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[selah]

I received an anonymous student eval from a Euro-American student (and I know who it is, since he's been extremely vocal against reparations, victim complexes, and "whiners" throughout term) which stated that I am not fit to teach my Native literature class because I am "too feminist and too Nativist." I've made an effort throughout the year to be critical and include voices from Native men and women, as well as dissenting voices from a variety of demographic groups. I feel it's not fair he is criticizing me for my opinions. I have never asked him to check his opinions at the door of my classroom. However, am I unfair to feel anger at this? Thanks for your thoughts.

[tenured_cat]

Unfair? No. Impressionable? Yes.

A class on Native American literature would (from my uninformed in Literature point of view) seem to demand that you included male and female Native writers - how can there be a "too" in there? Sometimes a student in my Race and Ethnic Relations course tries these things with me during the first weeks of a semester (it's just the most curious coincidence that each and every time this happens, the student just happens to be a white, middle-class male. Funny ...) - I tell them to wait for it; the class is very history-heavy - by the end, most get it.

But who am I to talk? I'm still waiting for last semester's evaluations. Wanna bet that there is one student (there's always one) who writes that I am too feminist, too liberal, should be burned at the stake, and kicked off this island. Every semester. One. Pfft!

[onion]

Oh, I get this every semester.  I've been called a "feminazi" and a "reverse racist."  I've decided to take it as an indication that I'm doing something right (in my Women's History and US Race Relations courses).

However, the student who told me that the KKK was going to come and get me--now that scared me.

[takapa]

Not unfair.  That's part of the job, right?  I'm in Allied Health; we don't cover material that is in any real way controversial or for which people have strong opinions (at least for the most part).  But, I get people who think I have strong/wrong/crazy ideas.  So be it.  Its their academic freedom to complain and critique just as much as mine is to teach what I think is important.

I try to listen to complaints (really try; not always to succeed) if for no other reason than I do not want to be the one who is closed minded on something.  Not listening would be to become what I think most of the complainers are - those unwilling to hear the otherside.  But, like a critique on a paper submitted for publication, I take all students complaints with a grain of salt (or a pound or two of salt if need be).  If the complain is unfounded (after due consideration), don't sweat it.  If you can find a teaching moment all the better.

[onion]

I received an anonymous student eval from a Euro-American student (and I know who it is, since he's been extremely vocal against reparations, victim complexes, and "whiners" throughout term) which stated that I am not fit to teach my Native literature class because I am "too feminist and too Nativist." I've made an effort throughout the year to be critical and include voices from Native men and women, as well as dissenting voices from a variety of demographic groups. I feel it's not fair he is criticizing me for my opinions. I have never asked him to check his opinions at the door of my classroom. However, am I unfair to feel anger at this? Thanks for your thoughts.

If it's just the one, let it roll off your back. He's probably angry and it upset him that you challenged his preconceived notions about the world.  I read an interesting memo a couple of weeks ago about how faculty who teach "difficult subject," which were listed as any intro/required math or science courses, Middle Eastern Studies, and Women's Studies, tend, on the whole, to have lower teaching evals than their counterparts. 

I don't mean to sound rude, here, I really don't.  But I think that, if you're going to continue to teach this class or similar, you're going to get at least one of these every semester.  You'll get used to it.  You'll expect it.  You'll pull it out of the packet and say "here it is!" 

Best wishes.

[takapa]

If it's just the one, let it roll off your back.

But I think that, if you're going to continue to teach this class or similar, you're going to get at least one of these every semester.

Yep, especially with undergraduates.  I think I posted once here before on an odd student evaluation I once had - have it hanging in my office here.  But, a comment from an old sage prof I had in grad school still rings true with me today well after tenure: Never lie awake at night worrying about evals; but never stop reading them and always take them seriously enough to consider their validity.  If the student is offbase, you have the first of many and maybe that one you'll find so funny years later than you'll have it out for the world to see.

[yemaya]

I received an anonymous student eval from a Euro-American student (and I know who it is, since he's been extremely vocal against reparations, victim complexes, and "whiners" throughout term) which stated that I am not fit to teach my Native literature class because I am "too feminist and too Nativist." I've made an effort throughout the year to be critical and include voices from Native men and women, as well as dissenting voices from a variety of demographic groups. I feel it's not fair he is criticizing me for my opinions. I have never asked him to check his opinions at the door of my classroom. However, am I unfair to feel anger at this? Thanks for your thoughts.

I wouldn't take the comments of someone who doesn't understand what "Nativist" means very seriously.  Especially if that's the only whiner...in these sorts of classes, you will always get one or two students who complains any time you mention anyone who's not white and male.  I get complaints from conservative students from time-to-time that teaching about slavery is "anti-American."  It's not rosy, but slavery is a fact of history and played a big role in the economic (to say the least) development of this country.  As long as you're not making politically charged comments or shutting students down or anything like that, I think that you can safely say that it's their issue, not yours and ignore them.  People like that are just not worth the energy - especially when they're no longer your student.

