With over 25 years as a university professor and past recognition for my teaching I can speak to this issue. When I was younger I paid far too much attention to individual student evaluations. There could be 28 positive evals and two highly critical. It seems that human nature is to focus in on the two who were unhappy. Over time I listened to the comments of all of my students outside the classroom and what they thought of their professors. In fact, I actively pursued ways in which to identify a good professor so I could learn who to encourage to enter the teaching profession. Here is what I found.
In general, the common opinion of a teacher is the best guide. That is, better than 50% of the students will say the same thing. This guy is boring, his tests are too difficult, he is too friendly with students, etc. It turns out that when you hear these comments five or ten times over a period of years there is usually some truth to them.
On the other hand, when you look at student accomplishments (their GPA, acceptance to Grad school, and accomplishments in the field after graduation) I found that the professors who were the toughest on their students, making them work hard, were the most appreciated later in life. Students may not “like” the professor but they know who they learned from. In my opinion, people seek knowledge from an instructor for any of several reasons, and you need to determine who is making the rating and what their perspective is about the type of education sought.
From another perspective, when I worked in addictions diagnosis and treatment it was well known and accepted that a person could go through treatment many times, failing after each one. Finally something would “click” and their life would turn around. When you talked with these people it would turn out that they were often most helped by the second or third treatment facility, not the last one.
It can very well be that your second instructor gave you the key to playing pool but it did not sink in until the fourth one taught the same thing when you were ready to learn it.
The student should know what they are looking for and then seek four or five consistent opinions from sources who do not know each other and you will find your teacher. Some people want an “Easy A” in life, some peole want to know “why and how.”
If you really seek to improve, seek out the toughest task master. Teaching requires balancing many skills not the least of which are encouarging enthusiasm and getting students to work hard.
Teachers are qualified at various levels and you need to know where you are in the process. Expensive advice from Johnny Archer or Allison Fischer is useless if you are new to the game. A “new” instructor may be more concerned with your gradual improvement and may indeed be the best instructor for you because he or she is willing to invest much time in your game.
