Monday, February 23, 2004
Miss Nicholas
A few students have let me in on the big secret. The four teachers in the Center for International Studies program are all subjects of a complex student rating system.
While this system is completely unscientific, the students assure me that it is very accurate. These students conclude that it is an inevitable fact of teaching that the students will rate you against their other teachers. (As though I was never in high school and this concept is completely foreign to me.) So, naturally, I feign surprise and astonishment and asked them how it worked. After a short conference with two other students, one of them gave me a short list of the most common ways they compare instructors. The six most important areas were as follows:
(1) "hardness" [difficulty of assigned work]
(2) "harshness" [use of discipline]
(3) "saying but not doing" [follow through with disciplinary threats]
(4) "lame or cool" [whether the instructor is likeable overall]
(6) "hotness" [hotness]
I am not very remarkable in any of these areas apparently. Overall, my "weirdness" and over enthusiasm about topics like the national GDP and indexing of currency exchange rates has me leaning more towards lame than cool. Excitingly though, I am only slightly less hot than the "hotness" category winner, Ms. Gates, the geography and out-door education teacher. It was speculated that although I am the youngest member of the faculty, I might not be the front runner in this category because Mr. Hanson recently spiked up his hair and trimmed his beard which stole some of the girls votes from me. But, they all agree, it is most likely due to the fact that the sophomores often refer to me as "Miss Nicholas." I guess this caused me to lose a portion of votes from the male students because registering me as the hottest teacher would carry with it some obvious social drawbacks.
Well, since the sophomores seem to have torpedoed my rating in number (6), they might find that during my latte [hazelnut] wired International Business lessons I will be spending my energy creating a very effective and unwelcome combination of (2) and (3) instead. ;)
A few students have let me in on the big secret. The four teachers in the Center for International Studies program are all subjects of a complex student rating system.
While this system is completely unscientific, the students assure me that it is very accurate. These students conclude that it is an inevitable fact of teaching that the students will rate you against their other teachers. (As though I was never in high school and this concept is completely foreign to me.) So, naturally, I feign surprise and astonishment and asked them how it worked. After a short conference with two other students, one of them gave me a short list of the most common ways they compare instructors. The six most important areas were as follows:
(1) "hardness" [difficulty of assigned work]
(2) "harshness" [use of discipline]
(3) "saying but not doing" [follow through with disciplinary threats]
(4) "lame or cool" [whether the instructor is likeable overall]
(6) "hotness" [hotness]
I am not very remarkable in any of these areas apparently. Overall, my "weirdness" and over enthusiasm about topics like the national GDP and indexing of currency exchange rates has me leaning more towards lame than cool. Excitingly though, I am only slightly less hot than the "hotness" category winner, Ms. Gates, the geography and out-door education teacher. It was speculated that although I am the youngest member of the faculty, I might not be the front runner in this category because Mr. Hanson recently spiked up his hair and trimmed his beard which stole some of the girls votes from me. But, they all agree, it is most likely due to the fact that the sophomores often refer to me as "Miss Nicholas." I guess this caused me to lose a portion of votes from the male students because registering me as the hottest teacher would carry with it some obvious social drawbacks.
Well, since the sophomores seem to have torpedoed my rating in number (6), they might find that during my latte [hazelnut] wired International Business lessons I will be spending my energy creating a very effective and unwelcome combination of (2) and (3) instead. ;)
