Apparently, Even on Vacation We Can Be Stirred From Slumber If a Really Good Post Comes In

A student wrote:

I'm a college student and (amongst other things) would consider myself "mellow" in the classroom. I'm also generally quiet, because A) I'm shy, B) I like to listen, and C) I have few questions which go unanswered- and if ever I do, I ask. I love to learn, and learn well. I work very hard and have a GPA which accurately reflects that. So reading your rant ("Hall of Fame Post #15"), which makes clear that you find these qualities (mellowness, etc.) "annoying" was a bit disheartening.

You know, I understand why you made this site. I understand that it takes tremendous work to go through and get the degrees required to teach at your level. And I understand that getting the education is just the beggining, and that getting a professorship, and tenure, and all of that is even more difficult and stressful. It's more overwhelming than I even know, I'm sure. And for what, you must think, to teach unappreciative spoiled suburbanites? It's not hard for me then, to extend my imagination far enough to understand why you dislike the RMP website. It must be awful to have gone through all of that just to have students rate whether you are attractive or "easy."

So, it shouldn't be hard for you to extend your own imagination far enough to understand why it saddened me to read that my "mellowness" is interpreted as annoying, or why my lack of challenging behavior characterizes me as someone who is "missing the point of college".

Maybe you could enlighten me.

Then we wrote:

Nobody at RYS wrote the post you refer to. The moderators post emails that come in from professors and students from around the country. That having been said, however, we do understand what the original poster's idea was. When a student isn't active in class - chooses to be mellow - he/she is not helping move the class forward. Part of learning is being active, asking questions, dissenting, arguing, etc. If you simply sit back and let the mellow goodness flow from the instructor, you aren't doing part of your job - being an inquiring and inquisitive student.

Then the student wrote back:

I don't think "mellow" and "active" are neccesarily contradictory to one another, as you both seem to pass of as factual or indesputable. I have been in many classes, if not most, where the material being presented and taught could not reasonably be argued. Those who argued, and there always are some who did, simply misunderstood the material and after having it explained again felt silly for having done so.

I won't apologize for grasping concepts quickly or keeping my mouth shut until I do. And about the "job" of the student- please. Our "job" is nothing short of getting the best grades possible, and as that professor mentioned, earning grades is seperate from earning respect and admiration. I understand that many professors likely have some ideal student that they wished filled the classrooms each quarter and made life interesting, but the outside world doesn't care.

All ANYONE looks at is how well we did. We both know that. So what's the motivation to speak up and argue? Why run the risk? That sort of prevelant mindset may upset you, but it's reality. It's logical. It's reasonable. And I certainly think it's understandable.

Then we wrote:

What causes this disconnect between your view and our view, is that we believe it SHOULD matter what happens in the classroom, and that grades are completely meaningless tokens that are used by the outside world in a careless and capricious manner.

Many of us in the field have awfully idealized ideas of what it is we do, and we believe that you're missing much of the most important and valuable stuff in college if you aren't willing to argue and risk something class for fear or getting some grade you don't want.

We know about the outside world, and have worked in the outside world. It's shitty, if we have to tell the truth. We know it exists. But that doesn't mean we have to like it. And for the most part, we don't even have to acknowledge it. We want our students to be better at arguing, discussing, getting involved, figuring things out.

We don't care one whit if you get a job. We want your life to be better...a better human, not a better employee somewhere. We know this is a problem that students have with higher education. It has been this way for the 20 years we've been in the business. This disconnect breaks our hearts, because students think they're in college for one thing, and they completely miss this amazing opportunity because nobody has the courage or the sense to tell them differently.

We wish you well. It's clear you care about these issues, and we're sure you can point to outside world elements that show all of our idealized bullshit to be ... well ... bullshit. But as long as we teach, w're going to work hard to show students that there's value in what we're trying to help them discover, far beyond grades.

Hall of Fame Post #15: Where People Are Wrong About RYS

No, professors don't rate students by giving grades. The grades I give students are entirely about the work they do in my class. And yes, of course there are some students I 'like' more than others, but don't you imagine that any professional can separate the personal and the professional?

Some of my favorite students have been among my weakest, in part because I see myself in them at that age. They work hard, but the work is barely passing. On the other hand, smart kids who've had a lot of advantages in high school come in to my class with bad work habits but a strong background. They do well on their work, despite the fact that they are annoying, grade-grubbing, and all the rest. They earn A's, despite what I actually think of them, despite how I would rate them as a student.

I prefer students who are a challenge, who question me, who push me to do a better job. Students who are mute, mellow, arrogant, or disengaged are missing the point of college, and it never fails to annoy me.

As for the future of RYS, I don't suppose faculty members will send in a lot of "positive" ratings. I imagine this is because professors will use this site to work out some frustration that is created by unfair and anonymous ratings of their own. Is that fair? I wasn't aware we were going for that, so perhaps not. Do I have a ton of great students? Absolutely. They don't frustrate me. They make my days better. I should just say, "Good on you," to those students every once in a while, and I hope that I do over the course of a semester. But Rate Your Students is a blog where we come together to bark at the moon when we get sick and tired of our entire careers being reduced to whether we're "hot" or not, and where any chickenshit student can blast away anonymously with falsehoods.

Hall of Fame Post #14: RMP Moderator Breaks It Down

Occasionally during our summer break, we'll post "hall of fame" posts from this blog's earlier incarnation. Below comes a note from an RMP moderator.

This world can be such a cruel place. But that gives no reason to overlook all the good things in life.

