Student reviews and the way I talk

This week I’ve been walking around as if I’m a little out of my body. I feel like I’m second guessing how I’m being seen by everyone I meet. I feel self-conscious about what I’m wearing, how I stand in front of class, and mostly, how I talk. I’m gently rebuilding my identity that has been a little shaken. What brought on this week of uncomfortable self-awareness? Student reviews. Any teacher thinking about asking their students to review their classes or theirs teaching: rethink. Or make sure you’re prepared for a week of potentially rebuilding yourself.

I usually love hearing back from my students about how they enjoyed or didn't enjoy the class. I take their feedback very seriously and have used it to tweak my classes and grow in my own teaching after every year because not only do I ask them to critique the class, I ask them to critique my teaching. I've been doing this since my student teaching and value it as an important part of my development as a teacher. Of course, there is always some negative feedback (too much work, lessons I thought were great that they hated, afternoon lessons) and I take it with the positive and work with them both. I am always slightly down after reading these, somehow the negative comments dig much deeper than positive, encouraging ones – much like any kind of criticism, I suppose – but I reread them after a few days and things look better, I’m able to take in the positive comments a bit more and accept the negatives with a cool and calm head. And I’m okay with who I am as a person and a teacher. This year I’ve had a particularly hard time with one class. I haven’t even got to the rereading stage yet.

In between watching myself from outside myself and second-guessing how everyone is viewing and thinking about it, I’ve been pondering why this class’s comments have bothered me so much this year. It was a difficult class to connect with, I struggled all year. However, in my mind we had connected. Apparently not. That bothered me. But I think what has made these comments particularly difficult were a few comments about my voice. I have gone through a lot with the way I talk. From high school when I first picked up a mashed up accent from hanging out with American missionaries to college where a rude American student mocked the way I said “Monster” to coming home to people who couldn’t get over my “American” accent, I have continuously wrestled with the way I sound and the way I would like to sound. I have accepted it now, I kind of sound American, kind of something else. I sound different. And that’s okay. I’ve been in different places, had different friends and I’ve picked up aspects of both. Being called American used to bother me intensely because I desperately want(ed) to be allowed to be Zimbabwean. Today, I’m okay with sounding different and accusations of an American accent roll over me in ways that would make my mother (who usually had to deal with the flood of emotion after someone had accused me of an American accent) proud. But, the two comments that I can’t get past just yet – by a couple students in this class – are about my voice. Obviously I’m still dealing with it and my insecurities about it.

I’ll get over this set of reviews. The second reading, reminding myself of the positive comments (one student said it was her favourite class), will help.

I suppose I don’t have to ask for feedback. But I think it is healthy. I’ve got to find my identity outside of the opinions of the people I teach. And sometimes it’s good to be reminded that not everyone loves me and my teaching.

How to learn humility: 1. Teach a class of teenagers for a year. 2. Ask for their honest feedback about you and the class at the end. 3. Read the feedback. 4. Get upset, and then, get over it.