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At the start of my teaching career, when I was fresh out of graduate school, I briefly considered trying to pass myself off as a cool professor. Luckily, I soon came to my senses and embraced my true identity as a young fogey.
After one too many students called me by my first name and sent me email that resembled a drunken late-night Facebook post, I took a very fogeyish step. I began attaching a page on etiquette to every syllabus: basic rules for how to address teachers and write polite, grammatically correct emails.
Over the past decade or two, college students have become far more casual in their interactions with faculty members. My colleagues around the country grumble about students' sloppy emails and blithe informality.
[...] Sociologists who surveyed undergraduate syllabuses from 2004 and 2010 found that in 2004, 14 percent addressed issues related to classroom etiquette; six years later, that number had more than doubled, to 33 percent. This phenomenon crosses socio-economic lines. My colleagues at Stanford gripe as much as the ones who teach at state schools, and students from more privileged backgrounds are often the worst offenders.
-- submitted from IRC
Source: The New York Times
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday May 16 2017, @05:39PM (5 children)
I've received emails that look like this even AFTER I've had a detailed email correspondence with a student multiple times.
So help me out here....
Your briefly hand waive away the fact that some kids who lack even a modicum of respect in their emails.
Then you spend the bulk of your post castigating poor Sam, who was going out of his way to be polite and respectful.
Then you say you call it "Professional Development". You seem a little undecided on this subject.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday May 16 2017, @05:45PM (3 children)
You have to choices:
1. Come out of high school perfect, with no weaknesses in your professional communication skills.
2. Be one of those damn millennials ruining everything. Why are they eating so many avocados on my lawn?
Hell, I'm a professional who works in an office with some very formal people, and I'm sure I write overly curt or unnecessarily formal emails all the time. The people on the other end of it get over it and we work together to solve problems, like actual adults.
(Score: 4, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday May 16 2017, @06:04PM (1 child)
Come out of high school perfect, with no weaknesses in your professional communication skills.
I guess you missed the point in my post where I recommended advising students to help them improve their communication skills for "Professional Development" purposes. I don't expect that they will be "perfect" at the start. I *am* surprised at how many don't even understand the basics of etiquette in a professional situation. It's not a huge number, and I don't even know that it's a "millennial" problem; I assume some students have always had these issues.
I *rarely* correct a student on this sort of thing unless it's a pervasive and odd issue that I think could get them into trouble down the line in professional communication. But in that latter case, I think it's actually part of a role of being a good educator to help students in this fashion (and I'd never do so in a denigrating tone or whatever).
By the way, I'm not some weird person obsessed with etiquette either. I'd say the exact same thing about correcting a student's grammar or usage in a paper submitted to me, even if it wasn't really about the content. I'm not teaching them English, but if they are persistently misusing commas, I'm going to let them know.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday May 16 2017, @06:18PM
I will acknowledge you are right: I intentionally missed the point and presented a false dichotomy as a rhetorical tactic.
This is not because I think I you, personally, are being unreasonable, but because the core of this, to me, seems like the same "this damn next generation" stuff, filtered through a lens where, suddenly, a written form is suddenly how the naivety and imperfections of young people are most clearly communicated. 20 years ago, it would definitely be "Oh man, you should've heard this phone call I got from my student" instead.
And also the same shit with essays.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 16 2017, @06:40PM
I personally saw 2 spelling mistakes in the space of a month in emails. The millenials are fucking destrying the fucking country those fucking noobs.
(Score: 3, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday May 16 2017, @05:53PM
I wouldn't exactly say I was "castigating" poor Sam. I'm sincerely grateful he made the effort. And I wasn't AT ALL criticizing his politeness or respectfulness -- only the fact that he told me his name four or five times in every message. (And this fictional student is not unique.)
I do sometimes find this sort of thing indicative of students who also are inexperienced with email. I could give other examples of misplaced attempts at formality that come across as bizarre. But, as another post pointed out, some profs actually want this sort of info EVERY TIME in a message, so maybe I was a bit harsh on poor Sam in this particular quirk.
You seem a little undecided on this subject.
I guess maybe you thought I was criticizing the format or formality of Sam's message? I wasn't. And I was joking at the end when I said at that point I'd prefer "Hey man..." but I guess perhaps I needed a sarcasm tag.
Clear now?