Using ‘Rate My Teacher’ to secure a promotion

It seems that I've been living under a rock as I totally missed this story the first time it went around! "Students use web to diss teachers". It's certainly a compelling headline! The story focuses on the website Rate My Teacher and its rise in popularity.

Rate My Teacher promotes itself as an educational resource for students and parents to evaluate teachers and schools which is all fine and dandy, if that's how it worked! Unfortunately, it appears that the site can be used as a means of publicly discrediting teachers, and schools, with no real right of reply. The original article in the Brisbane Times brings the credibility of the site into question, and rightly so. Don't get me wrong, I've got nothing against constructive criticism, but there is nothing constructive about comments like these:

"Worst teacher ever."
"Extremely boring and annoying."

Further more, you are able to leave a negative rating with out supplying any comments whatsoever. What is stopping someone creating an account and submitting something malicious, untrue and totally unverifiable? Absolutely nothing.

As a matter of fact what is stopping me from creating a number of accounts and giving myself a series of glowing reviews? Again, absolutely nothing. Come to think of it, that might not be such a bad idea, particularly with mid-year performance reviews on the horizon!

Ratemyteacher.com isn't a threat, it's a golden opportunity! Tired of negative, non-constructive criticism? Give yourself that glowing review you've always wanted, the public pat on the back that you can use at your next performance review. The sky is the limit!

Tenuous link of the day: Florida rental vacation.

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