Theorems: If it can be assessed, it's not important.
If it's important, it can't be assessed.
When
I think back on my own teachers, it’s rarely their words and never their tests
that I value—it’s who they were as human beings—how they treated us and how passionate
they were with their subjects. If the teacher was cruel—like Sister Whatever in
eighth grade—making us put our hands on our shoulders until our elbows felt
like they were going to explode—well, that’s what I remember—not her name, or
subject, or her teachings. If the
teacher was inspiring, like Mrs. Catanzaro, I still carry in me her enthusiasm
for reading plays, for hearing what we had to say, for her love of words. I
still remember her name and hunted her down to Friend on Facebook. It’s no surprise that I have made a career of
teaching, writing, and performing literature.
But
when did it become clear to me that what’s important can’t be assessed or quantified? As a new appointee to the Kean College
English Department, I wrote and taught a course on College Writing: Theory and
Research—attended by the then and former chairs, and a number of senior faculty.
I asked them at the end of the semester what they most valued. I was fishing, of course, for praise, vulnerable
as I felt as untenured faculty. I had
hoped they would mention my Punctuation routine (see posts…); or how I used
Composition research to launch my dissertation; or the writing workshops
strategies we successfully explored together. But, over and over, the response
was that they remembered best my enthusiasm for teaching and writing. Years later, one of my chairs told me how
much her own writing transformed because of our class together. Well then. That taught me what my responsibilities as a
teacher are. And they are neither recordable
or tabulatable in current Student Evaluation of Teachers forms.
Students
learn how I am and do, not what I say—just as children learn more
by do-as-I-do than do-what-I-say. If I find a reading
assignment burdensome and boring, I can be certain that students will find it
even more burdensome and boring. They learn this, Ipso facto: avoid these odious
materials, and anything like them. I only assign those pieces of writing that excite
me. To this end, I’m constantly changing
which Shakespeare works we read together in our required survey course. And I do NOT overprepare, so that I can model
what it means to encounter a challenging passage, be curious about it, look up
words in the college dictionary I tote to every class, apply various critical
approaches. And the students are all
part of the process. Excitement and the
application of skills can’t be feigned.
If I overprepare, I will be modeling control and they, in turn, will resist. I do not want them to learn, Ipso facto, that literature=something to
resist. Most importantly, as I hope this
blog shows, I am devoted to living and teaching as authentically as I can, and
to being honest with myself and my students.
As
universities become mere businesses—crunching retention numbers and low-balling
faculty degrees and salaries—they levy digital student evaluations on teachers
that are filled with leading questions meant to police teachers rather than to provide
opportunities for support and improvement. And there is no space provided for
comments and elaborations. Furthermore, these evaluations are forced on students
during final grading time, and not during the next semester, year, or decade, when the lasting benefits of a
class are most likely to emerge. Don’t
get me wrong, my digitalized evaluations consistently yield high scores. But they are a distraction, source of stress,
and waste of everyone’s time. They don't give due credit and they mislead students.
To
that end, here are proposed questions for a real (e)valuation, following, let’s
say, a Shakespeare Survey class that asks how
a teacher was, not the what they did
or said—these would be distributed a year and then ten years after said class:
1) Have
I had a Shakespeare quote tattooed on my body?
2) Have
I become an attorney because I was so inspired by Portia in The Merchant of Venice?
3) Do
I attend performances of Shakespeare’s plays?
4) Do
I post Shakespeare quotes where they might inspire or comfort me?
5) Do
I daily Facebook chat with my teacher about teaching?
6) Am
I more proactive in my life, so I don’t get stuck like Hamlet?
7) Do
I reread passages of Shakespeare’s plays we discussed in class?
8) Am
I still in touch with classmates I worked with in my Shakespeare class?
9) Do
I write my own poetry, songs, plays, or essays because of our class?
10) Do
I share Shakespeare quotes on social media?
11) Do
I own/display Shakespeare tee shirts, mugs, or other souvenirs?
12) Do
I teach Shakespeare?
13) What
was my Shakespeare teacher’s name?
14) Has
my passion for reading, in general, blossomed because of our class?
15) How
else has my life been transformed because of Shakespeare class?
Add
some more real-world questions that embody your take-away from a teacher you valued.
Be creative and personal.
Works Cited:
Cover Art: https://patch.com/new-york/bed-stuy/teacher-evaluations-who-s-business-is-it-anyway
