Unteach (Verb)
Meaning 1
Cause to unlearn; "teach somebody to unlearn old habits or methods".
Classification
Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing.
Examples
- The new instructor had to unteach her students the techniques they had learned from the previous teacher, as they were incorrect and causing more harm than good.
- In order to move forward with the new system, the team leaders had to unteach employees their old ways of doing things.
- The coach had a difficult time trying to unteach the tennis player of his bad form, which had been ingrained in him for years.
- The therapist tried to unteach her client of his negative thought patterns that were holding him back from making progress.
- The driving instructor had to unteach the nervous driver of her defensive driving habits, which were counterproductive to driving safely.
Hypernyms
Meaning 2
Cause to disbelieve; teach someone the contrary of what he or she had learned earlier.
Classification
Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing.
Examples
- The experience helped to unteach her the myth that money guaranteed happiness.
- After the scientist's new discovery, many students had to be retaught, literally having to unteach years of prior education.
- The bad teacher often managed to unteach enthusiasm and passion from her students.
- Travel and foreign culture have a way of unteaching our home-bred values and broadening our perspective in life.
- This author's theory was meant to unteach conventional principles and present a new radical approach to evolution.