Narcissistic Educator

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Don't let a wolf become a shepherd, savior …

Grigor Narekatsi

The teacher should have maximum authority and minimum power.

Thomas Szasz

Educational activity is a tasty morsel for a narcissistically organized person. The activity of a teacher involves an educational impact, which in the broad sense of the word is a purposeful process of managing the socialization of an individual, the formation of his personality. The next component of pedagogical activity is learning, which is the process of transferring knowledge, skills and abilities in the interaction of a teacher and a student. Clearly or not very clearly aware of these components that form the basis of pedagogical activity, the narcissist feels his empty gut - a place at the teacher's table in high school or at the university department will provide him with an uninterrupted power supply. The relationship "teacher-student" is not initially equal, they are asymmetric, and only this circumstance gives the narcissistic teacher a sense of omnipotence and grandeur. Therefore, in educational structures, the narcissist is not a curiosity.

Narcissism, as an immoral phenomenon, is terrible in all areas of human relations, it causes particular disgust in situations when his unclean hands touch the most defenseless - children.

Such a teacher cares little about the quality of teaching his students, he is also little worried about their moral development, and even, on the contrary, noticing an honest child, not spoiled by flattery and toadying, he will strive to destroy this integrity.

All such an educator longs for is an enthusiastic and loyal audience. The danger is that not everyone can recognize such a teacher and, in any case, not immediately. For a while, a narcissist-teacher can even become everyone's favorite: pleasant with colleagues, attentive to children, sympathetic with parents. But after some time, narcissism will no longer appear in such a cute form: the successes of colleagues will begin to depreciate, attention to children will be replaced by the tyranny of attention to oneself, participation to parents - by reproaches and analysis of their educational strategies.

Attention to children can be different. A teacher who puts the child and his development at the forefront is attentive to his successes, failures, mood and relationships in the team. This is attention, in which there are sometimes difficultly perceptible shadow sides of the attention of the narcissistic teacher. The narcissistic educator uses the attention directed to the child to pump up his eternally hungry gut, such attention corrupts the fragile child's soul. Subsequently, the child, seduced by such attention, often undeserved, waits for him from the teacher and becomes dependent on him. Children, whose parents, for various reasons, show little attention to them, are especially easy to fall into the traps of the narcissistic teacher. Then the child finds it with such a teacher. Subsequently, the narcissistic teacher, having "hooked" the child for the lack of parental involvement, can easily manipulate him, then throwing him away, then bringing him back. Being rejected, the child experiences an unpleasant feeling of abandonment and strives, in every way to please the narcissist teacher, to earn his mercy. An infection of narcissism can affect the entire student class or group: the team begins to compete for the attention of the "king", for favoritism and closeness. The narcissist educator's favor for his favorites and the scapegoat's dissatisfaction create an atmosphere of envy among children, the consequences of which can go to no one knows how far.

These are the first teachers of a child's immorality - getting good grades without difficulty from such a teacher can be very easy, you just need to feed his irrepressible appetite. But not all children fall for the baited bait, someone, sensing danger, turns away. Such a child exposes himself to great danger and, if he is strong in spirit, he will turn into a real object of hatred of the narcissistic teacher. If your child, who has no other problems, begins to study poorly, has conflicts with the teacher, do not rush to blame him or, perhaps, yourself for everything. Turn your attention to the teacher with whom your child has something wrong. And even if all other children are completely delighted with this teacher, this is not always a reason to blame the child. Your child may not want to play the narcissistic games that other children have accepted. A child can try to learn as much as he wants and be incredibly capable, in no way show disrespect for a narcissist teacher, but if he refuses the "feeding" role, then such a teacher will make every effort to make the child and a loafer, and no matter what capable, and boor.

The narcissist educator, who has put on the mask of "kind and considerate", will throw it off at one moment, if suddenly his "subjects" show disobedience or do not give the necessary dose of food to his appetite. As soon as something breaks the narcissistic intentions, be sure, the narcissist will explode with an affect of rage, threatening, or even inflicting merciless blows with a scepter at the children frightened from an unexpected and striking change in their "sweet" teacher.

If something changes in the life of the teacher in question, and he finds additional sources of nutrition, he can become indifferent and completely detached from the affairs of the student collective. Yesterday's teacher, who is interested in everything in the world, and even in what should not concern him, becomes completely indifferent to both children and their affairs. The abandoned favorites languish in longing for the time when they were caressed by the rays of glory of their brilliant teacher, outcasts can begin to take revenge on yesterday's loyal subjects, as a result, an unhealthy atmosphere reigns in the team, the reason for which is the teacher's narcissism.

Not knowing what it means to observe boundaries in relationships with other people, such teachers can ask children about how things are in their family: does dad drink, what is the amount of the grandmother's pension, does mom often cry, how many books are in grandfather's library. Such a teacher can repeat to parents about all kinds of problems: in the character of their children, the assimilation of educational material, relationships with other children and about their super-efforts in order to overcome them. As a result, parents may develop a false idea of the teacher's efforts towards their child, which makes them feel guilty and ashamed, which can be overcome by gratitude, which will be expressed in the energy supply of the narcissist or even material equivalents. The creation of such a distorted idea from parents is doubly beneficial to the narcissist, belittling the abilities of parents and their children, he himself feels “at his best”, and the expression of feelings of gratitude, admiration and respect for the “invaluable” efforts of the teacher is a pleasant “bonus”. The narcissistic teacher does not feel any remorse for this lie, since, let me remind you, what usually gnaws at people who are not burdened with narcissistic pathology is simply absent in narcissists.

Especially "weak" children can be used as informers of information about what is happening in the student collective, what relations are between its individual members and, of course, how students relate to such a teacher.

Such a teacher, due to his destructive envy, is capable of destroying all living and good things that happen to children who have received a narcissistic mentor. So, noticing the emergence of friendship, affection and sympathy between children, a primitively envious teacher will try to destroy these relations by playing off children in various ways.

Each teacher, obviously, strives to ensure that his students become successful people, capable of productive activity and, possibly, subsequently outgrowing their teacher. The envy of a narcissistic educator does not give a chance to experience the joy that a narcissistically healthy educator is able to experience from the success of his students. A narcissistic teacher will become jealous of the success of his students, try to destroy and devalue their achievements. Especially gifted young specialists can be used by such a teacher for their own selfish purposes: working tirelessly, narcissistic appendages will be in the shadow of the great narcissist, or even not known at all as specialists in their field.

No matter how the relationship of students with their narcissistic teacher develops, they are all victims who require help from people who can intervene in the harmful situation created by the narcissistic teacher. Educational leaders must control the narcissistic manifestations of their subordinates, psychologists must provide the necessary support to children who find themselves in difficult situations, and parents must strive to know their child as much as it will allow them to clearly assess the cause of his troubles at school.