Monday, February 25, 2008

A major sigh of relief

I saw my teaching evaluation scores from last term this morning. Remember, I was so worried about them? I thought my teaching had suddenly become awful. Not so, according to students. The scores are very high. I'm so surprised - I was steeling myself for the worst numbers ever. This says something about my inability to gauge things properly when I'm in a bad way, as I was in November. I must remember this.

(Interestingly, my highest scores came in the category "Respects students." I wonder what this is about - I wonder what makes them think that. I mean, I do respect them, but I wonder what it is that makes them feel that way.)

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So that was a sigh of relief. To counter it, media releases are going out today for next week's week of events, which I've co-chaired. The communications people here think that one event in particular will generate a lot of media interest - an off-campus, community event. So I should be readying myself, they say, for calls from the press. Ack. I am so not a good spokesperson - I have a fundamental shyness around that kind of public display. It means I am almost hoping the media won't be interested, which is terrible of me. Since the whole point of the event was to generate discussion in the wider Scary City community.

1 comment:

gwoertendyke said...

i always dread and fear my student evaluations--i never feel like i've been impressive enough, prepped enough, had the right balance of giving them something and giving them space to find something in themselves. and yet, evaluations are always higher than i expect.

i think students are far more generous than we think, or maybe, than we are.