Dear Student,
You may be wondering why I gave you the assignment to compose an email to me that included a little bit about yourself as well as a few key ingredients in the message. It might not seem as though this fits the focus or themes for the class. I owe you an explanation.
First, there’s a pragmatic reason. I want you to write better emails. Actually, we—all of your instructors—have been talking about this. It’s not like we’re talking about you all the time, but when the topic of emails comes up, this is something that we all agree on. You will get much better response if you are clear in your message. And, although it might seem obvious, it will really help if you create an email that is courteous and also includes things like your name and the class you’re in.
So, I ask you to include some kind of salutation at the top—like the “Dear Student” I used here, or “Hi Adam!” or even just “Greetings!” or “Dr. Johnston” or any other such thing—followed by a line break. This is always a good warm-up to a message, I think. It’s like a polite knock on the door, and it makes it clear that you’re writing the right person.
I also asked you to close with a sign-off that includes your name—the one you actually like to be called, Bob or Betsy rather than Robert or Elizabeth. That serves a few purposes. It assures me that you hit “send” after having finished the email as you intended. More important, it’s a simple cue for what to call you in response or, more basically, reminding me who I’m talking to. I get a lot of emails and I won’t always recognize your address, especially if it’s something like “sweaterknitter4@hayoo.com” or whatever. Even when the email is based on your real name, I don’t always know. Also, it’s just nice.
It might seem odd, but I open an email with the same kind of anticipation of someone coming to my door to say hello or ask a question, and I prep myself to greet you and “listen” to your email with the same attention I give someone coming to visit in person. If you were stopping by my physical office, you would knock on the door, say hello, get some kind of invitation to come in, and after a conversation, perhaps about something really exciting like vector addition or jazz chord progressions or how our eyes and brain determine color, you’d say “thanks” or “have a good day” or something just because that’s pretty normal and easy. And if you did something different, like just barge into the room and sit down and start talking and then leave abruptly, that would be weird.
In the last few years, this has become more important to point out because we have all kinds of messaging systems on our phones, through social media, in various messaging and collaboration systems, etc. etc. It’s easy to lose track, especially when they’re all being used at the same time, maybe even on the same device. For your instructor who might be interacting with and trying to get to know hundreds of students, it could be important for you to help them out. And, not to put too fine a point on it, but it could be important for you to put your best foot forward when you’re interacting with someone who could be writing you a letter of reference at some point.
All of this “advice” might give the wrong impression, though. The most important reason I ask you to write an email at the start of the term isn’t just to get you to compose a polite letter. I genuinely like to know who you are, what I can do to help, and how I can learn from you.
I think the most important reason for the assignment is that I really like to know who you are. There’s a much longer story (or therapy session) I could write here, but basically I’ve evolved and realized that learning is about relationships. This might sound strange or absurd—I used to think that. It’s easy to imagine that if you need to learn physics, then I should just show and tell you about some physics, and I think I’ve gotten pretty good at this. I have analogies and stories and models and examples and demonstrations and I think they’re all really good. But I’ve figured out that this is only a part of teaching and learning. There’s something about teaching that is uniquely human, and I think it’s important to make that human connection. You’re more interesting than just a source of homework assignments with diagrams and equations.
I always learn something really extraordinary in these mini introductions. You are a swimmer or you are afraid of physics or you play bass (the guitar, not the fish) or you know first aid or you don’t think there’s anything very interesting about yourself (which I find interesting though I’m guessing it’s not true but it’s okay because you hardly know me and why should you tell me the really interesting bits?) or you have a dog or you like to play cribbage or so many other things. Or you just read Grapes of Wrath or you are halfway through knitting a scarf for the first time; or, one time, you woke up to look out your window to see the most incredible act of mercy from the neighbor across the street, helping the newspaper delivery kid get up after flipping his bike on the curb, and you were astonished because you always thought that guy was a conspiracy theory crazed hermit, but there he was with the bandaids while squatting on the wet grass in his robe and old sneakers in the gray of dusk. I love that story. And often you tell me something about yourself that hits me in a new way that I didn’t see coming, and maybe neither did you because it was just simply something about you and you’ve taken it for granted that that’s a very rare person. And sometimes later I ask you about cribbage or bass (the guitar or the fish) or hiking trails or music, sometimes in between analyzing some collection of forces. I enjoy this part of my job, and you’re a critical component in this.
So, anyway, I’m happy to get your emails. I wanted you to know what my email address is and I wanted you to try it out. Feel free to write me again. Just please, please, for the love of all things beautiful: Sign your name.
Sincerely,
Adam
