A new blog called "Rate Your Students" presents professors with an opportunity to review their students.
The Web site, www.rateyourstudents.blogspot.com, is thought to be a response to a Web site where students can rate their professors, www.ratemyprofessors.com.
Most of the recent postings on this professor-savvy Web site focus on the debate surrounding whether professors should be reviewing their students.
But closer examination of the blog reveals more.
Quite a few posts by professors explain teaching from their point of view. The blog is not all about bashing students, although there is some of that component.
Rather than a rating of individual students, it is a compilation of experiences from the professor's viewpoint.
An advantage of this approach is that it gives us a more general idea of how professors perceive students.
I went through a significant chunk of the posts and identified two broad types of professors.
The first type is the holier-than-thou type, and the second is the reflective type.
The holier-than-thou professor believes that they can do no wrong.
They believe that students are lazy, lying, unfocused bastards.
These professors see no error in their own ways. They do not consider the fact that maybe they are not good at teaching.
It also seems outside their ambit of reasoning that someone could have a life outside of class.
They seem blind to the notion that the average student faces difficulties such as working and studying at the same time, back-to-back classes, expensive books, and scholarships that hinge more on grades than conceptual understanding.
These professors are likely to use language like "Skeeter, you're a dimwit." Some even anoint students as a future "grocery store clerk."
I think the holier-than-thou professor should step outside academia, where the world gets tougher, minus the tenures.
Surely, some students are to academia what Paris Hilton is to celibacy, but some of the professors' rants on the blog are kindergarten talk.
What redeems the blog is the second type of professors - the reflective.
After the initial flurry of the crazies, some reasonable professors are making constructive use of this blog. Their posts are genuine attempts to understand the plusses and minuses from an overall perspective.
Professor Emeritus, a professor from the South, has 43 years of teaching experience. She makes a terrific point by pointing out how a classroom often becomes a professor's laboratory for self-indulgence.
Aside from her post, I have not heard of a professor sympathizing with students who have traveled great distances to make it to class only to be greeted by a "class canceled" sign.
Another professor from the South indicts both the students and the professors.
But she also reflects on the joys of teaching those who want to learn. Before you start chanting, "flip-flopper," know that she represents a breed of mature professors who are able to accentuate the positive, deal with the negative and never lose sight of the process of learning.
If students were perfect, they would not be required to take any classes. The task of converting mongrels into thoroughbreds is hard. If it were easy, they'd call it football.
Professors need to claim high ground by assimilating their experiences to become better educators. If all they wish to do is vent, they need to get a job in Washington D.C.
This blog is a terrific idea. For professors seeking revenge on students, it provides an outlet. For those blessed souls who want to leave deeper footprints by critiquing rather then criticizing, it provides a much-needed discussion board.
Nishant is a computer science graduate student. Reach him at nishant.bhajaria@asu.edu.
