Inklings Editorial

We know that all teachers are here to help us learn. Most are attentive, available and supportive to our different needs. However, improvements can always be made and giving students more of a voice to critique the classroom environment will allow for better teaching and better learning.

Students are most uncomfortable in an environment where teachers move through lessons too quickly, fail to provide adequate descriptions of material and do not make themselves available for student conferences.

If students are experiencing difficulty in the classroom, many remain silent in fear of getting on a teacher’s “bad side.” It is important that students are encouraged to voice their concerns, especially when the majority of a class feels lost or frustrated.

One suggestion to garner more student feedback would be to implement mandatory teacher evaluations each semester. These evaluations should not be a broad Google form that students have to complete in five minutes at the end of class and then submit to the teacher who made it. Instead, the district should design a standardized evaluation form that students can complete during a home room period. The evaluations would go directly to the teachers’ superiors and be taken as a serious assessment of a classroom environment.

The questions on the evaluation should address teaching style, class pace, workload and teacher availability.

A combination of numerical and open-ended responses are necessary to gauge an understanding of the class environment. Rating the pace of a class on a scale of 1-5 is a starting point, but explaining specific areas of difficulty caused by a teacher is imperative.

If the department chair or other administrators notice red flags in the evaluation forms, such as a large number of students describing the class environment as “unwelcoming,” then a conversation between the superviser and teacher should take place. From there, teachers should talk to students about how to create a better learning environment.

Students should have a voice in the classroom. After all, we’re the reason everyone is here.