E is for Evaluation

Ever notice that student evaluations list "strongly disagree" on the left and the progression moves to the right towards "strongly agree"? Those crafty bureaucrats fix it so we move in the direction of our eyes from left to right: the first thing we see is our failures before moving on and ending with our successes.

I got evaluations back yesterday and found myself obsessing over the few students who answered that they strongly disagreed, disagreed or were neutral. After staring at my statistics for too much time, I realized I hadn't even glanced at the numbers on the right side of the spectrum. I had to ask myself, why are my eyes stuck on the left side? They're supposed to breeze through and end on the happy right side with the majority of students that strongly agree that I am competent.

My obsession with the left side is not a productive, I'm-going-to-be-the-bestest-teacher-ever kind of obsession, but rather, a bitter, handwriting-deciphering obsession. In reality, my evaluations were really good and I got some wonderful written comments that should have been enough to make me all squishy and yet I spent all my time analyzing the negative feedback from students who expected to get Ds and filled in the bubble indicating that they spent less time on this class than average. I need to just let them go, scan to the right, give myself some credit and call it a day.

So, in the spirit of ending on the right side, here is my favorite student comment ever: "literature is apparently your thing." Ahhhhhh (she sighs with satisfaction).