Your Toughest Critic Can Be Your Guru
Ask these questions about the criticism you receive.
One of the most humbling weeks in my academic career is reading student evaluations of my teaching. I honestly don’t know how public figures handle all the horrible things people say about them because I can’t handle seeing the horrible comments about myself.
Students can be downright vicious. I remember one student wrote, “Dr. Bradford is completely unqualified to teach this class.” I guess 18 years of teaching a class similar to that one makes me “unqualified.” Jerk.
So I didn’t read my evaluations. They just weren’t constructive. I instead let my boss sift through them and tell me some common themes. One of them was that I had played favorites. Rather than dismiss it as “fake news,” I conceded I had to investigate.
We might be unaware of messages we’re unconsciously conveying to others.
It doesn’t feel good when someone tells us we’re not perfect, especially when we tell it to ourselves. However, if someone tells us something we didn’t know about ourselves, then we must take a good look inside. We might be unaware of messages we’re unconsciously conveying to others.
