Ratemyteachers.com

Liveinlove wrote to tell me she looked me up on Rate My Teachers. I've been to the site before, and probably visit once every few months if I think about it.

I've been teaching for five years now, and I have five ratings from students - but every time I'd checked, I'd had none since 3/19/03. I guess this is a site our students really haven't gotten much wind of, which is fine with me. My kids are already all over my Myspace page, to the point where two students - one former, one current - left me comments today on my site. (I've decided I'm okay with it, since there's nothing overly personal or incriminating on my site, and I hardly use Myspace, just using it to get free downloads of independent music on occasion.) However, when I checked the link sent to me today, I saw I had received a new rating on Ratemyteachers.com on 3/20/06, just a few days ago. Weird that it would have happened so close to Liveinlove telling me about it.

The student game me straight fours for Easiness, Clarity, and Helpfulness (they're all on a 1-5 scale, with 5 being best), then wrote, "When i had him we walked all over him cause he was new but now it's a vet and has everything under control. FUN class. Take him if you can."

First of all, it's pretty positive, so that's nice. But I hope this is some 19-year former student, because I really felt like I've had my students under control since (though, admittedly, not during) my first year of teaching. Those kids I had my first hellish semester of teaching have now graduated. So maybe it's one of them.

Looking closely at the review, I'm somewhat pleased about the all caps on the word "FUN," though I hope s/he meant fun in a "learn a lot" way and not in a "party party party" way. I'm less pleased with the incorrect pronoun usage ("it's a vet"), but happy about the last sentence.

Maybe I'll get another rating in three years that I'll be able to dissect that one ad nauseum as well.