Teaching Matters: The reaction among second-level teachers to www.ratemyteachers.ie has been mixed. Some say that the launch of the website is not worth dignifying with a response. Others feel worried and hurt by it.
There is something creepy about someone sitting at a computer anonymously, inputting ratings for a teacher. It is certainly not something I would be happy to find my own children doing.
I find it strange that so few parents have objected to the site. Do we really wish to convey to teenagers that it is all right to make comments about others, safe in the knowledge that they cannot be held to account for them? What about being able to take responsibility for your actions? This site represents a kind of bullying, because it is using technology to render people vulnerable. It matters not a whit whether comments about teachers are positive or negative, because, either way, the person making them is acting in an underhand fashion.
Imagine if a website called "ratemystudents.ie" existed. Imagine if teachers posted anonymous comments and ratings for students, under the headings of easiness, helpfulness, clarity and popularity. Freddie Joe Bloggs: easiness - 1, helpfulness - 0, clarity - 1, popularity - 0. Or perhaps, given the fact that there is room for comments on teachers, students could receive comments as well. "Grouchy in the extreme, especially when hungover". "Ambitious to the point of ruthlessness."
To rate students in this way would rightly be considered highly unprofessional, particularly with the cloak of anonymity. Students would naturally be deeply upset. Yet teachers are supposed to take it on the chin when they are rated in this way. Rating teachers fits neatly with a consumerist approach to education.
Celtic Tiger Ireland has not invested its money in promoting equality in education or in attempts to raise standards for everyone. Instead, there has been a massive increase in the numbers sending their children to private schools, a move not unconnected with offering free third-level fees to all.
There are vast numbers of students taking expensive and often unnecessary grinds, seemingly unaware that when a grind demands homework, school homework will suffer and the child will be deathly tired in school.
Fortunately, there are still many parents who want a rounded education for their children. One cannot imagine that these parents would condone a website for rating teachers, but perhaps it is difficult to express support for teachers in the current climate.
Some commentators have adopted the attitude that it serves teachers right, because they will not submit to professional evaluation. Certainly, teachers have done themselves damage by failing to explain why they have difficulties with performance assessment.
During the late 1980s, I was a student in Dallas, Texas. Recruiting agencies were eager to employ Irish teachers because of their perceived excellence. It was wonderful for me because I had a ready-made pool of young and mad Irish ex-pats, some of whom, long before the days of Riverdance, had little Hispanic girls solemnly performing Irish jigs and reels, to the slight bewilderment but delight of their parents. However, I became certain that I would never teach in the United States because of the long hours of pointless paperwork, documenting curriculums, lesson plans and assessments, in fact every itch and sneeze of their students. All of this interfered with teaching rather than enhancing it.
Similarly, in the 1990s, in a bid to render teachers accountable, the British education system began to demand acres of documentation. The knowledge of the stultifying bureaucracy of other teacher evaluation systems, not to mention a not-too-long-gone folk memory of the power of the cigire (inspector), meant that teachers were deeply suspicious of any form of evaluation. As usual, though, it was presented as yet another form of teacher bloody-mindedness, and fed the myth that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of bad teachers lurking in the system. This is simply not true. However, one would have to be quite disconnected from reality to suggest that there are no poor teachers.
Everyone has an opinion on teachers, because most people have spent 14 years in regular contact with them. In a sense, it is a kind of back-handed compliment that people get so incensed at what they perceive to be poor teaching, because it is proof that teachers play an important role, and that good teaching matters very much.
However, a hang 'em and flog 'em approach does not get us very far. Were the Department of Education and Science not so allergic to spending money, there are some simple and relatively inexpensive ways in which standards could be maintained and raised. Regular, intensive department-funded in-career development should be an ongoing part of every teacher's life, rather than just sporadic in-service which is almost entirely focused on implementing new syllabuses.
Take the area of promoting positive behaviour in students. There is a wealth of research available, and more importantly, a wealth of knowledge in experienced teachers. Master classes in topics such as discipline would benefit every teacher, but particularly those who are struggling.
Similarly, most teachers would appreciate regular professional updating on methodology, particularly on how to teach different levels of ability in a classroom. Teachers should be actively encouraged to improve their skills in meaningful ways and receive recognition, perhaps financially, when they do. It would reap incalculable benefits for the students we teach, something which does matter to us, even if at the moment they appear to be busier rating us, than heeding us.
Breda O'Brien is a teacher at Dominican Convent, Muckross Park, Dublin, and an Irish Times columnist. bobrien@irish-times.ie
