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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