NOTE: My Caps are not "Yelling," just stressing some points!

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_Sky said:

I also think students and parents should be allowed to express their voices by quarterly evaluating the teachers...on paper! Any time I give a seminar, or educate those who do, I make sure a critique is part of the course. If such concern makes a difference on a week-long or even a one day course, surely it's more important to receive the feedback from the parents for a year-long adventure! IMO. Any teacher should welcome feedback. You toss the ones over the top praise, and those that are only complaints (if either category only has a few) and go with the average comments. Perhaps the ones against this are those slackers who know they are cheating the students?

If a student hasn't learned, the teacher hasn't taught. Pure and simple.

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I am not sure what level you are talking about in allowing evaluations of the teachers, highschool, college, all?

Literature has shown time and time again that "personal characteristics" such as professor's appearance, professors color or race or gender, and STUDENT's belief of the grade they are getting have a MAJOR influence on faculty evaluations.

In fact, many universities are no longer using these as evaluations as "performance of teaching" because many come back with things like "I want to ***** the professor" "I hated the professor's shoes" "This class was so much work", etc, etc. Instead of critical comments and evaluations about the class, the methods or style of teaching and the learning experience.

QUOTE: "If a student has not learned, it is the teacher's fault"

I wholeheartedly disagree with this. I was a foster kid, a trouble maker. I did horrible in school. Teacher's tried, but my lifestyle did not allow for me to learn. Being moved, having horrible bio-parents, and my mental health issues all made an impact in the classroom. I was one of those kids in 8th grade reading at a 3rd grade level, no fault of the teachers, because they could only do so much. They taught, I could not learn. Their fault was continuing to pass me through....and looking the other way about my level of education. Allowing me to "slip through the cracks."

BUT when my life got stable and I remained in one home for the rest of my childhood, when I had a "family" that had an interest in my development and well-being, then it was at this point that I was able to learn what was being taught. I was not having to worry about being abused, not having food, not having caring, not having clothes, I could focus on learning because I no longer had to worry about surviving.

Do I blame all those earlier teachers? No. I blame the other people who should have been supportative of my development.
At the middle school/high school level, kids can't learn if their lives are hell. And hell could be anything from undiagnosed learning disabilities to family problems to mental illness to ???
KIDS CAN NOT LEARN WELL IF THEY ARE SUFFERING INNER TURMOIL AND PAIN.
It simply takes too much energy and effort to deal with pain, so there is not much left to learn.

I think that there is failure at both the SCHOOL level and SOCIETY level. Society has broken down so much that families are not important anymore. Kids are left to be raised in the school system. How can teacher's be expected to teach and baby-sit and deal with problem behaviors. They can't. So, something fails..........the behavior of the children is allowed to be disrepectful, the student's learn less, etc. and it just snowballs.

I personally think it is a disaster. Families want the teachers to fix it and teachers want the families to fix it. The people that should be taking the responsibility for giving stability in a child's life is the family unit. But because the way society has changed, the family unit does not exist. Parents are over-worked and have to, to be able to maintain the material things they feel they need. Instead of spending time with the children, they give the children "things" to entertain them. (Hence this entitled feeling that many college students have)

IMHO....money won't change the problem.....fixing the family unit will.