Yelp. eBay. Avvo. Servicemagic. Amazon. Each of these sites has at least one major thing in common: user generated reviews. And though Yelp has gotten some heat of late over their deletion of user reviews, I’ll borrow from their tagline to say that each has the benefit of providing real reviews from real people.

Just as each of the above sites is in the business of connecting some variation of merchant and consumer, TeachStreet is in the business of connecting some variation of teacher and student. So in this respect, though we pride ourselves on being a teacher resource, TeachStreet is really a place to empower and inform students.

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In the spirit of real student reviews, I wanted to make mention of a something that happened over the weekend. A teacher received a one star rating. As it wasn’t the review she was hoping for, she was upset.

However, rather than writing a rebuttal where prospective students could read a defensive, angry response, she took a different approach. She emailed former students and asked them to come to her TeachStreet profile page and write reviews, which they did to the tune of several four and five star ratings.

So even though no teacher likes to get negative reviews, to me, this story exemplifies the collaborative, honest way in which reviews should be created. Call it the wisdom of the crowds, the law of averages, or whatever else, but no matter what you call it, this is one of the most intriguing things I’ve seen on TeachStreet. After all, much like seller pages on eBay with lots of buyer feedback, teacher pages on TeachStreet with student feedback, positive or negative, provide the most helpful information: real reviews from real students.

Some Superstar Teachers with Five Star Reviews:

• “Hatha Yoga Class” taught by Maude Pauletto
• “French Lessons” taught by AA Montagnac Linguist
• “Jewelry Classes” taught by Marlo M