[allbutfoundajob]

I feel it's not fair he is criticizing me for my opinions. I have never asked him to check his opinions at the door of my classroom. However, am I unfair to feel anger at this? Thanks for your thoughts.

If you are using the power of being a professor to advocate for your political opinions in the classroom, then you deserve bad evals and you deserve to be fired.  You should feel anger at your poor decision to air your own opinions in class.

[onion]

I feel it's not fair he is criticizing me for my opinions. I have never asked him to check his opinions at the door of my classroom. However, am I unfair to feel anger at this? Thanks for your thoughts.

If you are using the power of being a professor to advocate for your political opinions in the classroom, then you deserve bad evals and you deserve to be fired.  You should feel anger at your poor decision to air your own opinions in class.

Aw geez, I saw a response like this coming from a mile away.

[chelation]

TO allbutfoundajob,

    I hope you never find a job with that kind of attitude. I'm sure you never, EVER include your opinion in your teaching. I'm sure your political orientations NEVER emerge in your classroom choices. Shame on you!

[dr_dre]

you deserve bad evals and you deserve to be fired.

I hope you never find a job with that kind of attitude.

Ah, these are those warm, fuzzy moments I treasure here on the CHE forum. It's like snuggling in front of a cozy fire.

[larryc]

It is important that the professor create a safe area where students can discuss their opinions without fear of retaliation. If you expressing your opinions is making students feel that it is not safe for them to state their own, then you are not doing your job properly.

(I teach American Indian history, by the way, and probably have many of the same opinions that you hold.)

[larryc]

Also, I fail to see what this has to do with diversity.

[starfleet_grad]

You don't give us much information to work with, but I have taught Native studies courses without being Native. I realize the sensitivity of this topic, but for what it's worth, here are my $.02.

1. Yes, it is unfair to be upset if students disagree with your opinions. You should be elated to be challenged and to have students who think on their own. True, this independent thinking can disintegrate into petty squabbling and an attempt to catch the professor in a contradiction, but such are the lumps of undergraduate education. The only way many students know how to be critical thinkers is by nitpicking others.

2. I was once at a conference with a Native professor from a different university who proudly told everyone that at the beginning of each class, she gave her students a list of which opinions and points of view she found offensive. Not exactly an auspicious beginning for an open classroom discussion. Could you have inadvertently given off such vibes?

3. The student could just be upset that you had good arguments to refute his opinions and observations and is now fighting dirty. Unfortunately, course evaluations invite this kind of revenge, and one must learn to take such comments with a grain of salt.

4. I am not sure about the reason for your mentioning that the student was "Euro-American." I am going to phrase this with all due respect, but could you possibly deep down inside believe that based on the history of Native-White relations, a white person has no right or only a very limited right to criticize a Native person? There are certainly scholars who advocate this point of view.

5. I am reminded of a research article I once read about diversity training in big corporations. The writer discussed why early diversity seminars were often colossal failures, and the conclusion was that at the beginning, many courses were led by minority people who were angry or bitter about treatment they or others had received (often justly so, of course) and took this anger out on the course participants. Could you be harboring some deep-seated resentment that your students can pick up on?

6. A few years back, a fascinating article about white males in diversity courses was published in a journal I used to read for my teaching. (I don't recall the journal or the article title, but I will investigate if anyone is interested. I believe I have a copy somewhere.) Anyway, the question was why white males felt so negatively about diversity courses and often refused to be engaged with the class. The authors suggested that these students were simply overwhelmed. Here they were away from home, in a different environment, for the first time in their lives, which was hard enough, and then they were enrolled in a course where minority person after minority person stood up and talked about how they or their families had been mistreated by white people, and woman after woman stood up and talked about how men had oppressed her.

These 18-year-olds now felt as if everything bad in the world had been dumped at their feet when often they had never done or even witnessed the kinds of things others talked about. Suddenly, they were faced with all this hostility and had no clue how to respond. As a result, they either completely withdrew or became defensive. The point made by the authors was that professors should not turn diversity courses into griping sessions where some of the students vent all the time and others feel picked on all the time. Is there even a slight possibility that your students may have come away with that impression?

Forumites might now try to argue that I am blaming the victim here, but that is not correct. I am simply true to my consistent approach that we cannot change others; we can change only ourselves. Yes, of course you hope that your students will change their minds about Native issues at the end of the class, but you cannot control or force that. What you can control is how you conduct the class and how you respond to your students' challenges. Honest self-evaluation is an integral part of good teaching; start there. If afterwards you truly cannot identify any of your behaviors that may need adjustment, then you probably had a student who was just a jerk. That, unfortunately, happens, too.

[daniel_von_flanagan]

However, the student who told me that the KKK was going to come and get me--now that scared me.

I hope you reported this to someone.  Even if it was on an anonymous evaluation. - DvF