Educator Red Flags - Part 1 - Narcissistic Educators

Nothing in this post or on this entire website is asking you to BELIEVE anything.

Instead, I want us all to apply what we have already learned so that we can better understand who has authority over our lives and our future incomes - and why.

This post - for example - is not attempting in any way to diagnose educators with a personality disorder or place any other clinical type diagnosis upon their heads.  Instead, the aim of this post is purely to demonstrate the clear narcissistic behaviors I have seen educators exhibit within a classroom setting, so that you can make a more informed decision, or help your student make a more informed decision about their education.

Narcissistic Educators have been the bane of education for all of the same reasons they have become the bane of every other sector of business - because their ill-formed and ill-intended systems of belief are entrenched at a foundational level of our society. 

What then are narcissistic behaviors we can spot, track, and record with accuracy?
(Answers provided by Psychology Today - link at the bottom.)

1. A grandiose sense of self-importance
2. A lack of empathy for others
3. A need for excessive admiration
4. A belief that one is unique and deserving of special treatment

*It’s generally assumed that people either don’t realize that they are narcissists, or deny it to avoid a challenge to their identity. But in research using the so-called Single-Item Narcissism Scale, people who answered affirmatively to the single question, “Are you a narcissist?” were far more likely than others to score highly on narcissism on the 40-question Narcissistic Personality Inventory."  (Narcissism | Psychology Today, 2019)

If you notice any of the following - you might be dealing with a person entrenched in entitlement culture:

1.  You learn more about them personally than the class' learning objectives.
2.  They use half-truths to generate pomp and circumstance over their participation in your education.
3.  They use small talk to belittle significant people in their lives.  This is especially true if they use the appearance of the other person/people as a signal relaying important information.  This is compounded further if by the end of the first 2 days, despite knowing almost zero positive information about this significant other, you have lost all respect for them. 
4.  They tell the class to be afraid of their future, especially their ability to find work in the future.
5.  They state they are "BIG INTO" effective altruism - and then proceed to tell a classroom full of adults struggling with rent AND healthcare - their biggest concern with the TRILLIONS going into AI - is that it's NOT going into longevity research instead.  Because he, an upper-middle-class OLD WHITE MAN, thinks longevity research is super important right now.
6.  They ignore basic psychological facts regarding how students learn and instead push agendas and propaganda-laced instruction that seems to serve no purpose other than empowering the current status-quo.
7.  They use their child/children (especially the adopted one with personal trauma) as a leverage to make students respect them.
8.  You know more about their Twitter follower count than you do job opportunities in the relevant industry.
9.  They remark often about their connections, possibly even including 'pro-social billionaires'.
10.  Doom engineering on YouTube podcasts is treated as instruction.
11.  Hollywood movies feature more than facts.
12.  They tell students it's their fault they don't know how to read (like the teacher does), so the teacher can only assign videos and short essays. 
13.  They totally ignore the economics of a subject or current discoveries - if it makes their view of the current situation not relevant and not entirely true.
14.   They expect you to buy their book and then instruct you to tear out pages each day to prove attendance, thereby insuring books cannot be resold to future students - and an endless supply of $$$.
15.  The syllabus only contains information from a single ethnicity - and the teacher clearly states - the only successful people are those that are entrenched in the dogmatic doctrine of that ethnicity - despite any atrocities that ethnicity might have committed against you and your entire culture.
16.  You tell them you're 'hard of hearing' and are working to get assistance through doctors and then the school, but that those channels will take a long time - so you ask if they can simply turn up the volume a bit on their online lecture and they reply, "I can hear it fine.  Try turning up your browser window."
17.  They are teaching you about sexual psychology but you are giving them WAY MORE INFO than they are giving you.
18.  Their sexual psychology book promotes porn stars and porn in general but fails to admit any of the actual facts about how porn is generated and the destruction it has caused.  (Not a single mention of pornhub and their use of CP and non-consensual material... is an enormous red flag to students - that the class, or at least the instructor, has ulterior motives.  WE MUST ASSUME, thanks to Ohio State, Harvard, MIT, and many others - that these ulterior motives are coordinated AND implemented for a reason.)
19.  They use Hollywood to 'connect to students' - pushing movies upon movies upon movies - as if they were anything other than social engineering at its worst.
20.  They ignore basic facts - like: guns are the leading cause of death for kids and pregnant women in the US, because rich men can sell violence - despite hundreds of studies proving the horrific damage this type of programming causes.
21.  When questioned about missing perspectives on the data presented (such as embodied cognition or how much AI is generating for revenue) they show micro expressions of anger and annoyance, and then pretend to make notes or dismiss the subject entirely.  (Ego driven educators HATE it when you show more knowledge than they do, and even more so when you show signs of actual comprehension - something their limited frequency does not allow for.)
22.  They ignore serious mental harm in favor of being liked.
23.  They promote celebrities and influencers (like Chomsky) knowing their true beliefs and actions DO NOT match with the general consensus of what being a 'decent person' actually involves.  (We all knew about Chomsky - long before this last batch of Epstein files - the data was there, so, if your psych or philosophy teacher was still using them in the name-drop game - take note that human slavery, trafficking, and the abuse of women AND children are not important to your teacher - not any more than it was to Chomsky, MIT, Harvard, or any of the institutions which turned their wide and far seeing eyes from the truth.)
24.  They really want you to know they appeared on Joe Rogan.
25.  Like... they really really really want you to know they appeared on Joe Rogan and many other podcasts which stoke fear as a form of forcing interaction.
26.  You've seen all of their book titles but have not learned one thing about HOW they gathered the information they are selling you (the consumer of education).
27.  They provide a very limited structure of how you can pass the class - that is entirely at their subjective discretion.
28.  They don't have a problem with the SM platform they promote and endorse generating and selling child porn.
29.  They fail to mention that the Hollywood movies and AI platforms they are highly endorsing are all generated by a very small handful of white males who have connections to Epstein and white supremacy.
30.  They act like the gun violence their students have dealt with (some since birth) is something students need to get over in order to function within their class.
31.  Despite teaching a class on AI - they know almost nothing about AI, as it pertains to psychology, education, business, or the economy.
32.  They have not taken the time to map out the entire class - only the first couple of days, which are entirely spent on gossip and banter around the teacher's credentials, his silly/stupid wife, and his belief Hollywood instructs better than he does.
33.  They use valuable class time to instill fear - instead of hope.
34.  They use valuable class time to elucidate all of the reasons the paid professor is unable to teach at a higher education level.
35.  They use valuable class time to prop up their identity as a writer, when it is not a writing class.
36.  They tell you that successful people in their field got into positions of tenure by providing lip-service to their 'betters' whom they knew were wrong.
37.  They state that tenured professors should use that TENURE SAFETY NET to really do good - and then ignore the fact THEIR students are being picked up illegally by ICE, are dying by Hollywood sponsored bullets, and are being preyed upon by men the teacher actively supports - so that they can focus on what's really important - LONGEVITY RESEARCH.
38.  Basic human decency and decorum is not their go-to when confronted about anything.
39.  They don't have a prepared syllabus - and when they bring it up - they blame the student.  "Well..." they state, "I wanted to see what y'all are into."
40.  They tell you on the first day that they are a really good teacher.
41.  They tell a classroom of PhD students (at a non Ivy League School) "it's important to get your PhD from an Ivy League School if you want to be taken seriously."  (What Are the 12 Ivy League Schools?, 2023)
42.  They focus on self-promotion.
43.  They suppress opposite views.
44.  They show zero loyalty to ANYONE.
45.  They consistently lack empathy. 
46.  Their viewpoint is consistently different from your own.
47.  They love to brag.
48.  They fish for compliments - despite being paid to do a job they've only just started.
49.  They express anger as a first response to having their position challenged.
50.  They willingly exploit others or make excuses for the exploitation of others.
51.  They name drop those whom they believe will boost their status.  Repeatedly, and in print.
52.  Patronizing behavior and speech.
53.  Having disdain for REAL WORLD EXPERIENCES.
54.  Equating the lived experiences of others to made-up Hollywood-versions.
55.  Find no value in their students' lived experiences.
56.  They use fear and posturing to scare away students they feel ill-equipped to acknowledge equally.
57.  They fake humility.
58.  They avoid situations where they hold themselves accountable.
  

