Teachers 'bullied by online grading' (BBC)

[eppur_se_muova]

By James Silver
BBC Radio Five Live reporter

***
Teachers have always had to put up with personal jibes from kids.
***
But now with the explosion of websites like ratemyteachers.co.uk and bebo.com, teachers are suddenly finding themselves mocked in cyberspace, resulting in plunging morale and even threats to quit the profession.

Kathy Wallis, a senior teacher from Cornwall, says she recently had to talk a young colleague out of resigning over comments posted by her pupils on Rate My Teachers, a US-run site which allows kids anonymously to "grade", as well as criticise, their teachers.
***
However, Ms Wallis recounts that attempts to remove a posting about a colleague, who appeared on the site and then died shortly afterwards, have so far failed.

Moreover, she says it took nearly three weeks to remove a malicious allegation against a colleague, which was posted on Rate My Teachers, even after he was cleared by an investigation by the school's governing body.
***
more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6139626.stm

Is there any actual purpose served by these eGossip sites? If 'self-policing' is a losing idea, 'policing by anonymous poison pen' is even worse.

[lcordero2]

1. Bullied my ass

IT IS CALLED ACCOUNTABILITY!!!

[WindRavenX]

3. I'm going to be a teacher next year

I'm going to work hard to be the best teacher I can-- and I will read negative views of me with a grain of salt, but I will also see if they are valid gripes.

[donco6]

5. Right.

One of his classmates adds: "I rated my worst teachers. I said they were rubbish and didn't teach me anything."

Does she have any sympathy for those facing criticism on the site?

"No," she replies.

Why not?

"Because I don't like them, they're just teachers."

[ulysses]

6. mmm hmm.

You try working under that kind of "accountability" some time.

[Hissyspit]

7. Accountability, my ass. It's harassment. Anonymous cowardly posts

many of which are libelous/slanderous. Much of it shallow and hateful. Yeah, that helps hold people accountable. Accountable for what?

[proud2BlibKansan]

27. On an internet website with anonymous comments?

Come on, surely you can see the problem with this system. Were you ever in middle school?

[MadHound]

28. Cool, then can I know who you are, what you do

And then post an anonymous "critique" of your job performance, complete with vulgar "suggestions" and appropriate "actions", a completely supported by absolutely no evidence or objective criteria whatsoever?

That's what we're talking about here friend, and it is all being done by children, not adults.

This isn't accountability, this is a hit job, smearing teachers because *gasp* they gave little Johnny a grade that he deserved.

[Occulus]

34. Yes, because adults would NEVER post as kids and give a teacher a bad rap

After all, we all know that all parents have great respect for those who teach their kids.

:eyes:

[WindRavenX]

2. honestly, I don't see an issue with this

A LOT of those sites are just kids acting bratish-- I'd ignore it. Here in college, you can rate your professors on the BC undergrad webpage. A lot of is stupid and I ignore it :shrug:

[BlooInBloo]

8. Not as easy to ignore as you might think...

Since the idiot brat jackass kids typically whine to their parents about how "unfair" the grade is (to avoid catching parental shit for getting bad grades). And then the parents irresponsibly and idiotically actually *believe* the kid, and haul their idiot asses to the university and bitch at the department chair. Invariably, the idiotic bitching involves "I'm not paying good money for my kid to get an {insert favorite bad grade here}!!!". After this idiocy is repeated for the jillionth time, new policies with the end result of mandated higher grades start appearing - because the university administration is more-or-less only concerned about the money side of things. And on the money side of things, "the customer is always right".

Which is a major contributor to the worthlessness (in terms of genuine intellectual value) of an undergraduate degree in America. By contrast with Japan, Korea, China, India, and anywhere else in the developed world. Americans have an odd addiction to being stupid, and refuse to accept anything else.


EDIT: Can't put fucking brackets in. Christ.

[WindRavenX]

13. true

It is frustrating, and I didn't think of situations where one's superiors might read it and think it's legit :eyes:

It's very frustrating knowing my science degree is probably worth a lot less outside the US...we're not so sharp on science in this country anymore...it's downright appalling what kids don't know about even fundamentals about science :(

[BlooInBloo]

16. Or anything else. Foreign university educated folks commonly have a greater....

... grasp of the English language than Americans.

