Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Insights on Teacher Review from 1999

I was looking for something someone from my 1964 high school graduating class wrote way back then on federal financing of elections so that the rich didn't dominate politics.  I didn't find that, but something I keyed in to search brought up a 1999 document that contained this, which I submitted when the ESLetter asked for our thoughts on the then-new online teacher review:



Teacher Talk: Tina Martin

As someone who’s been described as both “Excellent!  Wonderful teacher!” and “Mean, incompetent” on teacherreview.com, I have mixed feelings, as clearly our students do.  The on-line reviews would be easy to dismiss because of course they’re not scientific or a true cross section.  However, when I look at the teachers who have glowing reviews, I usually agree.    Still, there are some strange inconsistencies in other areas.  For example, when I taught ESL 71, I saw how teachers were (or were not) responding to papers.  I was horrified to see that a teacher whose feedback was very detailed, diplomatic, and useful (clearly showing teacher perceptiveness and concern)  was given the same mediocre rating as a teacher who offered virtually no feedback.  Were the teachers being judged on “lectures” in a writing class?  Were they being rated on the basis of how undemanding they were?
Another thing that was disconcerting to me was that the student who gave me a scathing review did so in Fall of 1998 for a course I hadn’t taught since Fall of 1995.  (I’m not saying that I stopped being mean and incompetent after that, of course.)  The same semester that punch-in-the-stomach assessment of me in my life work came into public view, two honor students recommended me as the best teacher they’d had in their college career in another venue, that Who’s Who in American Educators publishing ploy--not really more legitimate than teacherreview, but still showing how varied student responses can be. 
Basically, I think that we do more harm than good in trying to censor.  Students, not knowing whose opinions they’re reading (if they’re reading the reviews), probably depend upon recommendations from students or teachers whose opinions they trust—or just choose their classes by what fits their schedules.  We may be making too much of this. Teacherreview has taught me humility—maybe a little bit more of it than I wanted to learn.   I don’t think it’s made me a better or worse teacher.  I’m still mean, incompetent, excellent and wonderful.

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