In Practice

Once it is understood that institutions of higher education are often nothing more than REITs and/or hedge funds with classrooms attached, it is easy to see why student evaluations matter so much to administrators -- who, after all, are managing not professors but high-risk, long-term capital investments who happen to come in professorial form. It's not enough for teachers to care about their own effectiveness. This priority has to be supported at every level in the institution and it ought not be equated with, or, heaven forbid, subordinated to "student satisfaction." *Every* student is delighted to get an A.

Giving everyone As from the outset is a good idea. More demanding pedagogical styles are, I think, just harder to put to productive use when you have a variety of students with different learning styles. No matter how well intentioned, an especially challenging or demanding approach can be a real problem for sensitive students who are prone to inhibition and anxiety anyway. Their performance will be negatively affected by their anxiety levels, an outcome that unfairly benefits their hardier classmates who are constitutionally better able not to give a damn. Unless you are handing out anti-anxiety medication at the door (or perhaps chocolate, like they did in that study), you may simply lose a whole category of potentially quite excellent students -- the very students whom one would especially like to reach in fields like psychotherapy where a degree of sensitivity is not undesirable.

With these students, a teacher's "charm," like any other form of "soft" authority, can be a useful resource. So long as it is handled appropriately, with respect for the student's autonomy and educational goals, it belongs in the pedagogical toolkit, along with "harder" motivators like rigorous competitive grading and honest qualitative feedback.

I'm sure i would not of passed your course having shared a room with girls with soft skin,too distracting for me. When i read you at home, i from the sounds of it don't have to see your ''grumpy'' face either.I read your verbal sunshine with your pleasant portrait on the back,without the college fees.It seems unfair i have it so good!-.You calling yourself grumpy makes me laugh.- Great article and wow have you done a lot in your life. I'm always excited to hear your autobiography. very sincerely,David

that this is news and that anyone is surprised. increasingly, i'm finding the "latest and greatest" masticated in print on this web is stuff that I'm, well surprised, ya'll--supposedly mature, life experienced persons--haven't been well aware of, and react to as "well, of course". Kinda like sayin' a hungry man WILL eat. I guess fueling a website requires more balderdash than a monthly print mag in this day and age of "new--every 15 minutes". Either that or most of us are uncomfortable with our own findings unless backed up in print by someone with a string of letters behind their name. Remind me again WHY several years of higher education makes you more intelligent than just livin' a couple a decades?

but that's the web for you, the need for new and interesting content will make anyone find one thousand ways to describe something everyone has been looking at their entire lives. what would really be amazing is the if it is truly a fact that putting it into print may be the only thing needed for everyone to finally see that the emperor has no clothes--and neither does anyone else. The older I get the less faith I have in the fabled supreme human intelligence. It seems so transient and fragile and so attached to time and place.

humans love repetition but it seems to take forever for them to realize what they learned from it.