Thanks for sharing that. I like his attitude.

I am currently a student, and when I fill out those evaluations, I try to aim for around the middle. I like most of my instructors, and I am an A student (I had a 4.0 up until a couple of weeks ago), so I'm not usually a problem child in class or anything like that. I realize that if they weren't pretty good, they probably wouldn't be teaching graduate students. But I figure that if I habitually gave out top marks, there would be no way to differentiate the teachers that I really like the best. And the ones I like the best probably aren't the same ones that someone else likes best. One of my instructors has told me that I am "a harsh grader" as he habitually includes an assignment that involves grading something he has written, and I do look at those critically. I figured that the errors and omissions were put there deliberately for us to find. Or maybe he didn't write the pieces at all - I don't know.

I hope this helps too. And I hope that you don't take your students' evaluations too hard. Students just may not be sure what the appropriate standard is for evaluating teachers. Or for some it might be their chance to give out grades to match some of the ones they have received. You never know.

Rap