Restoring Bugginess

Doing it because I have to. Tonight our library held a compulsory workshop (compulsory only because I signed up for it before death and nausea crept up on me) on researching databases for our EN 102 argument/research-oriented classes next spring. After the workshop I ran into a colleague, Ray, and somehow we got onto the subject of RateMyProfessor.com. (Oh, I know how: I looked and felt like crap, Ray could tell, and he wanted to make me feel better.)

So Ray says that he's sorta kinda friends with an ex-student of his, a 20ish guy, who out of nowhere the other day said there was a really hot teacher at UA and her name was Brooke Champagne, and he asked Ray if he knew her. I don't know, and don't want to know, where the conversation went from there.

If you don't know RateMyProfessor, it's a semi-evil website that allows college students to login and rate their teachers. I say semi-evil because my early experience with this site was full-on awful. Early in my teaching career, when I was at Southeastern, my office mate Megan suggested we post our pictures on the site because, oh I don't know, everyone else was doing it? Anyway, I did, and proceeded in that semester to teach the worst group of students of my life in which our mutual hatred for one another was reciprocated daily, the bastards. More than once I was told I didn't make sense, and there was one sort-of death threat, though it was by a boy under five feet tall, so I kinda had to laugh.

Anyway, here's one of the first comments about me on RateMyProfessor, which dates back to that semester, and to a particularly evil student (oh, Savannah, you dirty bitch, you):

"Only take her if you ALREADY know English really well. She didn't know how to help when we had questions. Her favorite word is 'Umm...' Deffinitely not professional, she curses a lot. She would be more suited to teach English if she actually had a degree in it (her degree is in creative writing). Not too much h/w though. Easy grader on papers."

So this was mean and made me cry more than a few nights, though I naturally found (and still find!) solace in her careless misspelling of "definitely." What hurt about these comments is that they're all pretty much true, but I expect students to like, respect, and learn from me despite them (though not necessarily in that order).

Fast-forward to tonight, and Ray's comment, which reminded me it's been ages since I checked out my online evaluations. So when I got home I did, and happily, there were several nice new postings asserting how cool, awesome, and laid back I am. Here was the latest one:

"Young and loves what she does. Will help you in any way she can and does a great job of connecting with her students. The papers are not hard and she will e-mail you and help you through any problems you may be having. Fun class discussions. She's openly liberal but she's not obnoxious in the slightest. Not bad to look at either. TAKE HER CLASS!!!"

Here's the rub, though: this student is commenting on my EN 091 course! I've never taught that, and I'm not entirely sure that course exists at Alabama. So I'm wondering if I'm being confused by someone else (after all, I'm not openly liberal, and I'm hella obnoxious!), or if this poor student doesn't know the difference between 091 and 101.

And the prose of this comment so very much exceeds those of students writing on this site, that I halfway believe Ray did it himself, to make me feel even better than he had earlier, to be a good buddy.

Now I'm thinking of the nature of the latest comment though, and what it means for students to say I "connect well" with them. Does it mean that they like me, or that I understand them? Or that they understand me, or I like them? Or that we share a bond that the world doesn't understand when we discuss semicolons/Milton? I've seen this beautiful and perplexing comment on student evaluations over the years, and not just on RateMyProfessor, but on the official school administered ones. Only now am I trying to figure out how to use it to feel better about myself after a craptastic week.

It need not be said that it's important to me to be loved and held, by both people and words. Also it's nice to love and hold others with my words when my arms are too far away. I am sentimental tonight. I'm nostalgic for events that haven't yet occurred.

Now I must be off to write a letter of recommendation for a very talented student who is seeking entrance into an MFA program. I told her, get ready for the pain, sister. She's tall and blond and reads Virginia Woolf and has skills for miles. My main worry is that, once she's a famous poet, she'll forget all about me.