Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Support Group
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FF It's the time of the semester at the community college where I teach in which the nursings students I never met before these classes feel comfortable enough to hang out after class and chat. I had a great chat with one yesterday, and then two hung out after class today for a chat.
It was great to hear that they liked me as an instructor, but very innocently they went on to reveal that they were surprised to like me as an instructor. That's because they said that, unbeknownst to me, there's an unofficial "Rate My Professor" site out there on the Internet that depicts me as an awful professor. It doesn't just do that to me, either, it does it to another Math instructor I work with, too.
I have job security about this because I just got tenure this past Spring. My official evaluations for the last five years average a "4" on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being poor performance and 5 being perfection. That means that in terms of percentages, I'm an 80% instructor. Translated into a grade like a student would get, that makes me a B instructor. Not an A instructor, but better than a C or a D or an F instructor.
That official student evaluation of my teaching feels about right to me. After all, one barrier to my getting higher evaluations is the subject I teach. I teach nursing students death and dying classes, so my subject scares some students and grosses out some others. It's not a subject that's likely to get you the popularity to be voted Teacher the Year.
Another barrier to my ever becoming an instructor with an A or a 100% 5 out of 5 rating is simply me. With PTSD, I have anxiety every day about standing up in front of a class full of students. I can't be charming with my anxiety. That means that every night I work hard at preparing lesson plans. I sprinkle my lessons with Youtube film clips and Powerpoints so I can stand in front of a classroom with my PTSD and keep students reasonably interested and entertained.
Even so, it does hurt my feelings to know I'm hated by students out there at this online "Rate Your Professor" site. It feels as if the students that are going there are having fun being Internet trolls who get off on character assassination at my expense.
It's working. Since I got diagnosed with kidney disease in addition to PTSD in 2011 it's been a struggle just to stay off of disability and keep this job. I've made it to where I'm 3 years away from early retirement now. I thought I was hanging on with a "4" out of 5 rating, a solid B on the job. But this unofficial "Rate My Professor" site says differently. It says that I'm a lousy teacher and a rotten human being.
Until my health crashed with kidney disease in 2011 I used to be a hospital chaplain. I thought when I had to leave that career that my life was over. Then I got this community college job, and I got tenure this past Spring of 2016. As a divorcee without kids who can't date, it's all I've got. I thought even after the loss of my hospital chaplaincy career that in this job I had found a way to make a small but positive contribution to the world.
Apparently, a number my students go to this unofficial "Rate Your Professor" site to say differently. I'm crushed. All I want to do is curl up in a ball, cry, and turn in my resignation now. I can't quit, though, until I'm retirement age 3 years from now. 3 years!? Really!? How am I going to make it through getting up in the morning to teach these students now tomorrow? FF
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Here is my new brother, copper :) He's so tiny! Moo and Tuck were ok with him on first meeting. Rocket due to his severe aggression will never meet Cooper.
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https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTDeA9Wxg/
You can't please everyone, don't take it personally. hugs
The comments on "Rate my Professor" were harsh on his being strict and expectation of his students, I wonder now if he buckled to them. Because of my aged brain I worked hard for my grade. What did they work for? Personally I prefer the challenge.
I teach too, however, I can no longer work outside my home and only manage to teach one-to-one, which still makes me incredibly anxious.
Bisous x
Anyway, a B rating is a great thing! It's hard to get out there and teach for you and you're still doing really amazing at it! It doesn't need to be perfect!
And Rate my Professor is overrated. My sister who is in college will always recommend me professors in person and tell me not to look at the Rate My Professor because a lot of students have given bad ratings to good professors. She chalked it up to students who don't want to work. At all. In reality you aren't going to learn something in a class unless you do the work, and so the only professors those students will like are ones who don't teach you and will probably get an F rating.
I would hope that telling this from a student (my sisters) and a future student's (me) perspective would help. My sister always tells me to ask other students who get good grades about which are the easier or better professors, rather than ask the opinions of people who are lazy and want college to be 100% easy-which are usually the students who post on Rate My Professors.
Working from zero up to a C would have meant a lot to me, just to be average at work with two disabilities. I'm not kidding. I know people here understand, something for which I'm deeply grateful. I managed to get this community college job teaching. On my first day here, though, I physically collapsed at my boss's house and was taken to the hospital by her husband.
Just not quitting is work. Just getting myself up in the morning and out the door day after day is work. Others take that for granted, but here you all do not. You know being unable one day to get out the door can really happen. Every day that it doesn't and I get to work is a blessing to me. Every day that I can go to the grocery store after work and use the money I earned working to supply my needs and go home to stock my fridge again is a blessing to me.
So that official rating of a "B" for my teaching is above and beyond what I asked the universe to allow me to do. I just asked to be allowed to match what average people do, to manage to be a "C" as a teacher. Getting an official "B" I got more than I asked for.
I haven't gone to that "Rate My Professor" site that's tearing me down, and given what you've said to me here I'm not going to. It's not that I can't take the criticism, it's that you're telling me it's not criticism given in good faith. It's cyber bullying. I can't control what bullies will do. Instead, I'm going to focus on what I've been doing to suit up every day and get out the door. That's the main thing for me.
Thank you again for your support in doing that day by day.
Well done you, you sound like a fab teacher !
Though not really sure what would happen if I didn't?
We are human and as long as we do our best we are doing good.
If everyone is happy, then they were all sleeping in class, and you gave them an "A" for simulation of subject.
:) hugs Mi Amigo
http://www.everydayhealth.com/emotional-health/everyday-sadists-walk-among-us-study-says.aspx
Yeah, Jewells, I hope you're still going strong toward your academic goals. You've really committed to them beautifully. Thanks for supporting me now.
Rizen, I went to that site, and it confirms this past August's TIME magazine cover story on these people the Internet has fostered. Yikes! Good to know.
Hope, thanks for focusing on my past work as a hospital chaplain to offer your prayers. I really need them and cherish them. I'm also so glad to see that I fit in to our group to the extent that I seem to be of the same gender, but in all fairness I've got to say that as much as I would like to be a special lady, a lady I'm not, just hoping I'm still special. Again, thank you for your prayers!