Honesty versus politeness?

[Jake]

What's more important, to be honest with your opinions, or to lie and be polite?
Today I had to fill in a questionnaire for my college, and I was asked questions about my teachers. For two teachers I wrote they had done very well, but for another I wrote that they were average. This is because they was always late for lesson, they took a long time to mark homework, and they didn't give you mock exam papers to practise with.
It was an anonymous questionnaire so I thought I could be honest without any repercussions. However, as I found out, I was totally wrong.
The teacher I called average was collecting the questionnaires in, and was also reading them as she got them. She looked at mine, then looked at me in disgust, and said to our table, "who wrote this, who said I was average?". Then this started off one of my female classmates, who then said, "that's just plain nasty".
Of course, I didn't dare raise my hand and admit it was me. However, I could tell that she knew it was me, and she was clearly upset.
I also have to use the teacher next year, so I am worried that she will single me out, and basically make me talk in front of class, do more work etc.
So what should I have done, should I have been polite and said she did an excellent job, or should I have done what I did and wrote the truth (in my opinion)?

[Kali]

I think that there are times when you need to be honest and others when it is best just to be polite. In this case I think you did the right thing. If you aren’t honest on a questionnaire then there is no point in taking it, after all you do that sort of thing to find out problems with the school/staff to try and fix it. This questionnaire was also supposed to be anonymous so she really shouldn’t have been looking at them anyway.

[Kitten]

Yeah, what she did was wrong. They're not supposed to look at the questionnaires, the whole point is for the students to honestly evaluate their professors. When they used to do that in my classes, someoneone from outside the class would come around, distribute them, and collect them. I didn't think they were ALLOWED to collect their own questionnaires. Whatever.

Hopefully she didn't know it was you and won't treat you badly next year. Is it too late to switch schedules and get someone else?

[strawberrysweetie]

Kali said:

I think that there are times when you need to be honest and others when it is best just to be polite. In this case I think you did the right thing. If you aren’t honest on a questionnaire then there is no point in taking it, after all you do that sort of thing to find out problems with the school/staff to try and fix it. This questionnaire was also supposed to be anonymous so she really shouldn’t have been looking at them anyway.

I completely agree.

[Purranha]

I don't think you did anything wrong, I mean if you would've said she was lousy or bad that would've been wrong/mean, but you just said she was average and it was the truth. I think she was out of line for getting mad about it.