Some professors talk of present-day students as spoiled brats who want everything handed to them on a silver plate. Sure, I guess that applies to certain students. There’s the girl in my Philosophy class who walks out midway through a lecture to talk on her cellphone. Then there’s the guy in Social Sciences class who, after having mysteriously disappeared for the entire semester, comes on the last day to ask why he’s failing. Professors can talk all they want about their lazy and unmotivated students.Students can also talk of apathetic professors. The ones who don’t answer their emails. The ones who don’t return assignments within a reasonable time frame. The ones who come to class and mumble into the podium. The ones who copy textbook sentences and use it as “lecture notes.”

But I would much rather talk about the professors who make it all worthwhile. The professors who are ALWAYS available during office hours to answer questions. The professors who care whether we understand the material, whether we receive the maximum education possible in that certain subject. These professors TEACH us. They inspire us. Their lessons will be remembered for a lifetime. Their names will be etched into our memories.

And most of us who’ve had such professors are grateful enough to go onto RateMyProfessors and speak of our experiences.Why don’t more professors come to your blog to talk about all the “good” students they’ve had?People call your site as a rebuttal to RMP. I will not criticize RMP, although I can admit that I disagree with some of their policies (including the use of chilli peppers to rate a professor’s hotness or lack thereof). But I will also say that RMP is NOT a careless site that PURPOSELY lets students bypass with inappropriate ratings. RMP’s moderators work hard to ensure the best of quality for students all over North America. Bluntly put, some professors just can’t teach their way out of a paper bag. Shouldn’t we have the right to avoid certain classes if they don’t suit our needs? The needs of poor-starving-students-who-are-up-to-their-necks-in-debt-because-they-have-to-pay-high-tuition-and-text-fees?

RMP will last because it’s MEANT to be a site that offers CONSTRUCTIVE student evaluation of professors—it’s well-intentioned. You may love “most” of your students… but a site that’s designed as a venting machine for disgruntled “academics”, no matter how ingenious, cannot… 'should' not last.

Going Dark Til August

With our most sincere apologies, we're going to take the summer off. None of the moderators will have the time to keep the site operational until the end of August, and rather than just post sporadically and be sloppy with the mail, we thought we'd announce our intentions.

This site, started in November of 2005, and then reborn in late February of 2006, has been a labor of love for all parties. We make no money from it, obviously, but are encouraged by the endless email that tells us we're doing a good thing.

But with all of us out of pocket until the Fall semester, we'll have to go dark until then. We hope you will find it in your hearts to forgive us.

However, we encourage you to continue to send mail to us, as we hope to publish a batch of the best posts when we return.

Also, if you'd like our automated email system to send you a note when we begin operations again, send us an email with "BUMP ME" as the subject.

One of us will occasionally put up a "Hall of Fame" post from pre-February archives over the next 10 weeks. It won't be the same, of course. You'll still feel a little abandoned. But we'll be getting lots of sun and playing tennis, so it all evens out.

Our best wishes,
RYS

We Love Our Fans!

I am a part-timer at a large Southern CA community college and I just found your site! I need to catch up on the posts, so please leave it up for the summer. I have had some slams from students on RMP who clearly were attempting to get back at me for recieving a bad grade in my English 100 class. It freaked me out because I remember discussing certain professors with my friends when I was in college and planning my semester schedule...but my friends were also headed to grad school and looking for a challenge, not just an easy "A."

These kids do not know who writes the reviews on RMP and the one bad rating I got was from a student who dropped because he was about to get a "D," and then blamed his ignorance, hubris and general stupidity on my so-called closed mind.

It is a release to read what other professors have to say about the problems encountered with students. As a part-timer, I don't even get to see most of my colleagues when I am on campus, let alone discuss the foibles of our students in the staff lounge.

Your site is a virtual staff lounge where we can loosen those ties, get a cup of coffee, kick off our heels and blab. It feels nice to blab with other professors...it's cathartic and it's reassuring to know that I'm not the only one on the planet with crazy students.

Someone With a Rosy View - And We'd Love to Switch Places With Him - Loses A Little Hope

I’m discovering this semester for the first time a new breed of student: the quitter. Out of 50 students in my two calculus classes, I have five who are on the roster at the end of the semester but who failed to show up and take the final exam.

The biggest difference this semester is not only that such “quitters” represented a record ten percent of my entire enrollment, but also that all five students sent me e-mails describing their futile struggle with second semester calculus (it is, in some fairness, a very difficult course) and informing me of their intent to drop out. Of course, since the withdrawal deadline had already passed, dropping out really meant accepting an F and moving on. Mind you, the withdrawal deadline is fairly late in the semester and they had two midterms to judge before the deadline whether they wanted to withdraw on time.

Being young and still enthusiastic about my job (and still desperately clinging to my rosy view of humanity despite most of the posts on this website) I returned every such e-mail with a desperate plea to hang in there. After all, you can’t do any worse than an F and my grading curve is quite generous, so what do you have to lose? One student who thought she was failing actually had the median score in her class of 30 students and I informed her of this in my reply. I told her that 15 people would have to fail the course before she would, and I’ve never given out 15 D’s and F’s before for a class of that size.

The five students responded neither to my pep talks nor to my logic. They didn’t even reply to my e-mails. They simply disappeared from class from that point on. And judging by the similarity of their e-mails to me and some less favorable posts on RateMyProfessors.com, a few of them decided to blame me for their cowardice.

I am not naïve enough to believe that calculus is the most important class to these students and I understand that these students have important competing interests to consider. Nevertheless, I can’t figure out what is so hard about sitting through a two-hour exam when the result can be no worse than not showing up at all.

I understand and respect students for setting priorities, but I have no respect for the quitter.

The Law of Equal Distribution and Return

How come I got only 7 out of 10 for my paper? My friend at XXXX University got 9 out of 10 on his.

Where Our Grasp Seems to Have Exceeded Our Reach

God is quick! What do you wanna bet that the department head is a RYS fan too? ;-)