Lauri Fahlberg
Health Education
Carroll College
"...ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have."
Good teaching is important at all levels of the educational process, and critical evaluation of teaching skills plays a significant role in the development of an effective teaching style. Our current practice of judging the teaching competency of a college or university faculty member through a survey of student opinion, however, raises several questions. In an examination of these questions, I offer five lines of critique that form an amalgam of epistemological, ethical, and pedagogical concerns regarding such reliance on student opinion. These points offer a framework for open, constructive dialogue on this issue.
Student opinions as used are an abdication of faculty responsibility in determining what it is that comprises good teaching.
Although we persistently identify "good teaching" as a major criterion for reappointment, tenure, promotion, pay raises, and awards, our actions do not clearly support this value in the evaluation process. Our lack of commitment is particularly evident in the weight we ascribe to anonymous student comments. The student voice is essential to colleges and universities, but are we taking responsibility for our teaching when we rely primarily on our students' opinions for the evaluation of ourselves and of our peers? Students are welcome participants in open dialogue and inquiry; however, can students adequately determine what comprises good teaching and what does not? If we also take into account that the student opinions are anonymous, who, if anyone, is ultimately held responsible for negative statements that target the teaching competency of faculty?
Our abdication of responsibility is also evident in the way we sample, collect, and interpret student opinions. None of us, from whatever research paradigm, would be so foolhardy as to submit the raw findings of student evaluations for publication. Yet we assign truth-value to an epistemological process--a way of knowing about teaching--that we ourselves would neither submit for publication nor expect to discover in a reputable professional journal. Still we persist in judging our colleagues' teaching ability, sometimes to the detriment of their careers, on the basis of specious, unpublishable data.
There is a lack of consensus regarding what constitutes education and its close relative, good teaching.
Who among us has the wisdom to state once and for all what finally and ultimately constitutes "good teaching?" Moreover, who would have the temerity to impose his or her definition of good teaching on a colleague?
If students are, in fact, granted the authority to determine what constitutes "good teaching," how can faculty in teacher education programs presume to teach students about that which they have already mastered?
If students already know what constitutes "good teaching," where does that leave those in teacher education? If we recognize students as intuitive authorities on education, professors stand on shaky ground when making authoritative decisions about the scope and sequence of highly structured curricula or requiring assigned texts. If we place such confidence in student evaluations of "good teaching," it must follow that students be afforded a greater amount of educational freedom consistent with the responsibility they are assuming.
Good teachers are not necessarily popular teachers. Education and entertainment are not necessarily synonymous.
It is possible to be both popular with students and facilitate learning, but teacher popularity and high quality teaching do not always walk hand-in-hand. In fact, some of the most powerful lessons that we learn are often the most difficult, frustrating, and even painful. Many of our best lessons in life, in fact, can only be fully understood when experienced from the crucible.
Potent learning opportunities challenge our sensibilities and threaten our sense of identity and stability, but in order to learn we may be confronted with instructional methods and lessons that highlight our present limitations. We may feel confused, uncomfortable, or even angry when a teacher challenges us to question ideas or belief systems that put at risk our sense of personal security, but such lessons lead to broader personal horizons and minds that are open rather than closed. Copernicus, for example, was a threatening teacher and never popular (the destruction of geocentrism by heliocentrism was a painful process), Socrates was forced to drink the cup of hemlock, Christ was crucified. Today, all three are acknowledged to be among the greatest teachers the world has ever known.
Criticism without the investment of one's personal integrity and concern is counterproductive to a healthy sense of community.
Criticism without reflection and investment is not encouraged in faculty, and it should not be encouraged in students. Through an overemphasis on the anonymity of student opinion, we provide the disenchanted with a forum to further a submerged agenda. Students may write what they please without having to take responsibility for the accuracy of their statements. Students need to have a responsible voice throughout the semester, not an irresponsible voice at the end.
Although most of us reluctantly admit that many of our students possess marginal reading, writing, reasoning, and communication skills, we continue to legitimize student opinions of our teaching abilities. It is troubling that we accept uninformed student opinion as a basis for the evaluation of our colleagues.
Ultimately, the primary function of colleges and universities in Western Society is to prepare students for life. Every student who graduates from an institution of higher learning will live and participate in an increasingly global community. It is our responsibility as educators that these young people, as well as ourselves, are prepared to participate in this global community for the good of the community. While students may change professions and jobs many times in the current climate, they will be global citizens until death, acting out the patterns of interaction that they have learned.
Commensurate in importance with participation as a global citizen is participation in a democratic society. Responsible participation is not promoted by soliciting opinions about the professor at the end of the semester, but by encouraging participation in and during the conduct of the course--in the actual governance of the class and its content--throughout the semester. Informed participation is the fulcrum upon which freedom and responsibility are balanced.
In these transitional and turbulent postmodern times, we need to draw upon our highest human capabilities. We need to draw upon the reasoning power of Kant and Habermas, upon the refined intuitive capabilities of Einstein and Teresa of Avila, and upon the compassion of Mother Teresa and the Dalai Lama. Relying upon student opinion for evaluating "good teaching" falls short of these challenges.
We need the uncommon sense of visionary scholars to lead the way to life in our new millenium. We need to have the uncommon sense as faculty members to develop more humane ground rules for living together in the global community. We need to encourage each other and our students to ask the pivotal question, "How then shall we be judged?" Let our lives be the example.
*The author would like to thank the late Larry L. Fahlberg, Ph.D. for previous discussions on this topic and Jerome R. Hok, M.S. for comments on earlier drafts of this manuscript.