According to the New York Times, Bill Gates is sponsoring and encouraging a new teacher evaluation method using video cameras and a panel-like review committees.  Teacher evaluations have been under a lot of scrutiny, especially with education reform movement that is so prevalent in our country.  And well it should be.  Teachers play an important role in the future of our country and should be evaluated appropriately.  To date, the methods are short-sighted, useless, and cause for concern.

In all my years in the classroom, I never received an evaluation that was less than stellar (unless you count the one principal who suggested the next lesson he observed be taught in English so he could understand it....I was a French teacher!).  In fact, I can remember feeling vaguely disappointed in the evaluation process.  I wanted to be a better teacher.  I wanted the advice and input of veterans who had mastered their discipline and the dissemination thereof.  Instead, I received basic acknowledgements and a pat on the back.  After a while, I began to think of teacher evaluations as kind of a waste of time.

With this new idea of video evaluations, teachers will be able to observe master teachers in their element.  Like a fly on the wall, video observations allow you to glimpse what the classroom is really like.  Of course, the education bosses will try to develop some sort of scale or graph or rubric to use but the real benefit won't come from those things.  The real benefit will come from the exposure to others who are doing what you do, only better.