Teacher Sues When Students Give Her Bad Grades

If there was ever a story of what goes around comes around, here we go. A German teacher sued to have a Website taken down because students gave her bad grades on the site.

They gave her a 4.3 out of six, and she said it was a bunch of scheisse. Well, in more technical words, of course, she was a teacher of German after all.

So what did the court say?

They told her the kids have the right to sprechen about her teaching skills - or lack thereof - all they want. The teacher failed to demonstrate she’d been harmed by the site, and the kids weren’t libeling her by passing judgment on her classroom performance, according to the Federal Court of Justice.

The site’s editor in chief has told Reuters, ““The judges clearly said that the teacher herself is not being rated, but rather her job performance. Therefore it’s allowed and students may express this criticism publicly online.”

Coming from a teacher, who is supposed to rate kids on their performance rather than their character, this should be common sense. Of course, her biggest trouble was that the users of the site are anonymous . . . maybe because she wanted to hand out some big fat F’s to the kids who dumped on her online?

The rate-a-teacher sites seem to be nothing more than kids’ way to get out some of their frustrations - without the threat of having their grades docked for speaking poorly of an authority figure. If they’re being used by prospective employers, one has to wonder what kind of weight is afforded an online forum by a school district.

By the way - my poor German skills are no evidence of this teacher’s abilities. Perhaps I’d sprechen sie Deutsch much better if I’d been in her classroom . . . although with a rating of 4.3, I don’t know . . .

Image/Via: Candeias

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Tags: education, grading, Jeanne Sager, online, school, students, teachers