is coming up all my tweeterstream this morning after a Canadian court threw out charges of non-academic misconduct against 2 Calgary students for criticizing their lecturer on Facebook. I’ve always felt students should be able to speak out about academics, but I don’t know if this particular case is very helpful – all they said was that her classes were ‘hell’ without specifying why.
I have always felt that students should be able to express opinions about the quality of teaching they get – let’s face it; they do it all the time in the bar, and sometimes in the back of class, so why not have them come right out and express it on Facebook or some other social media sites.
Part of our job as academics is telling students their work is sometimes crap – and explaining why it is crap and advising them on how to improve it. That does require us to think about why their work is not as good as it could be, and expressing that in a reasoned and helpful way without being gratuitously mean. I regularly want to write “Bullshit” in the margin of a student essay draft, but instead I need to think it through and explain how it can be improved. It seems only fair that students should be able express their opinions about how we mentor them.
Some people might say it is too much to ask students to explain why they dislike a class but I don’t think so. In the Calgary case, the students say the class was ‘hell’ – I think it is reasonable to respond by asking “Ok, what did you find wrong with it? How did it fail to meet your learning needs? Oh and by the way, what are your learning needs?”
That is the bit where many students will get stalled, because our system does not encourage them to think beyond liking or disliking classes to get to understanding their own learning needs and outcomes. I think that that discussion is a vital part of education.
I know I do things in class which some students do not like; and I know that some days the magic isn’t there and my performance is flat – and I can see the students know that too. I also know that unlike the students, if I don’t feel 100%, I don’t have the option of sitting out class in the coffee shop. if someone posts on Facebook that “Cosgrave was a bit dull today”, well, that is sometimes a fair comment. On “RateMyProfessor” someone once described me as an arrogant know it all- and people who know me laugh when I tell them because it is certainly a view which one could have of me. If I can’t take these comments, maybe I shouldn’t be standing up in from of 300 students every week?
On the other hand, while the Calgary judgment (and it may yet be appealed) upholds the right of students to express opinions, it does not advance the idea that higher education should be a community of critical friends where people learn to share reasoned arguments based on some evidence rather than thoughtless casual judgments. Bringing student criticism in the open allows us to pursue a discussion which explores these issues in a useful way.
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