“I’m sending you an anonymous survey to fill out to let me know how the course has been for you. What worked? What didn’t? I need to know.”

Those were the words accompanying my form I sent to students this year. If I were going to teach them in a new environment, with materials that were unfamiliar to us all, I needed to know how to make it better for them.

After all, students are the key stakeholders in education.

My teaching always seems to go smoother when I focus on them, ignore everyone else and pretend to tick off checkboxes that are “required.”

Sometimes, I wonder when new initiatives are pushed down through the system, who is really the stakeholder in mind? Education is ripe for political pandering, vulnerable to business ventures by for-profit companies (or people) disguising themselves as “educational” and targeted by everyone who feels entitled to elicit their uninformed opinions.

It’s also a frustrating breeding ground for stubborn egos.

As an educator, it’s necessary to take a step back and ask: who are we really trying to please?