While on vacation last week I logged onto the college’s Web site to check for last semester’s student evaluation results. They were there.
Before I comment on them, let me make a few disclaimers. First, I am fortunate to work in a place where I am surrounded by friendly, interesting colleagues who make being here a privilege. Second, the majority of students I work with are polite and appreciative, though not always hard-working. This is true even if my joking should make it seem otherwise. Finally, from what I’ve been told by other faculty who teach freshman general education classes, my evaluations are usually pretty good. So my distaste for them is not sour grapes.
I just tend to be skeptical of the opinions of teenagers. I’m never sure what it means when a young person, fresh from her small, Southern town thinks I’m awesome. It’s nice, I suppose, but I take it with the same boulder of salt I take student criticism.
Of course, the written remarks on the evaluations are rarely flattering. They serve instead as the last resort of the aggrieved student who fears speaking up about his concerns face-to-face. Anonymous student evaluations serve not as a means for teacher improvement, but as revenge for slackers.
There seems to be little students won’t complain about. Last year, a student complained about the gestures I use while lecturing. They are, according to this student, too big, over-the-top.
Clearly, this is a person who has never tried to keep a room of hung-over eighteen-year-olds awake and focused at 9 a.m. Demure waves of the hand don’t cut it in those situations.
Comments on the evaluations are often unintentionally ironic. Take, for instance, the student from last semester who complained my course provided “no benefacial information.” Well, it appears her spelling class was also not helpful.
One student this semester complained that I only wrote “needed more” on his speech evaluation forms. What this student didn’t seem to get is that I write “needed more” when a speech is so thin and frail there is nothing else to comment on. If I assign a ten-minute speech, and the student gives a speech that takes less time than he spent walking from his chair to the front of the room, I have nothing to say except, “You need more.”
Among the oddest complaints I’ve had the last two semesters is that I have favorites. I have considered heading this accusation off by telling my classes that I do not have favorites and that, in fact, I dislike them all equally and I apologize if that is not obvious.
The problem is that wouldn’t be true. I feel real affection for even my most neglectful students.
But I can understand how some might think I have favorites. I do tend to favor students who come to class in a condition to engage me and the material. I take being awake as a leading indicator of being prepared to do this. It’s much easier for me to enjoy the personalities of those students who are conscious.
Here is a list of steps students can take to become one of my “favorites”: 1) Come to class. 2) Make a moderate effort at conquering the material. 3) Indicate somehow that you find me something more than an annoyance. That’s it. I may have favorites, but I am an equal-opportunity favoriter.
Often, the complaints have nothing to do with me. By far the most common complaint I get is that my course requires too much work. I get bad marks from students in my public speaking classes for, you know, requiring speeches. I can only assume that my marks would be higher if I required no speeches and no attendance, the two ingredients that, from many students’ perspective, make for a perfect course.
And that’s the rub. Professors and students often have divergent understandings of the purpose of a course, and student evaluations reflect the gulf between our views. So it’s hard to take seriously complaints from a recent high school grad who holds a view of education that, not to be too blunt, is completely wrong.
Professors everywhere usually don’t do a good job of challenging students’ view of what college should be. The fact that students can spend so much time on our campuses and, even after graduating, not know the purpose of college or what it means to be educated is, I fear, a truer and more grave evaluation of our efforts.
