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I Rock
- University Press of New England
- Chapter
- Additional Information
p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p irock As a college professor, I am responsible for grading my students at the end of the semester. What is less well known to those outside the academy is that my students also have an opportunity to grade me. The grades handed out by the professor don’t explain anything : they’re just the cold calculus of A, B, C, D, or—gulp—F. (For a while, at my school, a failing grade was represented by an E because, I presume, a student might have been traumatized by an F.) But at the end of the semester, the students themselves get to fill out an extensive anonymous report, rating everything i,teacher 86 p i , t e a c h e r from the professor’s expertise to his punctuality to his level of sympathy. At the bottom of this evaluation form, there is a little box where the student can pen a brief statement about the prof, which they have the option of signing. The whole affair has its own protocol. I cannot be in the classroom while my students are filling out these evals. I hand out the forms, as well as the pencils for filling in the little bubbles, and then select a student to collect the paperwork while I step outside and wonder how I will come out of it this time. Finally, that supervising student emerges and walks past me to deliver the sealed envelope to a secretary for transmittal to the higher ups. Then I return to the classroom and commence my lecture, as if nothing had happened. Now and then a student will catch my eye and give me a thumbs up, although one young man once squinted at me and slowly shook his head. I have met teachers who are apprehensive about these student evaluations. One colleague was despondent because a student had filled in the “Not at all” bubble for the statement, “Teacher shows concern about student progress.” Another had received a “Not at all” from nearly half his class for the statement, “Instructor demonstrates knowledge of material.” “But I have a Ph.D.!” he exclaimed while standing in my office with his hands in his hair. (My inclination was to remark, “So much for Ph.D.s”; but what I wound up saying was, “There, there.”) Another colleague—with whom I had only fleeting interactions —was said to have collected the evals himself from his unwitting students (I can picture him saying to his class, in his clipped manner, “Don’t worry about these. I’ll take care of them.”) Then he’d take them to his austere office, draw the shade, and commence the editing process. In this manner, a professor thought to be mediocre at best wound up with student evaluations that consistently placed him slightly lower than the angels. I suppose I have been fortunate when it comes to these evaluations . For one thing, I tend to forget about them until the end of the semester, when the secretary begins to hector me about [3.235.199.19] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 08:07 GMT) I Rock p 87 deadlines, the result being that I don’t teach with these evals in mind, which is good: when the desire for approbation becomes the driving force in a teacher’s performance, the course in general can get a little soggy as the prof attempts to avoid the shoal waters of student disapproval by attenuating grades or making extraordinary allowances for students who missed a test because they had a tanning appointment. For another thing, I have, truth to tell, generally fared well in the eyes of my students, even those who have received poor grades from me. One young man, who failed my introductory biology course, actually wrote in the little space at the bottom of the eval, “Professor Klose was my only friend.” I don’t consider myself a vain person, but it is difficult not to feel good about oneself as a teacher and a human being when one’s students say nice things about you. After the evaluations have been collected, we faculty receive the data for our review and edification before it is entered into our personnel files. It is a minor moment of truth. There have been semesters when I felt that I had shone as a teacher, and I am gratified when my students...