A few days ago I brought up some problems I've found with IT application training and trainers in my entry "(Almost) All Users Are Idiots". Following a comment from Doug Burns I read an entry in his blog entitled "In Praise of Good Trainers". Doug (an excellent trainer himself, in my opinion based on having attended two courses taught by him) has layed out a pretty much definitive description of what makes a good Oracle DBA trainer, although I'm sure the same principles could be applied to any subject area.
A section of the entry that particularly resonates is near the end where Doug describes three particular aspects of trainers who aren't so good, and who's work he does not respect: Won't divert from the course materials; Tends not to know the answers to questions and may make up answers to hide this; Tends to demean or belittle students.
I've had a few trainers that hit one, two or all three of those. I'd perhaps edit the first one slightly, based on my observations, to add "(or contradicts the course materials without giving any explanation why".
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