Every August, students wait expectantly for a friend’s schedule to appear on their Facebook news feed before rushing to HomeLogic to see who their teachers will be for the upcoming school year. Upon discovering whose classes they will be sitting in for the next year, students begin their assorted consultations with various friends, family members, and, as of recently, the Internet.

Ratemyteachers.com is a website where students can anonymously post reviews of their teachers by rating them in a series of categories and posting additional comments. According to the website, its purpose is to serve as a resource for students, as well as to give students the opportunity to voice their opinion and make a difference in their education.

While it is important for students to have a forum to voice their opinion, The Oracle Editorial Board believes that ratemyteachers.com should not only be a tool used by students, but should also be taken advantage of as a resource by teachers.

Currently, many teachers do not view ratemyteachers.com as a dependable source for information.

“I find ratemyteacher[s.com] to be completely inaccurate and unreliable,” an anonymous teacher said. “The mix of reviews for teachers clearly shows that you cannot judge a teacher and the complexity of [a] teacher based on five or six students’ posts. This website proves to merely be a sounding-board for disgruntled students.”

This point-of-view is not uncommon: many teachers seem to be under the opinion that the data collected on the website is inaccurate because only students impassioned by an exceptionally negative experience take the time to make a post.

However, according to ratemyteachers.com, about 60 percent of all ratings are positive. What’s more, GBS’ average teacher rating is 3.8 out of 5, meaning that many of the reviews on South teachers are positive.

While The Oracle recognizes that the website is sometimes misused, we encourage GBS teachers to use the website to improve their teaching habits by identifying the most prevalent trends among student ratings.

If three-fifths of your reviews complain about the difficulty in receiving extra help outside of class, consider finding ways to make yourself more available during lunch periods.

Rather than viewing the ratings as a condemnation of their teaching abilities, we ask that teachers see the website as a unique opportunity to hear their students’ uncensored perspective.

However, this is only possible if GBS students take on the same view of ratemyteachers.com and treat it as a place where posted input will be taken seriously.

You may believe your fourth period teacher deserves a serious bashing after calling you out for taking three weeks to make up that vocabulary test in the Test Center, but before taking your frustrations out using your keyboard, stop and consider the consequences.

When your teacher goes on ratemyteachers.com they may see ten comments with thoughtful, constructive criticism, but one disparaging comment. Which is the comment that you think they will remember most?

By posting unnecessary, impulsive comments, you are weakening the voice of those students who posted reflectively, and thus taking away from the benefits of this unique tool.

Through cooperation from both faculty and students, ratemyteachers.com can serve as a vehicle for the kind of honesty that can be difficult face-to-face. If used responsibly, students and teachers will be able to benefit not only themselves, but also students in years to come.

Editorial Board Vote:

21 Agree : 1 Disagree