‘Tis the season to be nagging. In this election year, politicians will weep crocodile tears about how they’ve been unfairly criticized, while trampling the truth underneath the golden boots of their attack ads so that they can drown their opponents’ campaigns in a poisonous sea of lies and mixed metaphors.
And that’s just the city council races; on the national level, politics may get really ugly.
And you can always count on some bozonic writer to misbehave over a negative website review.
Academics get reviews, too. There’s a piece I saw recently on a site where students can give feedback about their teachers. I don’t necessarily recommend reading it, but I found it interesting as an example of how-not-to-react-to-any-evaluation.
If you’re reading this, you probably know about these sites, sites dedicated to review instructors or professors. They are anonymous student reviews that have become normative in the U.S. college classroom, with the difference that it’s public.
Anyway, in this piece, the author gets upset about an anonymous student review. He closes his (mistitled) “apology” by saying sadly, “Be kind out there. Choose your words carefully. Comments on the Internet last longer than your anger. Always.”
I’m afraid this instantaneously made me want to be unkind, but I managed to overcome the impulse.
He takes some time to explain and justify himself in the face of the criticisms his anonymous student levelled against him, principally that he’s “unimaginably self-absorbed” and “thinks highly of his own opinion” to the point of dismissing others.
There are two things I think the guy is doing wrong here in his non-apology apology.
First, an actual apology, for something which was genuinely wrong and for which the person apologizing is actually sorry, should not include self-justification. If the deed wasn’t wrong, you shouldn’t apologize for it. If it was wrong, you shouldn’t justify it. Anyone who thinks otherwise is unimaginably self-absorbed.
But secondly, and more importantly, he’s not using the review right. And, at the risk of bearing down on someone who seems to be a little sensitive, I thought I’d talk about it here, because pretty much anyone reading this space is in a position to write teaching evaluations, or read them.
A review of anything (pizza, professors, medicines, etc.) is not the last word on the subject. But it is a word, a data point.
A college teacher doesn’t ever have to accept student evaluations at face value, but there’s always evidence that can be useful to that teacher.
Suppose a student is evaluating PJS 1010, “Intro to Potato-Juggling Studies,” and they say, “This class was terrible. We had to juggle potatoes practically every day.”
The student reviewer may think that’s a negative review, but it’s actually a positive one. The instructor (and, more importantly, prospective students) can look at the review and get a sense that the class actually did what it was supposed to do. If you don’t like potato-juggling, don’t take the class about potato-juggling.
Or a student evaluating PJS 1010 might say something like, “It was all right, but there was too much emphasis on juggling baked potatoes. I would have liked a chance to juggle mashed potatoes or even sweet potatoes.”
This comment is even more useful. Someone interested in potato-juggling has something to say about the content of the course. The instructor may decide the student is wrong for some reason (for instance, if there’s another course already devoted to sweet-potato juggling), but it’s an opportunity to rethink the course syllabus from a new perspective–maybe adding the opportunity for a student project in mashed-potato-juggling.
Or a student might say, “I’ve been a devoted potato-juggler for years, and this was the worst course I’ve ever had. The instructor only picked up the potatoes twice, and then both times he dropped one!”
This is the most devastating kind of negative review, where the student demonstrates their competence to evaluate the instructor and then proceeds to rip said instructor a new orifice.
Every college teacher has an evaluation like this sooner or later. They sting a bit, and seeing them in public on the internet makes that worse.
One solution is: don’t look. People don’t have to read reviews on the Internet or their in-class evaluations if they don’t want to.
But, if someone is going to read this stuff, even the most painful negative criticism may be useful. It’s an opportunity to ask yourself if you were clear in presenting the material, if you gave the students an opportunity to do well and benefit from the course, if you listened when you should have. Future students can profit from past students’ suffering, if an instructor is able to process the clues in their evaluations.
Everyone prefers positive reviews, no doubt. And it’s hard to argue against the rule “Be kind.” There really isn’t enough kindness out there, and anonymous comments certainly aren’t famous for their gentleness and discretion. But I’d recommend honesty and detail over kindness in writing evaluations.
Even a negative review can be useful if the target can get over himself and make use of it.
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