When I began my career in 1998, e-mail existed, but it wasn't really being used to communicate with teachers the way it is today. I taught freshmen, and I knew that they weren't telling their parents what happened at school. The best a parent is likely to get from their freshman child when asked how their day was is "fine" or the answer "nothing" when asked what they did at school that day. I wanted my students' parents to have some idea of what they were doing at school, so I sent a weekly e-mail. Monday mornings, I summarized my lesson plans for the week. It wasn't detailed; it was usually just the objective of the week. I also told them if they should expect that week in terms of homework. It was just a little way for the parents of my students to see that their teacher was excited and had a plan for their students that week. I got a lot of positive feedback from this weekly 5-6 sentence e-mail, so I kept doing it.
With the advent of learning management systems, like Blackboard, Haiku, and Neo, this e-mail is no longer necessary. They are going to get most of this information from the LMS and, in fact, expect it to be there. If a homework assignment doesn't get posted on the LMS, I'm more likely than not to get an e-mail telling me that their student should not have to do it. What was once a courtesy is now an expectation.
I was talking with a friend one day about the pace of "time-saving" technologies and whether or not they actually saved time. She made the point that, far from saving time, they just raised expectations. The washing machine, for example, resulted in people wearing clothes only once before expecting it to be washed when people would previously have worn something a few times between washings.
Educational tech is the same. Because students and parents have access to their grades twenty-four hours a day, they will refresh a page, again and again, waiting for the teacher to input the grade. Because the grade shows up on a screen, they often forget that a human has to grade the assignment first. I received an email from a student this week, telling me that she had done an assignment, but it still said zero in our grading system. Her email was sent 7 minutes after she completed the assignment. She expected it to be input instantaneously. I'm a yearbook advisor as well, and digital photography and social media have led to students asking, "Where will your pictures be posted so we can download them?" Notice that they don't ask IF the pictures will be posted, but where. I used to send a really good shot to a student as a thougtful act. Now, it's an expectation, so they feel deprived when I tell them that I don't post them. As teachers, we want to do things that help our students. We want to share information with their parents that will help the student be successful. We have to be careful, however, not to set ourselves up to chase our tails by responding to every request. Setting clear boundaries at the beginning of the year is very important. If you don't answer emails on Sundays, make that clear in your class policies (I know. I know. They don't read them, but that's not on you). If you make an exception to your late work policy, make sure the student knows that it is a one-time act of grace, or it will happen again. Responding yes to everything is not the act of kindness you might think it is when you consider the impact that a sense of entitlement it is having on their life in the long-term. Clarity is kindness, and predictability leads to a feeling of security. When kids know you mean what you say, they may not like every decision, but they will have more respect for them.
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