Michael Yates wrote:
> Christian, Thank you too for this excellent response. Mean-spirited
> student evaluations, the natural outcome of schools dumbing down to get
> enrollments up, can and have ruined careers.
>
> Michael Yates
>
> christian11 at mindspring.com wrote:
> >
> > Brad wrote:
> >
> > >Perhaps the most surprising thing about this thread is the number of
> > teachers who seem, at some level, to hate their students. I think
> > there is only one thing to be said to them: get anohter job.
> >
> > The idea that I'd have to change jobs b/c I don't have the right pseudo populist affection or condescending liberal tolerance of my students is actually a lot worse than the idea that I hate them--or my hate itself. The professional ethos which forbids talk of such things--let alone their existence--is far more reactionary and damaging than those affects themselves. If new class elitism treats students like swinish multitude, then this professionalist ethos treats them like advertising-age infants--you can't hate them, they're just kids!
> >
> > (BTW, when I do hate students--and I sometimes do--it's because I take them seriously, and because what they do and what they say can be pernicious. And to say that I at moments hate them isn't to say that I stop teaching them, or being good at it.)
> >
> > Anyway . . . as for evals etc., I don't think the problem is that student preferences are taken into account. The point is, those preferences are treated like commodity choices and used as the sole or most important criteria for determining course value. The criteria of selection or "opportunity costs" of taking one class over another are never accounted for. (ie Students at Florida were penalized for taking courses out of their professional/major tracks with higher fees; students at Auburn are advised never to take English and History together.)
> >
> > A similar thing goes with evaluations. No study has ever shown that evaluations improve the quality of instruction; anybody can look at the questions on the evaluation and see what kinds of teacher work are rewarded. No evaluation that I've ever seen or heard of has questions on it like "Were the teacher's assignments rigorous and challenging?" "Did the course make me work hard, inquire on my own, and develop questions?" Instead, the questions are "Did the instructor show respect for everyone in the class?" and "Was the instructor organized?" or "Was the instructor attentive to my concerns?"
> >
> > It's not a question of whether there should be evaluations. Of course there should. But they have to be meaningfully designed, and the numerical responses have to be assessed carefully. They simply don't mean what either our students or the administration think they mean.
> >
> > Christian