The first day of school every teacher tells us to check our emails regularly, because that’s the way they communicate with us. They tell us they will be sending out updates and reminders through email. 

But do teachers respond to emails just as they tell students to? 

Now, I can’t say for every teacher because there are many teachers who are really good at responding to emails from students, but if teachers are nagging us to check emails regularly, they should be too right? 

They can’t be telling us to do one thing, and then not do the same. We need them to be responding to us just as much as they need us to respond to them. Maybe even more. 

If we don’t understand the assignment that is given, we ask them the only way we can. Email. If they take the whole week to respond to us, or respond after the due date it doesn’t help us at all. 

Although, the same thing goes for students too. If our teachers are emailing us, we shouldn’t take long to reply to them either. 

All the teachers that I know have gmail on their phones, not just their work computer. If it’s on their phones, they would get the alert every time they get an email. They can’t give us the excuse that they didn’t see it, because we know everyone is constantly checking their phones. When you get an alert, you always look. It’s the point of not feeling like responding at that time, then forgetting. 

It isn’t fair to the student if the teachers aren’t answering us. We can’t do the assignment if we don’t understand it and it isn’t necessarily the teacher’s fault that we don’t understand, but if they don’t help us or respond to us then it’s understandable to want to blame the teacher. 

In some scenarios, if you can’t complete an assignment due to a lack of understanding, it can lead to a low grade. This not only drops your overall class grade tremendously, but also drops your overall GPA. Most students when their grade drops immediately freak out and email their teacher, who doesn’t respond.

So we either wait a week for in-person school, email them again, or stick with the zero because sometimes even asking them in-person to fix the grade doesn’t work. 

Now, I don’t want to be bashing teachers here. I know that they have a lot of students, get a lot of emails, and are under a lot of stress. They are doing a really good job with managing all of the craziness this school year is bringing. 

We don’t expect to get a response that second, because no one responds right away and it just isn’t always possible, but when it takes more than two days to get a response it starts to cause a lot of stress for some students. 

We just don’t appreciate doing what the teacher asks, especially when they don’t do it back. Communication is more key than ever this school year, especially with the pandemic. Communication between teachers and students is critical. Not only for this school year, but every school year after. If we communicate with each other, it will make school much easier, and the work more manageable for all.

Lexi Herrmann

Lexi is a senior at Sweet Home High School and previously wrote for the Panther Press where she was the editor for the News section for two years. Lexi is now the Opinion section editor of The Panther Eye. She plays volleyball for the Varsity team at Sweet Home.