Consider this scenario. You teach in a public high school. It’s a calling – not a job – and when the beginning of school rolls around, you may dread the hectic schedule and long hours of grading but you look forward to getting back in the classroom with students. Despite going without raises for three years and listening to public rancor about overpaid teachers, you are there because you love getting students excited about learning.
Then the week before faculty meetings start, you get an email from the administration that says teachers are expected to dress professionally for the first day of the pre-school meetings.
That’s it.
No welcome back or spirit-lifter about how good it will be to have everyone back doing what they do best. No hope-your-summer-was-revitalizing-and-the-school-building-was-empty-without-you message. Just an admonition to dress the way common sense tells you that you should dress anyway.
This happened to my daughter who teaches in a Virginia public high school. The effect was immediate and visceral. Her enthusiasm for the beginning of a new school year fell like the stock market after the Standard & Poors downgrade. It’s a fact that a couple of faculty members had dressed a too casually for meetings at the end of school but instead of reminding the likely offenders of the school dress code, the administration chose to send that degrading message to everyone.
Now for the rest of the story.
School administrators knew that TV cameras and some VIPs were going to be at the first-day meeting for a story on the opening of school. But the blanket email failed to mention that fact. All the administration needed to do was to inform faculty of the likely appearance of cameras rather than talking to them like 6-year-olds.
With every email we send, we have many pieces of information that we can include. Often what is not said is more important than the words that are actually chosen. That email deflated those teachers who were trying to be upbeat as they approached the new school year despite the overloaded classes, sometimes rude students and occasional abusive parents.
Bottom line: think before you hit the SEND button. What you are not saying can be more important than the text of your message.
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