(Squelch) Is this mike on? Pop, pop, pop. (chuckles) So, did you hear the one about the teachers who are evaluated by their students?! (laugh, laugh, laugh, laugh) Well, let’s just say the kids are getting away with a lot more stuff than they used to. (laugh, laugh) No, I’m serious, this is a thing. Schools are making students as young as third grade rate their teachers. (laugh, cough, chuckles) Teens evaluate their teachers, too, now. This newfangled mandate comes from the ‘world of academia’ where college students have been evaluating their professors. (sniff, chuckles) Can you believe we’re allowing school-age kids to rate teachers, like this means anything? And the student ratings count, like 15 percent of a teacher’s overall evaluation score. (gasp, uncomfortable gaze) Yeah, swear to God. And this is going on in practically every school district around and throughout the nation. (sobering stares)
I mean, can you imagine parents being evaluated by their kids? The likes of us rating our parents? (laugh, laugh, laugh) The people who raised us back in the day? (laugh, laugh) Boy would my butt be sore! (laugh, laugh, laugh) Oh, but the student evaluations are anonymous! Talk about payback! (laugh, laugh, laugh) You know in our day, a lot of kids would’ve scorched certain teachers especially if they flunked a class or were paddled. (“Yeah, really!” laugh, laugh) I can think of a couple of teachers that every kid hated. I won’t mention names, but these were ladies—and yes, for some reason now that I think about it, they were all women who every school kid happened to hate—who paddled some butts or sent kids—usually all boys for some reason—to the principal—who was always a man. Then the principal would heave-ho the paddle and lay on a few whacks, probably just practicing his baseball swing. (laugh, laugh) Remember, the boy would return to class, cocky disposition effectively obliterated (laugh), looking at the ground, sniffling and wiping tears, then dive into his desk and lay his head down in folded arms and cry like a baby. (laugh, laugh, chuckle, clear throat)
So now we’re letting Eddie Haskell and Larry Mondelo evaluate their teachers? (laugh, laugh, laugh) How fair is a kid, especially in elementary school, gonna be? (chuckle) No other profession allows kids to rate them, seriously anyway. Can you imagine kids rating police officers? Store clerks? Therapists? Doctors? Dentists? Oh and the kids do not rate the school principals, who as everyone knows have long ago put away the paddle or any remote sort of painful reprimand to effect discipline in our public schools.
Rough Room
Here are some sample questions from the student teacher evaluation. Really, these are statements that kids rate, like: My teacher is always in a bad mood. Or ‘My teacher is always very pleasant.’ Or ‘My teacher always takes time to work with me when I don’t understand a problem.’ Or ‘My teacher never supports my community.’ That last one, what the hell? Why is that an issue today? Wouldn’t a kid be led to believe that his teacher is supposed to live nearby, grocery shop, attend church and every baseball game with the kid’s family? (laugh, chuckle) What is this, 1959? Like we expect teachers to reside in the communities or cities where they teach? Do we expect all other professional working people to live in the communities where they just happen to have a job? (chuckle, chuckle)
The student answer choices are literally: Never, Hardly Ever, Sometimes, Most of the Time, Always. (laugh, laugh, snort) Yeah, you adults know what I’m talking about here. Sounds like quite a few of you have been in ‘couples counseling.’ (laugh, laugh, laugh) You know, where we are told to avoid telling our partners things like “You never clean the house” or “You always lose your keys.” (laugh, laugh, laugh) Psychologists remind us no one is ‘always’ or ‘never’ a certain way. To even use the terms ‘always’ and ‘never’ when referring to someone is a sign of an immature mind. It just may seem like someone screws up every day, especially if we don’t like the person anymore. (laugh)
The student teacher rating is just unbelievable considering kids see everything as black or white. They are not old enough to understand nuance, mood, life as shades of gray. We know a person is not the same way every minute of the day. Am I right? (“Yeah!”) So kids are going to check the Never and Always choices when assessing their teachers. That would explain why most of our teachers do not receive a 100 from their student evaluations or even rate an A. In fact, a large number are actually failing, in the minds of their students. (chuckle, laugh) No wonder so many teachers quit.
Education Major
Look, there isn’t an adult I know who wants to be a teacher. Come on, show of hands: Who wants to be a teacher, in our public schools? (laugh, chuckle) OK, I see a few hands, very few. I see that group of women back there raising the arm of the guy with you. Very funny. (laugh, giggle) You know why adults don’t want to be teachers? Because adults don’t want to hang out with lots of kids all day every day … even with summers off. You like your own kids, right? (laugh) OK, you love your children, I know. But you know kids can get on our nerves. They can disappoint us sometimes. And sometimes we don’t react well when a kid says some smart (bleep) thing to us or rolls the eyes or snickers—like they know more than we do.
What I’m trying to say is those who go into teaching are literally doing the Work of God. (applause, whistles) They are living, breathing, walking saints of God. (applause) They spend all day trying to teach and often end up having to handle kids from a variety of family structures or no structure at all. And now society is making school kids, including quite a number from rough childhoods with parents in prison or on drugs or overworked and too tired to raise them, rate their teachers—who usually come from a completely different background. Doesn’t seem funny anymore, does it?
Well, let me leave you with this final thought in praise of teachers or just to feel sorry for them. (chuckle, chuckle, “Good. Go.”) Wait a minute. Am I being heckled out there? The state of our schools and the teachers who still work in them is not comedy material to you? I find it quite laughable sometimes. Nevertheless, I have a couple more minutes before my set is through. Someone engage the heckler in a more scintillating topic like Trumpian politics till I’m through here. (chuckle, “You suck.”) All right already.
The heckler does prove another point. The other reason why some folks—maybe like you, just enjoying a comedy club tonight with a drink or two—don’t care much about teachers or the profession. It’s because we all had bad teachers when we were in school: the grumpy, the overbearing, the smug, the air head, the touchy-feely, the elderly, the chain smoker, the beauty queen, the jock, the disinterested, the loafer, the wannabe cool friend, the creep, the Hitler. What can we say? We were raised in a different era maybe.
I grew up with a teacher, and the one thing that struck me during my childhood was how professional she was on the job, not necessarily at home where she expected her kids to behave. Mom could swing a belt! (laugh, laugh) So I looked at my teachers in a different light. I had a little insight into them as people, unlike my peers who just didn’t like school, being in school, having to be in school, and having to follow rules. (laugh) I liked school a lot, not every subject like math and science, but I liked being in school, the formality and the structure. And I’ll make a confession: As a kid, I always thought the summer breaks were way too long. Like, why don’t we have year-round school already? (scant applause)
Like you I suppose, most of my teachers did not leave a great impression on me. But several did, even a lasting effect, perhaps life altering. Even in elementary school, I was mature enough to understand every teacher is different. My job was to try to get along with a variety of personalities, do what they said, and learn their subjects. I think today by letting students rate their teachers (which really is a way to prevent raises for the less-than-popular types—pssst, most teachers) we are sending a message. What is the message exactly? That kids count? That what children think of their teachers is important? That what a kid thinks is accurate and reliable, fair and honest? Have you spent a day in our public schools lately? (laugh) Kidworld is cruel, not unlike The Simpsons or Southpark. (laugh, chuckle)
So my guess is this latest experiment in trying to improve our public schools is solely to whip the teachers into a frenzy. It’s just continuing the illusion or delusion that our schools—a reflection of our society—are fine, just fine. (laugh, applause) You’ve been a great audience, thank you! Have a good evening everyone! Enjoy time away from the boss! (And for teachers, that would be the kids.)