Narcissism is a reductive condition which operates within a very narrow frequency of comprehension.  Their inability to take in information in the form of empathy for others combined with their inability to face significant portions of their own behaviors and attitudes, means they are not able to be receptive to the whole picture.  This makes educators with narcissistic traits not only bad teachers but counter productive and possibly even dangerous. 

Their willingness to expose others to their massive myopia and then do it with such grandiose superiority - is both comical and profoundly sad.  The power these ill-equipped and nearly emotionally illiterate people wield is not at all proportional to the power they deserve - or have earned.  And until this is fixed - within education - and every other sector of our society - we will continue to have our lives blown about like dead leaves in a brisk wind.

Do the types of teachers/educators who display the signs above have a mental or mood disorder?

I don't fucking care.

These recordable and measurable markers of bad behavior and attitudes are enough (at least in my eyes) to disqualify a person from acting as any kind of educator.

What they know is so warped and twisted by their own mental and emotional constraints NOTHING they have to teach will resemble truth or integrity.

And until educators with these types of issues are rooted out and removed permanently from education our society will continue to limp forward with less than half the education they paid for.

The above list of 58 items which display clear narcissistic behaviors is by no means comprehensive.  If you would like me to add more - please send them to me via my contact page or via a comment below. 

(https://www.storiesbyexe.com/contact.html)

Only through recognizing how and why the failings of a few arrogant and emotionally blind people continue to hamstring an entire society that was built upon the notion of self-improvement will we be able to successfully remove the threat.

Coming Soon:  Educator Red Flags - Part 2 - When an Educator Sells Their Opinion.

Namaste,
The Storyteller

Resources:


Narcissism | Psychology Today. (2019). Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/narcissism

‌What Are the 12 Ivy League Schools? (2023). Crimsoneducation.org. https://www.crimsoneducation.org/us/blog/what-are-the-12-ivy-league-schools
‌

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