BY FRANKIE VANSICKLE, STAFF WRITER
Have you ever wondered why a teacher is still in your school? Do you think that we as students should be able to grade either our professors or teachers? I was talking to someone about this about a month ago, and we both thought that this was an interesting idea to talk about. We all know the term of tenure in teaching. Basically, it’s the teacher not getting fired and making more pay.
We have all had those teachers that we thought should not be teaching anymore, and all of us thought that how could we get a better teacher. It’s bad to say this, but I feel like we as students can change the trajectory of how we are taught.
A teacher is supposed to be the one who shapes our thinking and teaches us the things we need to know for life. If we don’t get these, what are we even doing being in school some of the time? If the teacher is not going to do this for us, what is the point of having that job? That’s why I think it is a good idea for students to be able to grade the teachers, similar to how teachers grade students.
Sometimes, teachers are graded when they have their yearly evaluations, and the principal comes into the classroom. I don’t think that this is enough. Teachers know when they are getting their evaluations because they are usually told when the principal is going to come in. Then they prepare an actual lesson and make it well thought out, so it seems that they are teaching effectively. This isn’t how it should be done.
I think that, at the end of the year and also quarterly, the students get to complete an evaluation on the teachers. It would be about the teacher, how they make you feel and where you feel like you are with learning the content. I also think that they should evaluate how they are feeling. A lot of people don’t think about potentially feeling emotionally attacked or beaten because of teachers. I think it is important to take this evaluation because it can affect the student in the long run, and it can affect others around them because of how miserable they are feeling from a specific teacher.
These evaluations would be a basis and the principals sitting in would be the greatest way for us to grade teachers and their ability and skill set to still be a teacher. If teachers don’t make it on par with what we think the standard should be, then there would be a warning. That warning would possibly turn to a teacher being fired if they can’t make it within a certain amount of time. It’s not right for teachers who have these attributes and skills to not be used, where some teachers don’t and are still teaching and affecting the lives of children in a negative way.
