Some Teenager Complaints are Legit

I don't usually give much weight to student complaints.  Most of their woes are self-inflicted via poor decision-making, inadequate planning, inattentiveness, or just general myopia.  However, you always have to listen, because sometime there's something legit in there.

For example, the other day I pushed out (via email) some minor change in the syllabus that I had neglected to mention in class.  The next time they saw me, they were teasing me about how unorganized I was and how they really didn't appreciate my changing things on-the-fly, outside of class.  While they were mostly just joking around with me about this particular incident, it came out that they frequently will receive entirely new assignments outside of class from their teachers.  With all of the technology at their fingertips, teachers make use of it in order to maximize their in-class time and keep their unit plans flowing smoothly.  Although each individual case of pushing out a new reading, updating a problem set, moving a check-in deadline on a project, etc. may make sense within confines of one teacher's class and does contribute to healthy open-lines-of-communication between student and teacher, I do think it is a bad practice and we, as educators, need to examine it critically:

1.  Student deserve to organize their time and then be able to stick to their plan.  Although many do not do a great job of this, they should know at the close of the school day everything they need to have completed before the next time their class meets.

2. Assignments dropping in from the digital sky contributes to the current climate of anxiety.  Checking for assignments and updates outside-of-class encourages the always-on, always-connected hyper-pacing of modern life about which we have so many concerns.

In short, I think this is a practice that does more harm than good.  The intent is great; the impact not so much.