Rate My Professor

Every now and then I like to check this new internet craze out to see what my past students are writing and even in hopes of getting some feedback or constructive criticism I may be able to use. I think this tool that students have available to them now, that I didn't when I was in college, can be a great tool, used with discretion, though. I think it would be misleading to any potential "victims" of an instructor to go into a classroom based only on what some students’ impressions were of a teacher.

For the most part, my students tend to think I am difficult (a.k.a no slacker zone), and challenging. Perfectly ok with me and I agree; I am not easy, I have high expectations, and I love to challenge everyone that is in my life. Some students have commented on "circle" sitting, finding it childish, and that's fine, but as I explain to my students on the first day, it is an active learning workshop class. The circle is not something I am going to change as long as there is room to do it. Some students have complained that I give too much work/homework, however come to the realization, for the most part anyways, that it is not all "busy" work and actually has a purpose in the final scheme of things.

Sunday morning I finished inputting Fall 2007 grades. So yesterday I was curious to see if anyone would post up new comments after knowing their final grade. Sure enough, there were.

It became apparent to me very quickly that one student in particular who chose to write about me in a very derogatory manner, did not quiet learn much in my class this semester, and it saddens me. The final essay in 1101 is the Argument Essay, and one essential component that I teach my students is that they should never attack their opponent's character, a fallacy otherwise known as Ad Hominem. Another strategy that should not be uses in an argument is Non Sequitur, a fallacy that occurs when there is no evident connection between the claim and its reason. Fallacious remarks weaken an argument and lead to unsound conclusions.

The students claim is obvious from the beginning: Natasha is not a good teacher; don't take her. This is all captured in the first line without even having to state the claim. This is a good rhetorical technique. The writer claims: "She is very unorganized so prepare to get emails from her at the last minute."

My rebuttal: Yes it is true that I send many "last minute" emails. Many of these emails are last minute "reminders". Some of my colleagues would call this "babying" the students. I call it, a courtesy call. There are other purposes to last minute emails other than reminders though, such as asking the students to print out a reading that I just posted and I will explain my reasoning for this. I walk into a class meeting with certain tasks/goals that need to be accomplished, however, more often than not, class interaction or discussion changes the order of tasks that get accomplished. This in turn forces me to change my plans perhaps for the next class meeting. This does not bother me, but at times it requires last minute emails to the students to bring something else in for the next class meeting. I, however, understand that not all my students may receive or read that last minute email, even though I tell them on the first day of class to check their emails everyday and right before they come to class, because who knows, I may be cancelling class and you don't want to drive all the way to FIU to find out that had you checked your email before class, like I had told you, you wouldn't have wasted your time or gas and could have made other plans or slept in, sooooo, I bring in extra copies of whatever printout or reading I had asked for in that last minute email. Mind you, I never give "last minute" work. HW is laid out for every unit from the beginning of the unit and my students know what to do for the next few weeks as we get through the unit.

The writer then says: "she thinks that shes helpful but in fact she spends all her time helping one person and forget about the others so suck up to her." (exactly as it was written with spelling and grammar errors and all.) No where in my job description does it say that I need to be “helpful”. I help those who want help, who ask to be helped, or need help. My job is to teach, whether a student wants to learn or not, is up to them. Do I build stronger teacher/student relationships with some more than others, yes. No denying that, but it has nothing to do with sucking up, it has to do with the student reaching out to me when they need help. If the writer considers paying attention, listening, engaging in discussion, asking questions, completing assignments and putting forth maximum effort, as sucking up……then by all means SUCK UP!

Finally, the writer finishes off their claim to steer other students away from my class by stating: “by the way she is not pretty at all her body might be fit but her face is busted and you can totally tell that her **** are fake.”

Let me just let that sit there on it’s own for a bit.

“by the way she is not pretty at all her body might be fit but her face is busted and you can totally tell that her **** are fake.”

Classic example of the Non Sequitur fallacy.

WHAT THE HELL DO MY LOOKS HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE WAY I TEACH?????? And what the hell do my breasts have anything to do with it as well????

Perhaps it made the writer feel better to attack my physical appearance, and I suppose I should thank them for the compliment on my “fit body”. Perhaps the writer had based their decision to take my class on the fact that I had some chili peppers on RateMyProfessor by some past students, only to be sorely disappointed and felt the need to vent their frustrations. Then again, anyone who takes a teachers class based on the fact that the teacher is “hot”, is obviously not looking for an education but rather eye candy, and who is to say that the students who marked off those chili peppers were being honest or were wanting to pull a prank? And that’s not even taking into consideration that everyone has different tastes; beauty is in the eye of the beholder right?

In any case, I am not trying to look pretty for any of my students. I’ve been married for 12 years to a man who thinks I’m gorgeous; I’m not trying to impress a bunch of 17 & 18 year old boys, or girls for that matter.
So what lessons have we learned from all of this?

Well, if you are going to make a claim, you better be able to support it with LOGICAL reasoning, stay away from fallacies, and review chapter 9 (the classical argument) in the Allyn & Bacon text.

Peace Out Suckas!