Teacher

A teacher at the board: teaching, school and lessons. Most platforms draw a person standing in front of a chalkboard or whiteboard, usually holding a pointer or a book. It covers everyone who teaches: a schoolteacher, a professor, a lecturer, a private tutor, a driving instructor or a yoga teacher.

The everyday jobs are plain. Teachers and tutors put it in bios and posts about their work, students use it for anything about class, and parents use it for school updates and first-day photos. It carries the calendar moments too: Teachers' Day greetings (World Teachers' Day is 5 October, and many countries have their own date, such as 5 September in India), end-of-year thank-yous and graduation posts. It also stands in for teaching as an act: "lesson of the day 🧑‍🏫" before a tip, or "let me explain 🧑‍🏫" before a long thread.

The emoji comes in three gender forms. The man 👨‍🏫 and woman 👩‍🏫 arrived first, in 2016; the version with no stated gender, 🧑‍🏫, followed in 2019 and is now the base of the set. Each takes the five skin tones, which makes eighteen forms in all. Pick the one that matches the person you mean, or keep the neutral one when you mean teachers in general.

What does it mean when someone sends you the teacher emoji?

Almost always a message about school or teaching; look at the words. From a teacher it is work talk: a class, marking, a staff meeting. From a friend it is class gossip, an exam or homework. From a parent it is the school run or a parents' evening. Alone as an answer to a question, it usually means "I'll explain" or "ask the teacher".

The one sting: dropped on its own under your opinion, with nothing else said, it can mean "thanks for the lecture", poking fun at someone who explains too much. That is the exception and it usually needs a thread with a disagreement in it; a friendly chat rarely carries that irony.