We're a stupid, stupid country. And IMO, the biggest reason it continues is because people like "good tolerant DUers" refuse to admit that there IS such a problem - thus enabling it's growth. Take the legitimization of "intelligent design" as a "proper" field of intellectual enquiry, for example.

[donco6]

4. These sites are reprehensible.

It's hard enough to teach without having to face this type of contemptuous behaviour.

[Horse with no Name]

11. I agree

While there *might* be an occasional truth posted about an educator, most of the time it is just going to be a place where teachers can be trashed unrelentlessly.
Instead of "O.C. Parties", kids will get together and trash teachers.
Not cool at all. I personally abhor any type of site that allows peer rating of anyone anonymously.

[dsc]

9. This isn't accountability

as they are usually posts that are I hate so and so. Thoughtful posts would be one thing, and some posts are thoughtful, but just a generic I hate so and so isn't helpful.

[QC]

10. Some administrators actually take these sites seriously.

I have mixed feelings about them--accountability is a wonderful thing, but I have also read enough student evaluations to know how petty and shallow they can be.

[philosophie_en_rose]

12. I think these sites are fine.

:bounce:

[bluestateguy]

14. Students have no standing to evaluate teachers

There are simply too many of these children who will not take the task seriously and who otherwise don't have the good judgment to be trusted with such responsibilities.

Now college students, that's a different kettle of fish.

[QC]

19. You're too optimistic about college students, I'm afraid.

I have read evals taking professors to task for their clothing, physiques, failure to let class out early, hairdos, etc. I have seen barely-literate screeds accusing writing teachers of being too hard--gotta love the irony there. I have seen glowing evaluations go to easy teachers who ask nothing of their students while those who are actually trying to make sure that their students leave the class with some useful skills and knowledge get savaged.

These are the minority, of course. Most people do take evals pretty seriously and try to give useful feedback. However, a significant portion of students see the evals as a chance for payback. Any bright administrator knows how to separate the wheat from the chaff, but not all administrators are bright, and some are downright vindictive.

Even under the best of circumstances, student evaluations are only one way to judge a teacher and should be taken with a grain of salt. Allowing people to post anonymous denunciations is not the best of circumstances.

And lest anyone accuse me of sour grapes, my online and written evals are quite good, as are my performance evaluations. I've just been around enough to have some doubts about this.

[jody]

15. What about online grading for president's performance? n/t

[eppur_se_muova]

17. Maybe teachers could post students' grades online -- how well would THAT go down?

Just because students FEEL they have some worthwhile criticism of their teachers, doesn't mean it's so. I'm sure they wouldn't care for it if the situation were reversed.

[msongs]

18. snotty brat students should be evaluated online as well ->

bet the students would NOT like to have teachers rating them, by first and last name and school, on the internet.

johnny reads at a K level. johnny is flunking all his classes. johnny is only on the football team because he XXXX the coach. similar stuff.

unfortunately teachers cannot post such things because it is immoral and unethical and not their job to smear people who cannot defend themselves.

Msongs
www.msongs.com/political-shirts.htm

[renate]

20. bravo!!

:applause:

Kids expect to be entertained while the teachers are trying to teach. Most teenagers' assessments of their teachers would be based on whether they have fun in class, not on whether they're learning or being taught well.

I'm not a teacher myself but I have all the sympathy in the world for them. My kid has had a couple of truly lousy teachers and I still feel that way. What a difficult job they have.

And the good teachers? I wish there were an "I'm not worthy" smiley because I would use a dozen of them here.

[donco6]

21. Along with .pdf files of the actual crap they turned in.

Now THAT would be fair, IMO.

[eppur_se_muova]

22. LOL, TOO cruel ! nt

[proud2BlibKansan]

26. There is this thing called The Privacy Law

You'd have to do away with that first.

[Kerrytravelers]

23. My name is attached to every grade I've turned in for my students.

If their critique is fair, why shouldn't they have to sign it?


Any administrator who takes these sites seriously is a fool. And believe me, there is plenty of accountability. We're constantly monitored, observed and graded. My district required that we randomly hand in various student work. I don't get to pick what is chosen. The district does.


