Many of you are probably familiar with websites such as RateMyProfessor.com that allow students to anonymously praise or criticize (to put it mildly) their professors online. Many professors loathe sites such as that because the sites’ anonymity gives students leeway to write all kinds of nasty and even slanderous posts about their professors if they want. Well, as reported by Insider Higher Education, a new website called “Rate Your Students” now allows professors to turn the tables and post their experiences about their students:

Several students pointed out that, ostensibly, RateMyProfessor.com, which lists over 700,000 professors, has a function: to provide information for students trying to choose courses, whereas Rate Your Students does not. The Professor [operator of the “Rate Your Students” site], however, sees utility.

“When we have the occasional moment of frustration,” he said, “to vent -- that makes me a better teacher.” . . . Some professors agree that revenge should not drive faculty members to vent online. “It seems to me professor ought to be mature enough not to need revenge,” said Mary Clark, a professor of English at the University of New Hampshire.

Personally, I do not oppose the existence of sites like RateMyProfessor.com. However, I do not visit those sites to check on what students are saying about me because, as Bill Cosby once said, “I don’t know what’s the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.” But in general, I applaud sites like “Rate Your Students” that allow professors to publicly and anonymously air their experiences with their students, just like students have opportunities to do so about their professors. Why should students have an exclusive right to bitch and moan?

Perhaps professors should be able to let slanderous comments at sites like RateMyProfessor.com slide, but as the operator of “Rate Your Students” notes, it can be rather frustrating when a professor tries his/her best to fulfill the noble mission of educating young people, only to find disrespect, ridicule, and contempt as the result.

Of course, not all students are rude, spoiled, or lazy, just as not all professors are incompetent, uncaring, or arrogant. In every group of people, you will find a variety of different types of individuals and extreme examples at both ends. But if one type has the means to express themselves, for the sake of fairness, the other should have the same means as well.

In other words, the anonymity of the Internet can work both ways. That’s what a democracy is all about.