RateMyTeacher.com

"A useless piece of garbage who wouldn't know chemistry if it ran him over..." “She has really well planned lessons and actually makes science fun.” Clearly a contrast of comments made by students about their teachers on this controversial website. This website allows pupils to make comments and rate their teachers, which has caused a big stir amongst many teachers. Some people may claim that Ratemyteacher.com conflicts teacher’s privacy whereas others may argue that the website allows critical evaluations and constructive comments to be posted.

On the one hand, some may maintain the line that this website has a destructive impact on teachers. Ratemyteacher.com does not contribute to educational standards and is purely a mean of students venting their anger in a childish manner. An unprecedented amount of the comments made are particularly harsh, over-exaggerated and malicious. Consequently, this will demoralise some teachers, thus effecting their teaching. They will try to improve their ratings – exactly how they will set about doing this creates a problem. They will try to increase their popularity and hence, their style and motives of teaching changes, which may compromise the best interests of the student’s education.

In the same way, the basic role of a teacher is to provide an education to its pupils. However, Ratemyteacher.com will merely cause gossip around the class about the teacher’s personal lives. The result of this is that the students learning will be affected as they will be distracted in the classroom and because of this negative impact it has, Ratemyteacher.com should be shut down.

In contrast to this, this debate also brings to life a case of double standards. Why should we be shutting down a student-teacher evaluation website, when teachers are constantly being evaluated anyway. For example, OFSTED assess teachers, students can voice their views with suggestion boxes and a school council.

Furthermore, this website gives teachers an incentive to improve. The website has rules and regulations which do not allow comments to be made about their personal life. Therefore, constructive comments are made identifying what teachers can improve on, benefiting both students and teachers.

In addition, it is not practical to shut down this website. This is because the British Jurisdiction does not allow us to shut down a ‘.com’ website as it is American. Also the internet is a free source and as long as it doesn’t insight violence, there is no reason to shut it down. Besides if we were to shut down this forum then students will still want to vent their anger and consequently go underground. They will make their own website and their comments will not be moderated. Therefore, it will have a much worse effect than Ratemyteachers.com.

To conclude, throughout this debate I have taken concern the right of the student’s voice vs right to teacher’s privacy. These are both important considerations but in this instance the student’s voice conflicts teacher’s privacy. Due to this fact I believe that Ratemyteacher.com should be shut down.