Kent City — As seventh-graders settled into their seats on a wintry morning, teacher Brooklynn VanOeffelen pointed to the day’s agenda written on the whiteboard.
“Today, we’re going to be talking about email etiquette,” she said. “What does ‘etiquette’ mean?”
Otto Wahlfield eagerly raised his hand: “It’s the proper way to do something,” he said, which VanOeffelen affirmed.
The teacher then pulled up a message from her own inbox.
“This is a real email I received from a student,” she said. “This was the subject line they wrote: ‘I finished my missing assignment the vocabulary can you grade it for me’. Does this subject line have good email etiquette?”
As students called out what was wrong with the subject, like missing punctuation and lack of identification, VanOeffelen smiled.
“Email is forever — you don’t want to embarrass yourself,” she said. “So let’s talk about the steps to take so that doesn’t happen.”
The lesson on email etiquette is one of many topics covered within the new Personal Development class at Kent City Middle School. Launched this school year, the class teaches a variety of life skills, social-emotional learning, health information and other personal growth tips.
“It’s really a hodgepodge of a bunch of different things, which I like because there is so much freedom with the lessons I create and the ability to kind of make it my own,” VanOeffelen said of the cross-curricular course. “We didn’t have anything else like this, and I think we were all thinking that this was something we needed. … We want to make sure we’re preparing them for what’s to come, like when they get to high school or have to submit a job application with a resume, so that they can be successful moving forward.”
Cursive, Coping and Caring
VanOeffelen said her primary focus is on social-emotional skills with a variety of other topics tacked on, often tailored to student or class needs. They work on collaboration skills, problem-solving tactics and how to communicate well with different age groups or in an interview. She has students revisit cursive writing and practice how to write their own signatures. They also spend a class period learning — or re-learning — how to read an analog clock.
All of this goes hand in hand with VanOeffelen’s emphasis on “empathy versus apathy,” she said.
“You know, it’s middle school; there’s a lot of drama, there can be a lot of meanness,” she said. “So I take a nice chunk of time to go over what it means to be empathetic and how you can prevent yourself from being an apathetic person who lacks concern for others. I really hope that they take that with them.”
VanOeffelen also shares her class time with Catie Meyer, a public health educator with the Kent County Health Department. Meyer visits the classes every week to discuss and teach on topics including vaping and smoking; coping with anxiety, stress and anger; self-image; violence in the media; and prescription and over-the-counter drugs.
“I really love when (Meyer) comes; Catie is such a phenomenal teacher and her lessons are so interactive,” VanOeffelen said. “They’re big topics, but the kids are always so invested.”
Impacts for Now and Later
For her lesson on email etiquette, VanOeffelen walked students through important steps to follow when writing an email: have a clear subject line, identify yourself, use salutations, write efficiently, and proofread before sending.
They then read through several example emails to try to identify and correct problems to make the email read better.
Seventh-grader Roy Anderson caught on quickly and was able to identify several missteps in the examples. He said he hadn’t given much thought to the “proper” way to write emails before.
“I never really knew about the subject line,” he said, noting that it’s important “because people need to know what (the email) is about, and when they get it, that’s the thing that shows up first. It’ll make sure that your teacher understands what you’re talking about.”
Not all of the lessons in the class might have an immediate impact, VanOeffelen noted, but she’s already seen a difference in emails from students she taught a few months ago.
“I’ve actually been receiving emails with subjects, so that’s really nice,” she said. “And I’ve had other teachers say to me, ‘I don’t know what you did, but I’m actually getting good emails that I can read now,’ which is pretty great to hear.
“I like seeing what (students) retained and how they’re applying it in their life, and I just know there’s going to be so many benefits from (this class) in their lives afterward. That’s what makes it so enjoyable.”
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