The label of geek is thrown around a lot these days. But truly what is a geek? And what is a geek teacher? And is it a term you should be proud to associative yourself with, or should you take offence?
Dictionary.com defines a geek as:
A digital-technology expert or enthusiast (a term of pride as self-reference, but often used disparagingly by others)
Geek used to be a title reserved for professions such as IT, Software Development and Electronics. But now, as technology intrudes on nearly every aspect of life, the line is blurring and geeks are making their way into nearly every profession.
So how do you know if geeks have infiltrated your school? Or even more concerning, how do you know you have not become one yourself? To help unearth the technology elite in your school, here are the top 10 signs that your teacher is a geek:
1. Your teacher continually swipes the bottom of the blackboard to make it unlock
This also applies to smartboards and whiteboards as well.
2. Comments on your returned essay are littered with hashtags (#needswork, #spelling, #winning, #edtech)
Be thankful you don’t get your report card in a tweet!
3. When you ask your teacher if you and your friends can “hangout”, they are impressed that you’ve joined G+.
Historical note: When this article was first written in 2011, there was a thing called Google +. It’s long been dead. I left it here for history’s sake, and some sentimentality.
4. You can see what lesson is up next by checking your teacher’s Facebook status, TikTok or Instagram feed.
Hey – you’ll always know what you are doing in class, right? Makes sick days easier!
5. You have a better chance of getting an answer from your teacher on Quora or Reddit than you do by raising your hand.
Sad.
6. You can only get the teacher’s attention by mimicking the iPhone alert sound
This probably works on your parents or siblings as well.
7.Your teacher salivates when talking about Nougat, Oreo and Pie but has no interest in deserts.
Ok, another historical one. Android finally stopped the sweets naming convention when they “grew up”.
8. Your report card comments are never greater than 140 characters
Should they really be longer than that anyway?
9. Stars and smiley face stickers have been replaced with ‘Like’ stickers (yes, they do exist)
Hey – stickers are stickers.
10. Your teacher is bummed when they only get 20 emails a day.
Who doesn’t love emails?
11. Your teacher’s gaming rig computer costs more than their car.
That’s just having your priorities in order!
12. Your teacher plays chess religiously but doesn’t own a physical chessboard.
Chess is making a comeback!
Are you aware of other key signs that your teacher is a geek? Add them into the comments and lets grow this list.
Image courtesy of Flickr, katybate.
You can tell your teacher is a geek by the fact that he/she can’t spell
You can see what lesson is up next by checking your teachers Facebook status
TEACHER’S, ignormaus
And also by the fact that he can’t spell ignoramus.
Boy is our face red… Correction made and those responsible have been forced to write 300 lines:
– Apostrophe before the s to show singular possession
– Apostrophe before the s to show singular possession
– Apostrophe before the s to show singular possession
…..
All of these except maybe #3 are hardly that geeky – every transgender person, woman, man and their dogs are on twitter, facebook etc etc. It’d be more geeky if you have to use Freenode to contact your teacher because they hate Zuckerberg and refuse to use proprietary platforms. Your essays are returned unmarked with a note demanding that next time you use a generic text program rather than Microsoft Word, and they’ve got an Arduino-powered laser pointer built into their sleeve.
Same rule for #4…
:(