That moment when, and we have all experienced this, most likely this morning even when we fire up the good ol’ MacBook. We take a deep breath while we mentally prepare ourselves for…. Spinning wheel of the death? Nope! That moment when your outlook is syncing and you pray to the email gods that there isn’t a boat load of angry student or even angrier parent emails! Yes my friends, it is the end of the trimester and grading has commenced!
How do we handle the passive aggressive emails? I have a few possible statements….
Student: Ms. Soandso I really think I did better on that paper than what you gave me as a grade. I would really appreciate a few points back, it would also help with my overall GPA.
Response: Thank you for your email. I understand that you want a few points back on your last paper. I however, would like a few hours back from having to grade such a horrible example of what you may consider extraordinary English work. As far as I can tell, time travel hasn’t been invented so I guess we are both out of luck. But thank you for expressing your concern, I will take it into consideration.
Parent: Mr. Blahblah … My son swears that he handed in those last five assignments.
Response: Your son swears to me all the time too. However, I feel like we may be using that word in different context. I would gladly repeat how he swears to me about his assignments but I feel that it may violate the rules set forth by the district for email conduct. But thank you for expressing your concern, I will take it into consideration.
Student: Mrs. Booboo … I was gone on vacation during finals week. Did I miss anything important?
Response: Aloha! I am so glad you were able to take a vacation after we just had a four days off for Thanksgiving break. Did we do anything important? Hmm… Important over finals week of the trimester? Let me think. Nope. We reminisced about all of the great times we had this trimester learning about different equations and problems. We did a little #TBT to when I showed the class how to work on this one problem that had everyone stumped. All and all it was a very relaxed few days, almost like we were on vacation with you.
Well, I should probably check the 11 email messages I avoided in order to write this … probably because if I hadn’t, I would be answering the real emails in an almost too snarky manner. :) Enjoy your workshops! Maybe we’ll see each other after school at Bonfires! :)
