When Students Speak

Photo by Jason Rosewell on Unsplash

Over the last few weeks, I've been thinking about your (student) feedback, and how it's affected me personally, and my teaching over the last decade or so. I have, let's say, mixed feelings about your feedback, ranging from anger to anxiety to guilt to shame to...well, you get it. 

Mixed, strong feelings about your feedback. For sure.

When I started teaching in 2006, the end-of-semester student evaluations mainly triggered feelings of inadequacy and anxiety. I vividly recall one student who confidently claimed that I favored Hispanic students or something to that effect. I went into total panic mode when I read that comment. I remember I emailed my program's director asking her if she thought I should send a mass email to the entire class explaining how this was not true, and how much I appreciated and valued every single student, not just those who shared my Hispanic heritage. I had taken, I told her, special care to never use Spanish in the classroom. Not once. I was sure. Once again--as she usually did--she saved me from myself by urging me to "let it go" and look at it as something that perhaps a student who was not happy about their grade had written in haste. 

That is probably when I started to gather my own data. For many years now, I've made a habit of asking you to give me feedback almost constantly during our interactions. I find myself ending every conversation with "Does this make sense so far?" or "What do you think?" or "Do you agree, disagree, something in between?" I also ask you to complete at least 3 surveys each semester. The beginning-of-the-semester survey helps me gather data on your learning preferences, interests, and linguistic background. Around midterms, I ask you again to complete a survey that tells me what's working (or not working) for you. My exit survey continues the "What work/did not work" inquiries, but also asks you to reflect on your class experiences.                       

I find your responses terrifyingly fascinating. 

There's always trepidation, even after almost two decades in the teaching profession. When I was younger, I wanted to be liked, but now, I just want to make sure I'm helping you thrive in exploration and uncertainty, and that's why any comment that points to a flaw still carries the sting of failure. It all comes back to failure, and my fear of it. 

This semester, your feedback was collected by an outsider to our class as part of a redesign project I'm working on. The "collector" of said feedback is someone I trust and respect, but the days leading to the collection of that data were stressful for me to the point that I felt physically nauseous. Why, I wonder? I get better at teaching every year. The last few years have been especially eye-opening as I've recognized that failure and innovation are partners not enemies. Yet, student feedback was triggering, once again, more fear than any Wes Craven horror flick ever could. 

But there is one key difference: I now recognize these thoughts, these feelings of inadequacy, this imposter syndrome, as the cancer they are, and I give myself daily shots of confidence to keep the tumors at bay. 

I choose, again and again, to use feedback as nourishment for my teaching.  That's all. My teaching body needs your thoughts like my physical body needs café con leche in the mornings. That's all. 

This year, I've read through your comments with trepidation but also with sincere curiosity. I learn from you. For example, I've learned that for next semester, I'll have all ask my future students create their own digital writing studio at the very beginning of the term, so they can curate their writing in a digital room of their own. That, my dear students, is on you. 

That's all.