Marks out of Ten? 生徒に評価される！

Well one of the more scary but I suppose constructive ideas of the powers that be at Jogakuin (my school), is to have all the teachers fill out an evaluation form for each class that they teach, and in return, the students fill out the same form about the teacher. Then you see if your ideas about each other match up. Then they get to write comments about you or your classes. I didn't fill out the form about my kids, due to time restrictions at the end of term, and because I didn't feel I knew the kids well enough to be fair, but they, it appears, had no such reservations about me.
Now given my surprise at how personally I took the comments on Mairi's report card (even though I knew they didn't mean much), it was with trepidation that I went up to find out my popularity rating today.
It's an unnerving thing to be on the other side of the fence, facing the ones you've been trying to impress and impress upon. My policy has always been that teaching is not a popularity contest, and that your job is to get the material across more than anything. I don't care if they hate me if they learn something, I always say. It's alright to believe this honestly, and be aware that you can't please all the people all the time, but it's quite another to be told directly they hate you and why!

Anyway, I won't bore you with the details. Let's just say, that more people seem to grudgingly like me than hate me, which is heartening, and more people feel they are learning something than not, although depressingly, the negative stats are there too. There were a few points which I will take seriously, and try to improve on, which makes me glad I read the report, but I thought I'd leave you with my favourite comment.

Under the heading: "Things I wish this teacher would do to improve the class"

Anonymous wrote : "I wish she'd shut up!"

A great epitaph for a conversation teacher, and I'm sure many of you will appreciate her sentiments! And with that....... I'll shut up!

今日は生徒の評価アンケートの結果をもらいました。生徒たちはいろんな質問に答えるし、個人的なコメントも書くことができます。茉利の成績表のコメントをどれだけ個人的に受け取ったことに自分でもびっくりした私が、ちょっと緊張して、校長室に入って、自分の人気の確率をもらいに行きました。
いつもこちから評価して、判断しないといけないから、立場が逆になるとちょっと怖いね。「教えるのは人気者大会じゃない」、とは私の昔からのポリシですし、個人的に好かれなくても、生徒が何か一つ学んだ、と言ってくれた方が満足と信じてきています。だけど、実際にはっきり直接「嫌いだ」とその理由を言われると、やっぱりいやよね！
それで、結果は？細かいことは面白くないでしょうけど、「嫌い」と言う人より「好き」と言ってくれた人の方が多いから、ちょっと安心しました。「全く何も習っていない」と言う人より「自分の英語力があがったでしょう」と言ってくれた人の方がおおいし。だからと言って、好評率が１００％という訳でももちろんない。建設的なコメントもあったし、反省しながら、頑張ることができるから、結局レポートを読んでよかったと思う。
でも最後に、一番好きな／ショック受けたコメントを教えてあげましょう。

「先生に要望したいこと」のところで：

｢黙って欲しい。」

その気持ちに賛成している人もいるだろうと思って。。。
会話の先生として、恥ずかしいか。。。。？

まあ、それ以上、黙るしかないな！