Evaluation Notes, Part One

Jackie ♦ May 5, 2009 ♦ 3 Comments

Because I often feel like a poster child for Imposter Syndrome, I had worried that my evaluation process at Girls’ School would uncover some nasty mess of faults and flaws that I’d succeeded in keeping secret until my eval committee unmasked them. Why yes, that is the first question on the diagnostic quiz. It’s a treat to be in my brain sometimes.

Instead, what happened was a series of thoughtful comments, helpful suggestions, and repeated remarks on my strengths as a teacher and colleague, which was both useful and delightful. One of the surprises was that my committee remarked that one of my strengths is that I am very aware of my weaknesses, and in my awareness of them, am better able to work towards improving those areas. My mentor-teacher noted that I told him upfront that I had little previous experience in the formal teaching of grammar, for example, and that since then I have worked with another teacher on our ninth grade grammar curriculum and attended a workshop on grammar given by our schools’ association.

In my eyes, what I had been doing was trying to address my flaws so that my department wouldn’t be disappointed in their new hire, and so that my students wouldn’t be shortchanged. Of course, both of those ideas were at work in my subconscious already, instead of assuming that I would be good at my job and that everyone would recognize my abilities. But my committee helped me see that actually, my “imposters syndrome” mindset motivated me to recognize my shortcomings and take steps to remedy them, instead of ignoring them, overcompensating in other directions, or pretending that they were insignificant.

My evaluation process isn’t over yet, but so far, I’m trying to take it as a chance to reflect and improve– it would be nice to be able to go to these meetings and be calm and collected, but I’m not shooting for the stars just yet.