MORE ON TEACHER STRATEGY
We have spent some time examining the interaction between Teacher
strategy and other mental modes. Let us turn our attention now back to
Teacher thought itself.
The Storage Shed of Teacher Thought
When we looked at Mercy and Perceiver thought, I suggested that each
of the four simple styles has an internal world in the front of the brain, and
an associated „storage shed‟ of automatic thought located in the back.
Teacher thought, being one of the four simple styles, also comes
equipped with this deluxe feature. The Teacher storage shed, however, has
nothing to do with facts or experiences: The Teacher person, especially the
male, often finds it quite difficult, in fact, to remember personal details
about his childhood. Instead, the Teacher storage shed is filled with words,
lines, curves, patterns, and theories—it contains anything which has to do
with sequences and order within complexity. Ask the Teacher person what
he said, when, and to which person and he should be able to recall fairly
well, especially if the conversation related to his understanding. Ask him
what he ate for lunch two days ago and he probably has totally forgotten.
We saw how the Mercy storage shed allows the Mercy person to
assemble experiences in unusual and original ways, leading to the behavior
which I call „doctoring.‟ Similarly, the storage shed of Teacher thought
turns the Teacher person into the original thinker. The intellectual
Contributor or the Facilitator philosopher often tries to pretend that his
thoughts are original, but this is usually not the case. The Contributor
person is much better at improving the ideas of someone else than at
coming up with his own concepts, and the philosophy of the Facilitator
person is invariably a product of his age, a synthesis of elements already
existing within his intellectual environment. In contrast, the Teacher
person really is capable of coming up with theories which are truly new,
and not just improved or rehashed. For instance, when we look at the
history of modern science, the two figures who possibly had more of a
lasting impact than any other scientists were Isaac Newton and Albert
Einstein. Both of these individuals were responsible for creating paradigm
shifts—they introduced totally different and novel ways of approaching the
natural world. And, both of these individuals were Teacher persons.
Even the theory of the mind presented in this book was conceived in its
initial aspects by my brother, a Teacher person. I never would have
originated it. My strength lies in developing and expanding an already