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Wednesday, November 26, 2003
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How Teaching Evaluations Work
During a recent lunch with a friend who attends graduate school in California, she described one of the many ways in which teacher evaluation forms operate in the real world of the American university: "Professor X has been hellacious all semester. She only teaches crappy obscure eighteenth century women poets, and there's nothing to say about their work! The class has had a morgue-like atmosphere... Anyway, she hands out course evaluation forms the other day, and she announces: 'Look, class, I'm up for three-year review, so these have to be good.'" 'I ignore her pleas and write what I think. These are anonymous, you know... So I said it had been a really bad class for the following reasons, etc. Well, Professor X determined - I guess through my handwriting - that I had written it. She took it to the chair of graduate studies and became hysterical. He called me into his office and said 'Never do that again.'" |