My teacher won't answer my email!

I asked my teacher a question over email and she’s not writing me back. I need an answer before tomorrow. Now what?

There are many times, both personally and in business, where you send out an email and don’t hear back. Your question is really, “How do I tactfully ‘nudge’ this person so that I can get what I need?” It could be that your teacher has a huge backlog of emails. To put it in perspective, as a small-business-owner, The Dad spends a chunk of time each morning going through about 50 emails, leaving behind the ones that require long responses for later. Your teacher probably has a lot of students asking questions, and despite what you may have heard, some questions are stupid, and she may not feel she has to answer those. Either way, you can’t control when, or whether, she will respond.

And you may have your question (the one you sent to The Dad) out of order. In these situations, it usually looks like:

1. Is there another source that can answer my question?

2. Have I taken personal responsibility? Is this a result of my poor planning?

3. How do I send a reminder to this person so I can get my information?

Let’s walk through them.

(1) Did I do everything I could to solve this myself? Can I read or re-read the directions or my class notes to see if my question was covered already? Can I ask another student who seems to pay attention? Can I use logic or prior experience to help me answer my question? All of this is called “doing due diligence.” When The Dad is reading his emails and someone asks him a question that clearly shows they haven’t read key information he has already offered, they tend to move down my list of The Dad's priorities. (It’s a little different in business than in teaching, but you can imagine your teacher feeling the same way.) The quality of the question matters. And the teacher’s experience hones her ability to determine who’s asking a legitimate question or not.

Now, onto (2)— personal responsibility. You should also ask yourself—and be honest— “Am I using this as an excuse to kick the can down the road?” In other words, am I just involving an innocent party while I procrastinate? (The Dad is old enough to have made almost every mistake, and some of the simple ones he's made twice— and the potential for embarrassment means it is not worthwhile. Don’t bluff. The person on the other side of the email can read sincerity and intent.) Can I take my best guess and complete the assignment? (Usually you can.) Personal responsibility involves initiative. Is this part of a larger pattern of not taking responsibility?

If the answer really is “no” to both of those, go back and look at your email. Was your request or question appropriate? Reasonable? Succinct (short)? Was the question easy to understand, easy to respond to, and something that could be discussed conveniently over email? Something open-ended like “What’s your feeling about global warming?” may be less appropriate in scope (how much effort is required to cover the topic) than “Which pages were we supposed to read tonight?” The homework pages question is succinct but not appropriate— you can ask a friend.

If you’re confident that your teacher’s input is necessary, and it’s also been at least 24 hours since you sent your first email,* you can say “I just wanted to follow up about [assignment].” Rephrase your question, making sure that it’s appropriate, reasonable, short, and easy to understand and respond to. Make sure you start the email with “Dear [Teacher’s name]” and end with something like “Thank you” and your name. And, while you wait for her response, try to do the assignment. In The Dad's experience both in and out of school, an imperfect assignment or project with clear signs of effort, turned in on time, counts for a lot more than a perfect assignment turned in late or never completed at all. A lot of time, we get to a point where we have to act on the information we have, do our best, and trust the results will work out alright.

And remember... as The Dad always says, no matter what happens, even if the teacher never emails you back or you guess wrong about the assignment...even if all of those things happen and more, they can't eat you!

Not sure The Dad got it right this time? Have something to add? Comment below to let The Dad know!

*This is the default time frame a teacher friend, actually The Daughter, recommended to The Dad. Your teacher may have a different timeline for how frequently she answers emails.