Dear Student,

You may be wondering why I gave you the assignment to compose an email to me with an introduction about yourself. It might not seem relevant to the class. I owe you an explanation.

First, there’s a pragmatic reason. I want you to write better messages. When I talk to other faculty and this topic comes up, this is something we all agree on. We can give better responses when you’re clear. And it would really help if your email 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 “Hello, Dr. Johnston” or any other such thing followed by a line break. This is always a good warmup to a message. 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 assures me that you hit “Send” after finishing the email as you intended, and it’s a simple cue for what to call you and confirm who I’m talking to. I won’t recognize an address like “sweaterknitter4@hayoo.com” or whatever. 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. If you were stopping by my office, you might say hello, get some kind of invitation to come in, and after a conversation, perhaps about something really exciting like vector addition or conservation of energy or how our eyes and brain determine color, you’d say, “Have a good day” or something just because that’s pretty normal and easy. 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. Although, I admit, that happens sometimes.

My “advice” might give the wrong impression, though. The most important reason I ask you to write an email at the start of the term is because I genuinely like to know who you are, what I can do to help and how I can learn from you.

I’ve evolved to realize that learning is about relationships. This might sound strange or absurd. It’s easy to imagine that if you need to learn physics, then I should just tell you about some physics, and I think I’ve gotten pretty good at this. I have analogies and models and demonstrations, and I think they’re all accurate. But I’ve figured out that this is only a part of teaching. There’s something about learning that is uniquely human, and I think it’s important to make that connection. You’re more than just a source of homework problems, 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) or you have a dog or you like to play cribbage or so many other things. Maybe you just read “The 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 witness an incredible act of mercy from the neighbor across the street, helping a kid get up after flipping his scooter on the sidewalk, and you were astonished because you always thought that guy was a conspiracy-crazed hermit, but there he was with the bandages 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. Sometimes, later, I ask you about cribbage or bass (the guitar or the fish) or hiking trails or music, maybe in between analyzing some collection of forces. I enjoy this part of my job. You’re essential to this.

So, anyway, I’m looking forward to your email. Just please, please, for the love of all things beautiful: Sign your name.

Sincerely,

Adam

Adam Johnston is a professor of physics and director of the Center for Science and Mathematics Education at Weber State University, where he helps prepare future teachers and supports educators throughout Utah.