I just now looked at my customer satisfaction surveys teacher evaluations for the spring semester, and other than one review that said my class is boring because all we do is read texts and discuss them (I’m not sure whether that student knew it was an English class), the worst condemnations I got were from faint praise. And not all the praises were faint; some were quite bold. At any rate, I neither got any Gilmour-is-a-god nor Gilmour-is-the-devil reviews this semester, which means that either I had a wise, level-headed group of students (more likely) or that I’ve refined my teacher-persona to the point that students can actually think of me as their teacher (somewhat less likely). On UGA’s oh-so-precise five-point scale in which 1 is excellent and 5 is entirely wretched, I averaged a 1.53 for one group and 1.61 in the other.
I finished up Jonson’s Poetaster this morning, and now I’m on to Shirley’s Hyde Park. That will be the last play I read for comps, and I shuddered a little as I typed this sentence. Five days to go. No turning back now.
