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'U Can't Talk to Ur Professor Like This' (nytimes.com)
Millennial college students have become far too casual when they talk with their professors, reads an opinion piece on The New York Times. Addressing professors by their first names and sending misspelled, informal emails with text abbreviations have become common practices (Editor's note: the link could be paywalled; here's a syndicated source) among many students than educators would like, Molly Worthen, an assistant professor of history at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill adds. From the article: Over the past decade or two, college students have become far more casual in their interactions with faculty members. My colleagues around the country grumble about students' sloppy emails and blithe informality. "When students started calling me by my first name, I felt that was too far, and I've got to say something," Mark Tomforde, a math professor at the University of Houston said. Sociologists who surveyed undergraduate syllabuses from 2004 and 2010 found that in 2004, 14 percent addressed issues related to classroom etiquette; six years later, that number had more than doubled, to 33 percent. This phenomenon crosses socio-economic lines. My colleagues at Stanford gripe as much as the ones who teach at state schools, and students from more privileged backgrounds are often the worst offenders. [...] Insisting on traditional etiquette is also simply good pedagogy. It's a teacher's job to correct sloppy prose, whether in an essay or an email. And I suspect that most of the time, students who call faculty members by their first names and send slangy messages are not seeking a more casual rapport. They just don't know they should do otherwise -- no one has bothered to explain it to them. Explaining the rules of professional interaction is not an act of condescension; it's the first step in treating students like adults.
The problem is, some teachers could almost be accused of "promoting" overly casual correspondence with the kids in an attempt to look "hip" and to "connect with" the students.
My son's sarcasm and lack of correctness took a nose dive the last year of elementary school, his teacher was a bad influence and encouraged sarcasm, and lack of respect for authorities. Something we've seen continue into middle school where we are confounded by the teachers there who seem to find my son's lack of respect for them amusing. (he doesn't understand why he can't come home and use the same lack of respect and sarcasm towards us that his teachers find amusing). I don't think some of these teachers realize the disservice they are doing the kids.
When they get a job in the real world, 9 times out of 10, their employers won't be impressed with sarcasm, lack of proper communication skills, and lack of respect.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
You can call people with their first names without implying very close familiarity because you still have the option of using a formal second person singular pronoun ("vos" in Latin, "Sie" in German, "vous" in French, "vy" in Russian or Czech, etc.)
Ezekiel 23:20