teacher evaluations... good idea?

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Permalink Reply by Allison Reid on February 4, 2014 at 3:39pm

I have several teachers and future teachers in my family and church family, and there has been one reoccurring topic of complaint among them all: these new teacher evaluations. A good friend of mine who is a teacher told me that in the past when she generally spent an hour after school preparing for the next day, she now has spent up to five or six hours working on her evaluation paperwork! It seems that recently the attention has been put onto the teachers and taken off of the students themselves. Yes, it is crucial to have diligent, excellent teachers, however the purpose is to teach the students, and when a teacher spends all her time evaluating and being evaluated, the focus is taken from the student and placed on the performance of the teacher. Is this right for us to do? Should we go about this a different way, or is there no other way if we want to have excellent teaching?

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Permalink Reply by Lauren Honeycutt on February 4, 2014 at 3:44pm

I feel like the evaluations are not a good idea. They cause the teachers to have unnecessary stress, which can negatively effect the learning of the students, which should be the main goal of an educator.

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Permalink Reply by Mattea Kaye McLemore on February 4, 2014 at 3:40pm

I feel like not everything should be based off one evaluation. What if the class is having an off day? one day shouldn't create ideas about a classroom as a whole throughout the rest of the year

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Permalink Reply by Brittany Wood on February 4, 2014 at 3:42pm

I believe that teacher evaluations are a good idea, because if they never get evaluated then they will not know what to do to better the children in the classrooms. Teachers also need hints on what they should be doing different or keep doing so that they can help the students in their classes.

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Permalink Reply by Victoria Lawson on February 4, 2014 at 4:33pm

I do believe teacher evaluations put too much pressure on both the teachers and students. I say this because as a student, my teacher would always tell the class before his/her evaluation and ask us to behave our best. While I do agree we needed to act on our best behalf, I think it puts too much pressure on the students, even if they already act well in the classroom. I also think the teacher is trying to hard to impress the evaluator that they are not paying attention to their students' academic progress in that school day.