Battles of Attrition, Pyrrhic Victories & the Confusion of War: Student Evaluations After a First Year Attempt at Teaching Part I

The week before finals, I asked my students to complete an evaluation for my classes and instruction. In addition to asking students to rate the overall quality of the course and overall quality of the instructor, I asked students to rate the course in relevance to life outside the classroom, the benefit of assignments to learning, the course's level of interest and stimulation, as well as the students' expected grade at the end of the semester and the level of interest in the subject coming into the class.

I also provided space for written comments for assessing strengths and weaknesses of the course and instructor as well as overall comments and feedback. I promised students that I would not look at their anonymous evaluations until after school let out and final grades were posted...I also explained that this was the appropriate time and means of cursing and cussing me or singing my praise, if they felt so moved to either of the two extremes.

Here are some of the responses (as they appear on the evaluations--rather than include [sic] every time, you have my assurance that I will not make typographical errors), organized by class (I taught two classes of American History, one class of English 331, two classes of Journalism I/II, and one class of Social Issues in History):



American History

-Student expecting A with "Some" interest in subject
Course Strengths: I learned a lot and my questions were always answered
Course Weaknesses: The grading on test with all the decimals was weird. I didn't like receiving a 9.8 out of 10 on a test. Didn't make much sense to me

-Student expecting B with "None" interest in subject
Course Strengths: The [written] tests were good because we actually had to know what we were talking about & couldn't bs them like other classes
Course Weaknesses: Online prompts & journals were annoying & I always forgot to do them
Instructor Weaknesses: Took a long time to grade tests.

-Student expecting B with "Some" interest in subject
Course Strengths: I don't remember
Course Weaknesses: I don't remember half the class
Instructor Strengths: He knew a lot and had fun with the class
Instructor Weaknesses: you never gave A perfect 10 on a test I.D. Round it up, to a 10

-Student expecting A (does not indicate level of interest)
Course Strengths: The course covers how our nation came to be and what formed our country.
Course Weaknesses: It doesn't cover local history, it explains history that happened hundreds of miles away.

-Student expecting A- (does not indicate level of interest)
Instructor Strengths: Mr. S is really fucking smart. He isn't old and strict, although we have fun I believe we all respet him. He seem to be able to answer almost all Q's.

-Student expecting B (does not indicate level of interest)
Overall Comments: I thought you were very smart and knew the information and could answer any questions we had but we worked very slow and somethings were extremely boring. you gotta remember were required to take the class so you have to keep us interested which is hard to do with 17 year olds.

-Student expecting B+ with "Some" interest in subject
Overall Comments: A lot of times I think that you believe that we are really interested in this class, but you have to remember that we are 17 year-olds that are required to take the class.

-Student expecting C- with "Some" interest in subject
Instructor Weaknesses: Boring. No excitement, atitude stays the same all the time.
Overall Comments: I didn't like the class. to me history is a waist of time.

-Student expecting B with "Some" interest in subject
Course Strengths: Mr S knew what was going on
Course Weaknesses: The first semester was freaking stupid and I didn't need any of the stuff I learned. I need more 20th cent.
Instructor Strengths: you genuinely cared that we learned something. you tried to teach us in the best way
Instructor Weaknesses: you had to follow a cirriculum that didn't teach info we needed the second semester was getting closer to what we should learn
Overall Comments: good job Mr. S, bad job school

-Student expecting B+/A- (does not indicate level of interest)
Course Strengths: I will admit, this is the first history class that I have enjoyed. Things were taught in a way that seemed real and NOT as if they were just--History
Course Weaknesses: It's history, and it can be boring at times--sometimes I didn't understand certain Acts or Laws or ect just because I personally am not a history fan.
Instructor Strengths: Holy Cow! You know your stuff! You took information that I'd heard & made it NEW, refreshing, and enjoyable! You made it real & relatable. I can see your passion for history!
Instructor Weaknesses: Sometimes you seem to get flustered by students w/ their disrespect. Also, sometimes unclear of what you assign to us.
Overall Comments: I remember the very first class of the year--I thought it was going to Be boring when I walked in. When class was over, I had Never felt so bad & guilty before over something that Americans did years ago. You made history real! History was No longer "old stories" to me. They were life. You didn't make us memorize dates, peoples, places--you challenged us/me with the question WHY.

-Student expecting A (does not indicate level of interest)
Instructor Weaknesses: Shirts are too big. Could have used more worksheets for more people to have to read the book.

-Student expecting A (does not indicate level of interest and believes class is B1 [I taught A1/B2])
Course Strengths: We were pushed and made to study to do good on tests & improved a lot of our writing skills
Course Weaknesses: We didn't have a lot of assignments & we had to read outside of class which we didn't do

-Student expecting B+ (does not indicate level of interest and also believes class is B1)
Course Strengths: really had to study for tests
Course Weaknesses: we didn't really do a whole lot. We never really had homework. It was just to read which I never did.
Overall Comments: Bullshit--there's my cuss word.

-Student expecting C with "None" interest in subject
Overall Comments: good teacher, hard assignments which helped me learn more, enjoyed the class when I could stay awake

-Student expecting A with "Some" interest in subject
Overall Comments: class was good. I learned a great deal, but wish I learned more (20th century) I wish it had more structure and wasn't based a lot on writing. It's History, not English.

-Student expecting B (does not indicate level of interest)
Course Weaknesses: I thought that the weaknesses were the students

-Student expecting A with "Some" interest in subject
Course Strengths: Discussion--when the guys weren't acting like ignorant fucks
Course Weaknesses: The people in this class...

-Student expecting B (does not indicate level of interest)
Instructor Weaknesses: The homework was not always graded on time. He also went on rants and used many words to described us [difficult to decipher if this says "us" or "US" as in United States].