Geezzz… my mind some days… am I the only one who saw this, throught about the “Rate My” sites they have heard about and irrationally linked the URL posted with This Thread about the teacher who had a wardrobe malfunction at a superbowl party?
i don’t think the site’s concept is inherently bad at all. the quality of the reviews comes entirely from the students, so different schools have different levels of accuracy when it comes to an idea of what a teacher is like.
for my school, i was glad to see that some of the more challenging teachers i had (who were also my favorite) received high ratings and comments such as “hard but will teach you a lot;” “challenging and entertaining;” “will really prepare you for the studying to come in college” etc. on the other hand, all the easy-pass teachers have comments lamenting their overly laid-back techniques.
so for my school anyways, the site provides a remarkably accurate depiction of the student body’s general feelings towards a teacher, and the ratings are definitely not motivated by laziness. i think this can be useful for new students who want to know what to expect, as well as teachers to see in what areas they’re lacking.
Seems like most of the kids at my old high school are relatively honest with their assessments. The teachers I remember as tough but fair receive pretty good ratings. Those inclined to tell stories and rush stuff through at the last minute got complaints. Maybe I went to a good high school? 
16 of the teachers from my high school have been rated so far.
6 of those were actually teachers that I had. All the teachers rated have more good comments than bad. I always thought highly of the high school I attended. I like seeing that students today (a whopping 11 years later) still feel pretty much the same. (Even good comments about the “hard” teachers that people label “bitches”!)
My school (Kelvyn Park) is listed and while I am not one of the 7 teachers listed, the ratings that I did peruse are totally ludicrous. First of all, 6 of the 7 are based on a single entry. 2nd of all, a few of the absolute worst teachers in our school are given the maximum rating of 5.0 Therefore, I conclude that this website is fairly worthless as a barometer of the quality of a teacher’s ability. JMHO
not true at all, its very possible to have a teacher that teaches so well you just ‘get it’ and the whole class is a breeze and you learn tons, or a very hard class thats all nonsense and no more help than just buying the textbook and not haveing a teacher.
Ful disclosure: I am a teacher, I am listed on ratemyteacher.com (though only twice)–my rating are high on helpfulness and clarity, low on easiness,which is what I wanted.
Although there may be benefits to the site and there is not–and ought not be—any way to get rid of it, I don’t like it and wish it wasn’t there–these are the problems I see with the site:
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Smart evil children. There is often one or two of these in every class: the conscienceless jerk. Rveryone knows this person–the one that always punishes people for any percieved slight and, when there i no revenge called for, instead just starts shit for the fun of it. A smart evil kid with a percieved reason for revenge against a teacher–for, say, catching them cheating or skipping or bullying some other child–now has an anonymous forum for revenge. And smart kids will find subtle slanders that can be devastating.
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Administrators are (sometimes) stupid. I know all the problems and reliability issue and overall lack of validity of anonymous, voluntary internet polls. All dopers know all the problems and reliability issue and overall lack of validity of anonymous, voluntary internet polls. Many principals understand none of these things. I can see administators putting way more wight into these evaluations than they deserve.
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Put these things together and you have the probelm with slander. Some of the accusations on a completely annonymous forum can be devastating to someone’s carreer. The site will remove contested comments, but only if they have been reported, and by the time someone sees and reports them the damage has been done. An accusation of sexual harrassment, of bribery, of racism, of immorality, of drug addiction, of sexism --a short one line comment accusing a teacher of any of these things would be impossible to refute and could do incaluable damage to a career–and there is no way to be an effective teacher and have all your students happy with you all the time.
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Lastly, remember that schools are workplaces as well as educational enviroments, and like any work place they are full of bullshit politics. Remember that anyone can post on the site–not just students. Coworkers can may annonymous comments about themselves and each other and are just as capable of making slanderous remarks. Of course gossip has always been there, but when gossip is posted somewhere where no one knows who said it and everyone can read it, it is a different beast all together.
I’m rated at ratemyprofessors. I have a small number of ratings, some good and some not as good as I might like.
Any teacher who has read their student evaluations knows that out of any given class, a handful of students will like you a lot, and a handful will just despise you for no readily apparent reason. Out of around 90 evals, I’ll typically get about 5-7 raves (“Excellent course!” “Very interesting and fun!” “Great professor, lots of enthusiasm!”) and 2-3 slams (“So boring! Can’t stay awake!” “Exams are way too hard!” “Lecturer speaks in a monotone.” ???) and of course the vast majority are moderately positive to neutral.
I’m sure everyone’s experienced this as a student. You just like some of your teachers; you like their teaching style, their classroom presence, etc. And some just rub you the wrong way. It’s just a personality thing.
The problem I see is that, on average, rate-my-whatever more likely to get negative comments than positive. It’s just human nature that you’re more motivated to complain about someone you don’t like than praise someone you do like, especially when it’s anonymous and you assume that the person you’re evaluating probably won’t be reading your review. And given that, I’m a bit nervous about the small-number statistics. I’ve taught about 350 students in the past year and a half, and I have 5 comments, which is something less than a representative sample.
As long as students are reading these ratings with a bit of skepticism, I think they’re okay. I mean, you find out about teachers through scuttlebutt anyway. It’d be niave to think that some of my students aren’t badmouthing me behind my back in good old-fashioned bitch sessions. The internet just makes the process more efficient.
I was wondering (since it is theorectically possible, though a bit harder) would something along the lines of ratemystudents – how would that be receieved?
Currently it -exists-, but in name only, and not in affiliation with the rest of the RateMy’s. I’m thinking specifically in terms of the somewhat recent debate on the website mentioned on this board that allows doctors to know which patients sue, etc, which apparently is shutting down, although patients have counterwebsites similar in nature.
I’m not sure how it would work in terms of keeping students in/out of classes, perhaps more of a headsup, or, possibly even choosing one student over another when the class is already full (though here usually the administrator has such duties.)
just my .02 at the crack of dawn,
Shadez
bolding mine
I doubt the efficacy of a teacher who has no faith in his students.
As a student, I think it would be far more harmful if a teacher came to class with a prejudice against certain students with bad comments than vice-versa.
Looked up my old middle school, and found the last name of the principal (but no first name) and the title “Administrator”. Ten or so comments, all adding up to a great big lovefest.
Now, they can’t have been talking about the sonuvabitch I knew. Must be his son.
Don’t teachers already do this on an informal basis? Discuss their students?
Looking at the opinions expressed on this page, I’m struck by the fair and balanced opinions of the students. My best high school teacher got 22 responses and a rating of 4.9. Every student considered him popular, although almost no one considered him easy. I was particularly moved by the testimony of one former student who said, “I became a teacher because of him.”
On the other hand, an incompetent but nice treacher of mine – who taught almost nothing, but who handed out candy in class – only received a 1.9.
If anything, this site has improved my opinion of “typical high school students.”
“Go to” requires a space, except in the BASIC programming language. There should be no space between the URL and the period. You need a comma between “Being a teacher” and “I was kind of…” “Ignorant” is a sentence fragment. And I’d second the remark that your lack of faith in your students is disturbing – you lose marks for content.
Also, you never did tell us if you were on the site, and what, if anything, you were rated.
I’m also a teacher, and when I heard about the site, was I ever disappointed to find that not only am I NOT on it, but neither is my school. It’s pretty small, but I figured the Internet savvy kids would have found the place. So I put myself, a couple of teachers and the middle and high school on there. Still no responses, darn it,
I was very disturbed to read an article about the site in CTA’s monthly magazine. The writer quoted a union official lamenting that the site was protected by the First Amendment and couldn’t be pulled.