And no matter what a kid might say about me, I'd never treat them with such dishonesty or disrespect. Often, children's anger has nothing to do with the teacher. I work with kids who have been abused, neglected and left behind. Their anger isn't about me. But, it's hard to get some people to understand that. There was once a "student coach" (i.e. young person brought in, not as a therapist, but for someone the kids were suppose to identify with) who was so worried when a kid said they hated me. I just shrugged and said they kept very good company. Many kids have hated me. I must be doing my job! The other teachers started cracking up. Where we work, bring told "I hate you" is nothing.


These on line forums make the kids feel better and maybe some parents vindicated. The concern I have is if kids anonymously post incorrect accusations that get picked up as serious. Even false accusations can ruin a career.

[Book Lover]

24. Rateyourstudents.blogspot.com is an excellent tonic for this problem

I highly advise educators to check it out.

[greymattermom]

25. do it yourself

The sites are anonymous. Put in some good stuff about yourself. Have all your friends and relatives do it too. I did.

[Xithras]

29. As a college instructor, I have NO problem with these sites.

Most teachers should WANT to know what their students think about them. I've had some very negative things said about me by students, and about half of them were true. Nearly all of the sites allow teachers to post responses to the ratings, and I have done so. Where the postings are false, I call them out on it. Where the postings are true, I evaluate what I'm doing wrong and try to fix the problem.

I had a fellow instructor who was practically in tears a couple of years ago over one of these sites. She'd stumbled across her ratings, and was saddened to find that nearly all of her student ratings were negative...people found her dry and boring. The problem was that the ratings were 100% on the money...she had a boring, droning lecture style that could put students to sleep. With encouragement from the rest of us, she ended up enrolling in Beginning Theatre and Public Speaking classes to improve her speaking style. After completing them, she not only became a more effective and engaging speaker, but she's also a regular in our staff & faculty theatre productions now :)

Had the site not existed, she never would have known what her students really thought of her, would have never improved her teaching style, and would still be boring kids to sleep today. I consider her discovery and changes to be a GOOD thing.

[Nikki Stone1]

30. Look at Noam Chomsky's ratings on Ratemyprofessors.com

People who aren't smart enough to sweep floors at MIT are giving him rotten ratings for his POLITICS. These aren't even students. I also happen to know that some profs, dismayed by bad ratings, put their own posts on the site to "even out" their numbers. I know one who actually did that to counteract some extremely well deserved negative ratings. I also have a sneaking suspicion about a professorial couple in the midst of a bitter divorce; they seem to have rated each other down on the site. I can't prove it, but I know enough about them and their divorce to suspect.

Because many profs I know are worried that these internet ratings will affect their tenure battles (or other job related raises or advancements), they check their ratings all the time and often alter their teaching and grading to get better ratings. Sometimes this is a good thing (like Xithras's example above) but sometimes this involves wildly inflated grades. One of the categories on RateMy Professors is grading: an easy grader gets the highest ratings, the hardest graders get the worst, even if the grading is fair.

[aikoaiko]

31. too many teachers want to be loved. nt

[kiahzero]

32. These sites should be seen as useful only for students deciding on electives

That's pretty much their only utility - serving as an aggregate form of the question, "Hey, what do you think about this prof?" Teachers might want to look at them to get a feel for what their students think (in the most brutal terms possible), but probably shouldn't get too hung up on negative reviews.

[Nikki Stone1]

35. I agree with you totally. If you want an easy elective with an entertaining prof

then these websites are your ticket. If you really want to know about how much you might actually learn, especially in your major, it's harder.

The problem is that administrators and department chairs can use these ratings to target someone if they so choose.

[izzybeans]

33. These sites seem good in theory but in practice they just

allow dodo birds a chance to move closer to extinction cackling like Hyenas the whole way.

There are some meaningful posts on those sites but most of the negative posts come from students not pulling their weight, believing they will get retribution. They are like a freeper paradise. Any site that has a "hotness" quotient is just that.

There should be a rateyourpeers.com for professionals. This would be more meaningful so long as folks aren't fulfilling some personal vendetta.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

36. Mixed feeling.

It's the job of the teacher to rate the student. And if the student doesn't like it, they can grow up and become a teacher.

That said, students have always been talking shit about their teachers- fairly and unfairly. This is just a modern take on an old issue.