Teaching unions here have just won a court case against the website note2be.com (which I'm not going to grace with a link - go google it), which allowed pupils to log on and rate their teachers. The website's founders are pleading freedom of expression, and claim teachers have a right to reply (yeah, like we've really nothing better to do than log on to their website to see who's whingeing about us giving too much homework), but the judges have ruled that free speech doesn't cover the right of adolescents to go on the Internet and "name and shame" teachers just because we didn't give them good enough marks on their last assignment or gave out a detention for chatting.
In any case, each class already has a delegate and termly meeting for them to air their grievances, so why they need a website as well is anyone's guess. I suppose it gives them the sensation of having achieved something by tapping something out on a keyboard and clicking Send. You only have to look at how adults behave on the BBC's Have Your Say website to see that it's a bad idea.
In any case, each class already has a delegate and termly meeting for them to air their grievances, so why they need a website as well is anyone's guess. I suppose it gives them the sensation of having achieved something by tapping something out on a keyboard and clicking Send. You only have to look at how adults behave on the BBC's Have Your Say website to see that it's a bad idea.
5 comments:
There's a similar website for tertiary education in Germany.
I know this because someone asked me if I teach a course called "Diet Coke and the Philosophy Behind 'You Are What You Drink'". Or something like that. (I drink a lot of Diet Coke while teaching.)
It turns out that this website lists all courses taught, and comments about the courses and the lecturers. Someone had added this extra course under my name as a joke.
I haven't signed in to read what's been written about me and my courses, and I have no plans to do so. I'm too scared!
Does this mean we can write crap about our students?
That's what end of term reports are for,engelsk!
engelsk, your profile is not available, in case you didn't know.
I think this is a marvellous development in the world of teaching and I plan to use it to highlight the absurdity of the lives we are leading these days, but is all part of life's rich tapestry as they say.
We're all being judged all the time, and I think it's rich irony that students can now 'rate' their 'prof'. Lovely.
El Gringo Vasco: I know. I haven't set it up, and I probably won't. I'm at http://engelsk.wordpress.com - and I might even start posting interesting stuff again one day!
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