I have previously written about my regular practice of having students evaluate me as their teacher at the end of each term. In an effort to encourage others at Manual to do the same thing, I am posting the entirety of the 19 evaluations I received this year. I realize this sample size is smaller than in the past. However, with the number of crossover students taking both my 11th and 12th grade classes, this number represents approximately half of the individual students I currently had enrolled. The prompt I asked students to respond to, once finishing their final was:

Evaluation: This is the end of your 2nd mester of English, you will not have any more English classes this year. Please write down what you think could be most improved about this class for future students. What do you think was least helpful in your development as a reader, writer, and critical thinker? What do you think was most interesting or most helpful? How can Mr. Garcia be a better teacher? Do you have anything else you would like to say? Please do not put your name on this evaluation.

I’ll also add that since many students were pressed for time, polishing off their final writing assignment, this too made the sample size what it currently is – something I will actively attempt to improve the next time around. I occasionally hear of other teachers wary of evaluations or visits from administrators or other visitors. My feelings on the matter are that my classroom has an open door for anyone willing to be a part of our class community. That being said, I hold myself most accountable to those I consider the true “boss” in the Ed. system: my students. I think if we’re really going to value their educational needs their voices and concerns should be listened to on a regular basis.

All of the samples can be found as a Word doc here. While I’m not attempting to offer any kind of rationale for the positive or negative statements some students made, I did want to reflect on some of the things I’ve learned from these evaluations. Yes some of these are positive and some are negative, but the point of this initial half of the post is to really offer up a transparent view of these evaluations. [Since this probably isn’t of interest to everyone, simply click after this section if you’d like to see these reflections.]

The biggest comment that recurs from quarter to quarter is that I “could be more strict with those that don’t let the class focus” or that I am “too nice.” You’ll see this in a few of the comments. However, I’m still not firmly of the mind that yelling, shushing, or sending students out will ever be the real, human response to misbehavior. Frankly, I think if my classroom is running 100% as I’d want it to, there isn’t any reason to have to be “strict.” As it is, I continue to look for other ways to deal with discipline, some with mixed results. I also say that noting that there are usually 1-3 students in a class that are seen by others as sources of misbehavior. I’m trying to be careful not to develop these expected roles and I think that donning the hat of disciplinarian will simply further the teacher-student trope they expect to play out every day. Again, this is a relatively minor thing in the class, I’m not losing sleep over this.

I continue to get comments that I, as a teacher, am “funny” or that the class is “fun.” I don’t think these two things need to be related. I’m not particularly interested in entertaining the class as my own personal stand-up audience, but I do think students feeling engaged should naturally feel “fun.”

One student wrote: “Also try not to put in non-English related topics in an English class because it is confusing, we don’t know what class we are in if you do that.” I’m pretty sure this student may have initially referred to activities related to the Black Cloud Game. However, I’m also concerned about what our preconceived notions of what an English class looks like. I look forward to changing things up in the class as much as possible. I also think that if we’re going to be properly serving the students of 2009 there will need to be a drastic shift in how we interpret learning and what it looks like. Again, this isn’t a defense to this student’s critique of me, but I don’t really plan to change in response to this.

I also get comments like this every time I do this evaluation: “Sorry if I ever offended you or talked back to you. I made myself look like an idiot.” I find it odd to get an apology like this. The student is hyper-aware of his or her role and behavior in the class (most likely a student I should have been more strict with!). I’m interested in this post-grade apology that I occasionally receive and plan to muse on it further before really writing much more about it. Just thought I’d dog-ear it as a trend for now.

I also noticed a few comments pointing to students talking during silent reading. These, I suspect, largely came from my micro-sized period 3 class. It was an occasional problem I dealt with due to being frequently absent from the class.*
*(This will also be an issue I’ll be writing about later on.)

One student wrote: “I now know what the real issues are and what the real problems worldwide are doing to the lives of others.” At least there is one of us!