Sunday, July 30, 2006
We Help a Charging New Member of the Family To Get Some Perspective on Student Evaluations - Don't Let Them Interrupt Your Life
I am a graduate student who is just about finished my ph.d program and trying desperately to justify to myself that academia is a worthwhile endeavor. Along with all the stress and pain of comps, languages, and writing my dissertation I am also teaching undergraduate courses and attempting to develop a pedagogy that aligns with my intellectual work.
The work I do as a graduate student is hard and difficult and challenges me on a daily basis to make living my chosen life feel worthwhile - but it is teaching that really challenges me to evaluate my chosen life-path. I get good student evaluations - no, forget the false modesty here, I get great evaluations - but all it took was one to crush me. One student who didn't "get me" and my teaching style and I find myself becoming bitter and angry towards all of them. One embittered and disgruntled student evaluation and I find myself leaning towards a of life of uncaring and unengaged pedagogy.
My intellectual work and my "socio-political" beliefs led me to pursure a pedagogy that attempts to break down the barriers between student and teacher, that acknowledges the 'cut and paste' generations attitude toward education as edu-tainment, and to create a classroom where university students no longer felt like merely a number or a dollar sign in the eyes of administration.
And, for 98% of my student it works and it made me feel like I was doing something that actually mattered (unlike writing my dissertation - which feels like an excercise in futility and technicity). But, all it took, was one student to write into ratemyprofessors.com with a snarky comment about me to make me question my choice to be a university prof. It's not even that I disagreed with his/her evaluation (I am always open to critique) but that they did it in such an underhanded and oblique manner.
I understand that in a system that makes them merely a 'cog in the machine' their only option is to 'attack' the system through an anonymous system of evaluation. I know that this is there attempt to empower themselves and to fight back against the inhumanizing matrix of the postmodern university which ignores their real concerns and issues. I know this. But, it still hurt (yes, profs are human and have feelings too) and made me question my choice to continue in this life-world.
When I found this site, and read the comments posted there by students and teachers, it made me realize that a) I am not alone and b) it is not the end-all-and-be-all to receive a bad internet evaluation. So, I just wanted to say "thank you" - while many people may see your website as merely a 'revenge' site (getting back at those students who bash us online) I found a site where I could read comments and reactions by people in the same life-world as I am and get some well-needed perspective about the nature of student evaluations.
We Help a Charging New Member of the Family To Get Some Perspective on Student Evaluations - Don't Let Them Interrupt Your Life
I am a graduate student who is just about finished my ph.d program and trying desperately to justify to myself that academia is a worthwhile endeavor. Along with all the stress and pain of comps, languages, and writing my dissertation I am also teaching undergraduate courses and attempting to develop a pedagogy that aligns with my intellectual work. The work I do as a graduate student is hard and difficult and challenges me on a daily basis to make living my chosen life feel worthwhile - but it is teaching that really challenges me to evaluate my chosen life-path. I get good student evaluations - no, forget the false modesty here, I get great evaluations - but all it took was one to crush me. One student who didn't "get me" and my teaching style and I find myself becoming bitter and angry towards all of them. One embittered and disgruntled student evaluation and I find myself leaning towards a of life of uncaring and unengaged pedagogy.
My intellectual work and my "socio-political" beliefs led me to pursure a pedagogy that attempts to break down the barriers between student and teacher, that acknowledges the 'cut and paste' generations attitude toward education as edu-tainment, and to create a classroom where university students no longer felt like merely a number or a dollar sign in the eyes of administration.
And, for 98% of my student it works and it made me feel like I was doing something that actually mattered (unlike writing my dissertation - which feels like an excercise in futility and technicity). But, all it took, was one student to write into ratemyprofessors.com with a snarky comment about me to make me question my choice to be a university prof. It's not even that I disagreed with his/her evaluation (I am always open to critique) but that they did it in such an underhanded and oblique manner.
I understand that in a system that makes them merely a 'cog in the machine' their only option is to 'attack' the system through an anonymous system of evaluation. I know that this is there attempt to empower themselves and to fight back against the inhumanizing matrix of the postmodern university which ignores their real concerns and issues. I know this. But, it still hurt (yes, profs are human and have feelings too) and made me question my choice to continue in this life-world.
When I found this site, and read the comments posted there by students and teachers, it made me realize that a) I am not alone and b) it is not the end-all-and-be-all to receive a bad internet evaluation. So, I just wanted to say "thank you" - while many people may see your website as merely a 'revenge' site (getting back at those students who bash us online) I found a site where I could read comments and reactions by people in the same life-world as I am and get some well-needed perspective about the nature of student evaluations.
Many students are good people who are earnestly trying to learn something. But some students give bad evaluations to professors simply because those students are assholes.
ReplyDelete