 |
|
Nov. 6, 2009
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How
to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Nov. 5, 2009
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking
Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker
With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater?
With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change
With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 30, 2009
Oct. 29, 2009
JWisdom.com We Must Revamp our
Religious Vocabulary With Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 28, 2009
JWisdom.com Why what we wear
impacts who we are
With Rabbis Mordechai Becher, Menachem Golberger and Aliza Bulow ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 27, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The United Nations Is Outraged Again, Or: Department of Mideast Static
JWisdom.com The Science of Love
With Rabbi Jonathan Rietti ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 26, 2009
JWisdom.com Wisdom and Wonks
With Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 23, 2009
JWisdom.com Watermark and oneness
with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick Stop using limited powers in a way that expands our enemies' advantages over us
Oct. 22, 2009
JWisdom.com No More More Family Fights --- Really?
By Sarah Chana Radcliffe ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 21, 2009
Tonya Alanez: Holocaust denier sues survivor, calling Auschwitz memoir 'vicious lies'
JWisdom.com Meditating Jewishly: A
Panacea for Success by Sarah Yoheved Rigler ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 20, 2009
Dennis Prager: Obama and Dalai Lama: Why Israel Worries about U.S. President
JWisdom.com Abraham was not religious
By Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer ( 6 minutes)
Oct. 19, 2009
JWisdom.comWhy Good People Do Bad Things
By Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 16, 2009
JWisdom.com Hearing Voices
By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 15, 2009
JWisdom.com: Former MTV producer and stand-up comedian Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff: Taming a Control Freak (A VERY fast 15 minutes)
|
| |
Jewish World Review
June 3, 2009
/ 11 Sivan 5769
Should terrible teacher be exposed?
By
Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir
| 
|
|
|
|
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Q. My teacher was terrible. Can I give my honest opinion on the school's course evaluation?
A. Any time we render an unfavorable opinion of someone, we risk running foul of the Biblical prohibition on lashon hara, that is, slander. The prohibition is learned from the verse "Don't go about as a talebearer among your people" (Leviticus 19:16).
However, this prohibition is not absolute. While the Torah forbids gratuitous slander, it permits negative speech when it is essential for a constructive purpose. This is learned from the conjunction of the prohibition on slander in the same verse as another commandment: "Don't stand idly by the blood of your fellow." This commandment obligates us to be pro-active in saving others from loss or harm.
The classic book Chafetz Chaim by Rabbi Yisrael Meir HaCohen of Radin sets out the precise conditions which differentiate permissible from forbidden derogatory speech. The main conditions are as follows:
-
The report is known by the speaker to be truthful, and without exaggeration;
- The report is the only way to achieve a constructive purpose;
- The speaker's intention is to achieve this constructive purpose;
- The disclosure does not cause undeserved harm to the subject of the report or anyone else.
So while your question asks about the role of the student, and not the overall design and use of the survey, application of the above conditions shows that the answer to your question depends on what kinds of questions the survey asks and to what use the answers are put.
While it is impossible here to enumerate all the conditions, it is possible to give a few pitfalls that should be avoided:
-
All questions should provide substantive information about the person's performance as an instructor. Otherwise any negative report is not contributing to a constructive purpose.
-
Great care must be used in deciding who has access to the results and how they will be used. In particular, making a poor score on such an evaluation an automatic criterion for censure is unwise. Results from these surveys always needed to be viewed in the context of other indicators of the instructor's effectiveness and contribution. Also, relying too heavily on one indicator increases the chances that a few students could use the survey in a vindictive way, thus simultaneously implicating them in forbidden slander and also unfairly penalizing the instructor.
Rabbi Aaron Levine discusses this issue at length in his book Case Studies in Jewish Business Ethics. One point made by Rabbi Levine is that great care must be used in releasing survey results to the press. For example, if a summary book of survey results is published, then most people who peruse it will in fact obtain no particular benefit from knowing which teachers receive a poor rating; it will then follow that those readers are exposed to lashon hara. Some results may be used only internally for faculty evaluation.
I don't believe a blanket ban on publication of the results is necessarily called for, but it is important to make sure that the public is given the whole picture and not a tendentious or vindictive use of the figures.
For the individual student, the most important thing is to fill out the questionnaire honestly and not have any vindictive intentions when giving a negative evaluation. If the use of the questionnaire is improper, I think that there is seldom any benefit to an individual student withdrawing their participation, but it is appropriate to complain to the administration if you think that the results are being used inappropriately.
ARCHIVES
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes inspiring articles. Sign up for our daily update. It's free. Just click here.
JWR contributor Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir, formerly of the Council of Economic Advisers in the Reagan
administration, is Research Director of the Business Ethics Center of Jerusalem, Jerusalem College of Technology.
To comment or pose a question, please click here.
THE JEWISH ETHICIST, NOW IN BOOK FORM
You've enjoyed his columns on JWR for years. Now the Jewish Ethicist has culled his most intriguing — and controversial — offerings in book form.
HARDCOVER
PAPERBACK
Sales help fund JWR.
|
© 2009, The Jewish Ethicist is produced by the JCT Center for Business Ethics
|
