Emailing your instructor

luvmy3kids · Sep 18, 2007

I teach a class with about 60 students. I posted grades from a recent assignment just before class yesterday. During class, I explained the most common reasons for points being deducted -- very clear and specific reasons such as X number of points for work handed in late, X number of points off it you did not include ABC in the assignment, etc.
When I got home in the evening, I found about 10 e-mails from students wanting me to explain to them personally why I deducted the points I did. What's wrong with these people? I had to write responses such as. "You handed the assignment in 3 days late. If you check the grading criteria in the syllabus as I told you to do several times in class, you will see that there are points taken off for missing the deadline." "You did not answer one of the questions in the assignment: so, I took off points for that." etc. etc. etc. Very few (if any) of the points deducted involved judgment calls on my part. They were pretty black and white, objective failures to meet the criteria specified by the assignment.
What's wrong with these people! And this was an assignment for which the grades were relatively high! People who got B's were wanting me to justify their grades.
It took 5-10 minutes to answer each e-mail as I had to go back and look at their assignment to be able to justify my grade to them. The whole thing took a little over an hour of my supposed "free evening at home." I'm afraid to look at my e-mail this morning.
I welcome e-mails from students who have legitimate questions and problems that they need me to help solve. But that should not be taken as an invitation to expect to be catered to minute-by-minute throughout the class. Students need to not abuse e-mail and pester instructors. They need to keep the lines of communication free for important things.
Sorry for the rant -- but someone needs to speak up for harried, underpaid instructors. Most of teach because we care about the course and about the students. But students need to behave responsibly and avoid abusing their instructors with unnecessary special requests and hassles that they could (and should) resolve on their own.

I'm sooooo glad you posted this. I just wanted to mention how I can't stand some of the students in my class and how they treat our instructor. It never fails... The instructor will say something and about 10 minutes afterwards... a student asks the very question that she just answered. They interrupt the class by talking, leaving, coming in late. I can't believe how incredibly rude and disruptive students are today. When I was in school the first time around this was totally unacceptable and inexcusable. I just don't understand what has happened with the teacher/student relationship in the last 10 years. It's embarrassing for me to have to watch her grit her teeth and deal with this.

I just wanted to let you know.... there are some of us out there that do respect and admire you all for your hard work. I don't know how you do it. Honestly... I don't know how.

Jen