Rate My Teachers?

[Mr Wonderful]

sorry if this has been done before, but being a new teacher I'm really interested in this crazy thing, alot of teachers in the lounge have been talking about it alot latley, its blocked at are computers here, anyway, just tell me what you think, wheather you think its ethical and if youve ever been on and if so how are your ratings doing? thanks!

[sweetsass]

What are you talking about? Provide a website or other resource, please.

[Mr Wonderful]

sorry, the website is www.ratemyteachers.com

[AndreaB]

This has been going on for quite some time at the college level. Any anonymous person can post anything about anyone, so the reliability of the information is questionable.

[RichBurzynski]

This is actually pretty funny. I have gone to the website before.. I was rated pretty decently.. lol I take no credence in it but it was fun to look at.

[AndreaB]

One of the college-level professor rating sites lets students choose to post a chili pepper if they think a professor is "hot." I hope they don't add that to the teacher rating sites...ew.

[javamomma]

My son has done this with college have not heard of it elementary

[Krafty]

My college had us fill in an evaluation for each teacher at the end of the semester. Even on the college level some kids just used it as a way to lash out, so I can only imagine that a lot of HS kids would use it as a way to act on a grudge.

[scrivener]

One of the things I love about being a technology teacher is that I'm usually aware of these things even before my students are. I've kept an eye on RateMyTeachers.com and have yet to see my name there. In a way, I'm disappointed.

Sure, anyone can post anything anonymously, but I think it's unlikely that ratings there are by students who don't know the teachers. Why would someone go to some other school's listings and randomly select a teacher to assign a bad rating to, especially when there are soooooo many cool things you could anonymously do to the ratings of teachers you do know?

Students can be unfair in their opinions, but that doesn't make them any less valid as opinions. Teachers need to keep that in mind. Each one of us is someone's favorite and someone's least-favorite, and sometimes the needle swings violently from one end to the next. We're dealing with teenagers here!

It's easy to dismiss the ratings at RateMyTeachers.com as meaningless, and I agree that they should be taken with a grain of salt the size of a saltlick, but I think that what's written there is worth being aware of. I've looked at the ratings (and especially the comments) of colleagues, and it's remarkable to me how many of the comments are pretty much what I'd have said about the same teachers. Kids can be nasty, but to assume that they will only be nasty is unfair.

So, how many of you have seen yourself listed there?

[Krafty]

I don't think any of us are assuming they will all be nasty, in fact most of the comments I read seemed fair. I was just observing that it seems an easy way for a disgruntled student to lash out. I checked out some of my HS teachers and was surprised after almost *gulp* 20 years that several of my teachers were still there. So, I posted a few comments of my own (all nice, BTW).

I clicked on Wall of Shame just out of curiosity - amazing the number of schools that have blocked access to the site from school computers. Allows for a cooling off period maybe? Mostly HS on the list.