Q. 교사가 학생이나 다른 교사에게 평가 받는 것은 교사가 학생들을 효율적으로 가르치는 일에 있어서 중요한가?
Recently, it is controversial that teachers’ ability needs to be assessed by other teachers or students. Some people think that this assessing system is significant to improve the quality of education, while others do not. Both sides have their reasons to support their opinion. However, if I had to choose one, I would say that assessing teachers’ academic skills has a positive effect on teachers as well as students. This is because this assessing program can encourage teachers to improve their teaching methods and cultivate a good relationship between teachers and students.
To begin with, assessing process can motivate teachers to develop their teaching skills. Without assessing, teachers would not need to concentrate on how to teach effectively. However, the existence of critics from the members in school provides teachers some burdens, which causes the effort to create teaching skills, which can benefit them in that they are encouraged to be more creative. For example, when I wan in high school, there was no system to assess teachers. In this circumstance, it was natural that teachers were not interested in their teaching methods. Most of them did not make new content and gave a lecture with very old materials. As a result, students were likely to feel bored in the class because the teacher did not any efforts to make the class interesting. In contrast, in college, all the students had to answer some questions about the quality of the class including assessing teachers on the last day of the semester. Professors seemed to do their best to get good critics from students in their class. Consequently, the professors come to enhance the strength to teach every semester, and the students were satisfied with the classes.
On top of that, the relationships between lecturers and students can be more developed in a much greater depth with the assessing system. Generally, there is a hierarchy in a class although the gap between students and professors is very thin or unseen. In this sense, teachers are more likely to have a higher position and authority than students, as a power relationship. So students tend to oblige to the teachers to achieve good grades. This situation could be reformed if the students have a chance to estimate their teachers and classes they attended. For instance, in college, most of the professors were very kind and helped a lot. I felt they wanted to make a good relationship with students not only to get good assessments from students but also to make the school prestigious by constructing an academic atmosphere.