I am going to improve my department from the bottom up. That’s why this year I have started making my mentor students emancipated and critical. I have been discussing tests and have deliberately made mistakes in checking my students’ work, challenging them to revise my work and comment on it when necessary. I didn’t need to put much work into this because they actually got it after two tests! Even after the first one they asked me whether we would be working like this all the time.
When getting an insufficient mark on a test I tell them to ask their teacher for the test so that they can see what mistakes they’ve made and add up their earned points to see whether everything is in order. With some teachers the students are a bit reluctant. When asked for a reason, they tell me that this teacher almost never hands them back their tests and reports. I tell them this is their right and they should insist.
At the same time I tell them to always be polite and that teachers’ responses can vary according to the way they are being approached at.
The students at my department generally aren’t really critical, and this can potentially make some teachers “lazy”. Hopefully, when students become more critical and start speaking up, those teachers will be forced to think about their work and to be critical of their own work.
I’m curious how this will affect the teachers teaching my group and if I will get any complaints. Maybe in a couple of months I’ll already notice the difference…
