | Messages From My Journey said:

    [...] I was scrolling through my twitter updates this morning, I came across this great post… How You Can Avoid Being a Great Educator. The author provides us with 7 simple steps to being horrible classroom teacher. 1. Keep your head [...]

    16 January 2012 at 5:39 pm
  • Don’t Be Afraid of Making a Mistake. Flip Your Classroom. | Elevated Math said:

    [...] I have found a link for those who are not interested! How You Can Avoid Being a Great Educator. Just [...]

    17 January 2012 at 12:28 am
  • Lewis Hall said:

    I included your post in my blog post that I published last night. http://bit.ly/yInPv7 Let’s definitely add to your list: Do NOT flip your classroom!

    17 January 2012 at 1:11 pm
  • Judy said:

    Be sure to teach the way you were taught. Be sure to do things the easy way because you need to save your energy to get to the lounge in time to hear all the “good stuff”. Also try to keep all those difficult children out of your classroom. They just slow everyone down and take your time away from the kids who came to school to learn. Be sure to complain about how awful families have become to as many children, staff, administration and community members as you can.

    24 January 2012 at 10:36 pm