T & S Syndrome

Here’s a couple of words related to teacher diseases from the pre-Covid19 world. Hopefully, we may not see them as often as we move into the virtual classrooms and remote learning environments of the ‘new normal’. Nevertheless, I suspect that these new environments will generate their own teacher diseases.
 
Some diseases, such as the common cold, are transmitted from person to person by bacterium or viruses carried through the air. Some diseases (e.g., cholera) are transmitted from person to person through drinking water containing fecal matter. Some diseases are transmitted sexually. Some diseases are endemic to a particular geography; e.g., the malarias found in hot humid tropical areas.
 
A couple of these pre-Covid19 diseases, tachydidaxy and stentordidaxy, the so-called ‘teacher diseases’, were often found in classrooms. Sometimes, under the stresses and strains of teaching, teachers fell ill with one or both. In short, we say that such teachers suffered from ‘T & S syndrome’. In many situations, teachers with T & S often infected their students with ennui morbidus. In serious situations, students may even succumb to tonusus or even cursus quittus abruptus.
 
Tachydidaxy
 
Tachydidaxy breaks out when a teacher becomes overwhelmed by the amount of information which has to be delivered in a course. The teacher becomes ill with tachydidaxy when, failing to find ways to effectively manage this information, they simply try to deliver it all. This situation is not helped when a college reduces the length of the course or limits the resources available to the teacher. Sometimes new or inexperienced teachers succumb to tachydidaxy as they get to the end of a course and realize that there are still several chapters of the text left to cover.
 
Tachy- is a Greek prefix meaning fast (e.g., a tachometer measures how fast a vehicle driveshaft revolves). Didaxy and the related word didactics come from the Greek didaktikos meaning teaching. Quite simply, tachydidaxy arises as the teacher talks faster and faster during lessons in an attempt to deliver all the information or to cover the text before the end of the course. Sometimes, tachydidaxy and stentordidaxy are concurrent.
 
Stentordidaxy
 
Stentordidaxy is not the result of an external infection (such as tachydidaxy), but is more related to the teacher’s inner state of being, particularly a loss of self-confidence or loss of control in the classroom. Stentordidaxy is often seen in situations of ineffective classroom management.
 
In Greek legend, Stentor was a Greek herald during the Trojan War. He is described in Homer’s Iliad as having the voice of fifty men. Didaxy and didactics, as described above, mean teaching. Quite simply, stentordidaxy arises as the teacher talks louder and louder while teaching.
 
 
In short, a teacher suffering from T & S Syndrome talks faster and faster, louder and louder, in valiant but often futile attempts to cover course material or manage other problematic classroom situations.
 
Reference: Online Etymological Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com/
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