I finally was e-mailed my course evaluations from the class I TAed for last Spring.  This was the first time I had ever been on the receiving end of such a process, and I was mildly nervous about what the outcome might be, mostly because it was my first year teaching and, well, I had a tendency to get trapped in the mundane.  What you get from ASU are two things:  1.  a PDF of the results of the survey that is filled with general questions, such as “did your professor begin class on time?” and “did they stimulate thinking in class discussions?” and 2.  a typed word document of every personal comment written down so as to hide the evaluating student’s handwriting, and identity.  I would like to point out that I did not receive a list as to what the survey questions were, so the results page has little or no meaning to me, other than the majority of my students filled in the “A” circle on all of the questions, two of them chose not to answer some of the questions, and at least one student consistently thought I was the worst person in the world on each question.

The typed comments I was much more interested in, mostly because I remember a story regarding a professor I had back at UO.  His name is R. R. Todd Zimbelman, and he was the OMB director for my first two years with the group.  Now, I must preface this by saying that Todd was quite possibly the best music educator I have ever had in nearly all respects, but he was known as a rabblerouser back in the day – and might still be now – so when he took control of the OMB back in 1999, he not only turned the program upside-down, but shook it around a little bit as well.  One of his evals from that first year clearly read, “TODD IS SATAN!”  Now, one can understand why I might be intrigued by what was going to appear on my comment sheets.

Words could not describe my disappointment when I opened the file to see four total comments out of 18 students… FOUR!  That’s it!  And they read as follows:
1.  “Kurt is so fun!  I liked the laid-back atmosphere.  It made me learn the material better.”
2.  “Being laughed at during tests is discouraging.”
3.  “You are so helpful and willing to make sure we succeed!  Thanks!”
4.  “Thanks!”

These are not helpful!  Now, I did feel warm and fuzzy to know that at least two students liked me.  As for the laughing at students during tests…  I wasn’t aware I did that, but it definitely wasn’t because I thought they were stupid.  Those laughs were reserved for when I was grading the tests (to quote Patrick Canan, “I don’t sit at home and laugh while I fail you…  well, sometimes I do.”)!  So, what I get out of these evaluations is that I should basically keep doing what I was doing…  and not laugh at people while they take exams.

That’s all!