the 93% man

My KMA boss told me my latest evaluation scores: an average 4.8 out of 5 for "technique/knowledge" and a 4.5 out of 5 for the nebulous category of "attitude" (by which is meant something like "enthusiasm/passion"). That's a 9.3 out of 10, or a 93%, which is significantly lower than the solid 100% I had scored the previous two times around. I had seven students on April 25; only five replied to the online survey about the course. I wonder how the score would have changed had the remaining two students replied.

A KMA eval form is a page-length questionnaire; only the first two questions are specifically focused on the teacher. The other questions all relate to things like course content, KMA's facilities, and so on. Students are given plenty of room to write in their own suggestions. I have no idea whether these suggestions ever get implemented. In all probability, the questions are there to allow the students to blow off steam and to alert the bosses to anything that might be seriously amiss. "My teacher palpated my breasts for ten full minutes during the lunch break" might be a good example of something to look out for.

I want to start an eval contest with my buddy Tom. We never teach at KMA at the same time, but we both teach there often enough to compare eval scores. It might be cool if we started a competition: whoever has lower evals, next time around, must buy the other guy dinner. Tom's an engaging teacher; I've watched him work a crowd on several occasions, and he's a natural. I'm sure his evals are as high as, if not higher than, my own. I think we'd end up buying each other dinner quite often. (Which would make Tom's wife jealous.)

Anyway, my KMA evals are at about the same level as my old Sookmyung evals used to be. As I've said before: at least someone appreciates me and my work.


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