Student Evaluations: One Teacher’s Opinion

I’m thinking you might like to know what I think of student evaluations, not because such a question came to your mind in some random moment but because of the title to this post. What I think has been said better by Joseph Epstein, in A Literary Education (p. 351):

Student evaluations, set in place to give the impression to students that they have an important say in their own education, are of the useless intrusions into university teaching by the political tumult of the 1960s. Teaching remains a mysterious, magical art. Anyone who claims he knows how it works is a liar. No one tells you how to do it. You walk into a classroom and try to remember what worked for the teachers who impressed you, or, later in the game, what seemed to work best for you in the past. Otherwise, it is pure improv, no matter how extensive one’s notes.

#boom

Let’s have testimony time: Who was your best teacher? Why were they best?