unteacher

English

Etymology

un- +‎ teacher

Noun

unteacher (plural unteachers)

1. (derogatory) A popular teacher who focuses on fun activities but lacks pedagogical rigor.
   • 1856, The Lamps of the Temple, page 452:

     “Dawson the Doubter,” he calls himself; by this epithet we understand he takes pride in being known — that is a very good quality for an Unteacher, scarcely a recommendation for a teacher .

   • 1969, The Poor Man's Guardian, page 52:

     Artful teachers, in the pay of this unteacher, may do a great deal of mischief to the rising generation.

   • 1998, Catherine Brown, Contrary Things: Exegesis, Dialectic, and the Poetics of Didacticism, page 48:

     John's unteachers ignore the letter of their target text, while fetishizing the letter of their own.

   • 2005, Autumn Tooms Cyprès, The Rookie's Playbook: Insights and Dirt for New Principals, page 73:

     If you decide to wrestle with an unteacher, consider his or her political power base.

2. Someone who helps others unlearn or overcome unhealthy social conditioning.
   • 1995, Corinna S. Hasbach, The House that Feminist Imagination Builds:

     But I love my unteachers — the feminist thinkers and writers and talkers and poets and artists and singers and critics and friends, from Wollstonecraft and Woolf through the furies and glories of the seventies and eighties […]

   • 2006, Susan M. Watkins, Conversations With Seth:

     An un-teacher, hopefully—and it is a difficult task that I embark upon, playfully— an un-teacher, hopefully, lets you lead yourselves toward the freedom of your being.

   • 2015, Joshua Fields Millburn, Ryan Nicodemus, Essential: Essays by The Minimalists:

     Plus there are scores of people like us (The Minimalists) -- people who've rejected the system and aligned their lives with their values and beliefs-- who function not as teachers, but as unteachers, helping people unlearn the bullshit

3. One who guides students in self-directed learning, a teacher involved in unschooling.
   • 1983, Rex Gamble, Believe in Yourself, page 107:

     I call myself an unteacher. When you do well in my class you get a balloon that reads, " From your unteacher for being a good unstudent."

   • 1996, Michele Cassou, Stewart Cubley, Life, Paint and Passion: Reclaiming the Magic of Spontaneous:

     I had become the unteacher. My students were students of themselves; the real teacher was the painting process.

   • 2017, Stephanie Leon Neal, The Untraining of a Sea Priestess:

     To be an unteacher requires patience; not everyone will be willing to listen, but an unteacher does not need to convince anyone.