Student Note, Teary-Eyed Instructor

I read this note today as part of a studen's final essay sumissin in my BYUI English class.

In case you can't read it:

I would like to start of fmy saying how awesome a teacher you are. I looked forward to seeing your comments on every essay I wrote for this class. Befire I started writing this, I looked at the grades page to see how good a grade I'd need to get ot pass, and saw that you wrote a message basically asking if I'm ok, and that was such a nice thing to say. I've had a pretty bad month and lost almost all motivation to do almost anything, and seeing that really helped me have the motivation to do this. I'm sorry I didn't do the annotated bibliography. I did some, but never finished it. If it is a necessary prerequisite for this, I will finish it. I swear this is not trying to butter you up or anything like that I'm just thankful that you are who you are. Also, it's so cool that you enjoy fantasy books too. I would have messaged back on that comment you sent me, but I honestly don't know how. I never really had a great experience with online teacher, with most of them just seeming like grading machines, but I love that you still put effort into getting to know your students, even though it's online. If this is inappropriate or stupid, please ignore it, but I just wanted to say thank you.

Blew me away.

This is a student who struggled, obviously. I reached out to him just to see what was going on, and never heard back. I guess I shouldn't assume these digital natives are all that digital or all that native. But I'm glad I did reach out, even if he didn't know how to reach back.

News: He did pass the class, and not out of pity. He wrote a good final paper.

In the future: I will continue reaching out, especially to students who are struggling. I should probably pick up the phone and get past my own hang-ups and just see what I can do to help, much earlier on than I did in this instance. Lesson learned: He could probably have done better if I'd reached out sooner. Note for me on that.

Also a note to students: Teachers may be struggling too. I really wanted to take this semester off, as I have wanted to take the last few off. I'm really feeling the burnout. But we needed the money, so I bit the bullet and took the class on. Now, at the end of it, I'm glad I did.