Why Not Teacher Evaluations by Students?

[Squinch]

13. This is really very silly.

It guarantees that the easiest or least serious teachers will be rewarded. We are talking about kids. They don't like things like homework and long division.

I also think this attitude is an example of one of the biggest problems at the bottom of the difficulties teachers are facing today. Kids are not the ones who should be directing what they are taught. They don't know enough. That's why they need teachers.

When I went to school, I was told, "You need to learn the times tables." I wasn't asked if it was OK with me if someone taught me the times tables. It wasn't explained to me why I needed to learn them. I was just told that I did need to learn them. There are certain basics that you don't know why you are learning them when you are learning them. You only understand why you need to know them after you know them and apply them. Most of grammar school is comprised of these basics.

There is an attitude now, among those who create the curricula, who are also usually people who have never set foot in a classroom, that we need to get permission from the kids to teach them what they need to learn. There are all kinds of provisions in these plans to get the kids to buy into what they are being taught. It wastes time, and the kids don't get it or care about it.