Deming on rating teachers

["March L. Jacques" <march@execpc.com>]

In a letter he wrote to the editor of the ASA journal, THE AMERICAN
STATISTICIAN (vol. 26, no.1, February 1972), Dr. Deming makes comments very
similiar to what you describe. The letter is reprinted in ASQ's QUALITY
MANAGEMENT JOURNAL (vol. 5, no. 2, p. 12 in the section called the
"Discussion, Debate, Dialogue").

In the letter, Dr. Deming says, in part, "Learning today is preparation for
5, 10, 20 years in the future. A student naturally likes what he calls a
good teacher for whatever reasons. What use, then could be made of
student's evaluation of a teacher?" 

Dr. Deming makes a point of distinguishing between a personable teacher,
who students may like, and one who has knowledge to convey but may have
poorer presentation skills (my term). He describes his own experience with
the "two poorest teachers that I ever had," and notes that he "would not
trade my good luck to have had these men as teachers for hundreds of
lectures by lesser men but 'good teachers.'"

He concludes that "the only suitable judge of a teacher's knowledge are his
peers. The only objective criterion of knowledge is research worthy of
publication. Publication should of course be measured on some scale of
contribution to knowledge, not by numbers of papers." 

March