Emailing parents

While ranking the world's greatest inventions of all time, I am forced to rank "email" fourth, right behind the Big Three: electricity, antibiotics and those upside down tomato bottles. That shit's amazing.

Why is email so invaluable to a teacher? Because it allows us to avoid two of the biggest time consuming activities known to this job: Parent phone calls and parent conferences. I'm not going to rehash the conference thing. That was a previous column's topic. As for the phone calls, which are becoming less and less frequent thanks to email, I could live the rest of my life and not miss making phone calls home to parents. No matter who you get on the phone, it's going to cause some undue stress.

That micro-managing uber-parent? They'll have intelligent, jarring questions that can leave a teacher stammering like George Bush at a press conference when the topic turns to anything other than mountain biking or baseball.

That drugged out carcass of barely walking apathy who mumbles a "Yeah" when she picks up the phone? Those calls will leave you more depressed than a Pittsburgh Pirates fan.

The screamer and child abuser? Those calls will leave you apologizing to the poor kid the next day, trying to convince him that you had no any idea his mother was a batshit-crazy, foulmouthed banshee who could barely wait to hang up the phone so that she could tear into her cowering, crying son with a Durocher-like string of invectives and a Tysonish barrage of upper body blows. (Happened this September, as a matter of fact.)

Email, however, allows me to sidestep all those no-win situations and instead direct the communication to my liking.

And no, this is not going to be a column filled with cheap shots about misspellings, poor grammar and absurd statements. Although I've been known to teach English on those days when the DVD player is on the blink, I don't judge people's intelligence by the quality of their writing. Take the plumber dad who writes an email devoid of commas, periods and capital letters. I, Mr. Veteran English Teacher, know how to edit this man's email. That's because I graduated with a B.F.D.D., or Big Fucking Deal Degree. The non-comma using plumber, however, knows how to ensure that my shit will go down the drain when I push the handle. So who's the real smartie pants in this e-relationship? Who's more valuable to society? If you're not sure, consider this question later when you take that Chernobyl dump in the master bathroom.

Email is better than personal meetings and phone calls for many reasons. But you better know the ins and outs of teacher-parent electronic communication if you want to use it to fullest advantage. Let an educational emailing expert provide some tips:

Remember, you are about to rag on the object of this person's fiercest love, their adorable little wall-eyed, ADD-afflicted bundle of joy. You must use care and tact as you approach your keyboard. (You must also clean your keyboard first, if perchance you were checking out Internet stills of Christina Ricci in the new Black Snake Moan movie.) Always get across that your main concern is for their child. Never make it clear that you are writing only to make your job easier, hoping that somehow the parent can get the crazy fucker to sit still and shut up for more than three minutes at a time, which you know deep down is not going to happen, as they obviously have failed at controlling this insane little bitch for the first 15 years of his life. So, even though Shitbag Josiah and his apeshit behavior might make your life miserable, don't put the focus on yourself. Keep the focus on the no doubt prison-bound Josiah. Write that your main concern is for Josiah's education and overall well-being, leaving out that you fantasize about hitting him about the head with a metal pipe and tossing his body in the recycle dumpster. You will come off as the caring, patient, loving teacher, and with a little luck, they'll take care of your lightwork, beating Josiah about the head with a pipe and rendering him a catatonic dummy, allowing you to show that just released Jim Carrey movies in peace.

Remember that you are both putting on an act in your emails. You will play the part of a caring teacher, and they will act like a concerned, conscientious parent who surely cares about their child's education and behavior. You should both be nominated for Emmys. They will act shocked and appalled when you tell them that little LaQuanda told the boy behind her to "lick my smelly cunt, you prickless piece of pony shit." You will act as if you didn't want to grab her by her weave and throw her into a wall, since she blurted that out during the funniest part of the movie you are showing instead of actually teaching something, causing most of the class to miss Adam Sander's punchline, which was doubtless delivered in that insanely funny child's voice that he uses every ... fucking ... time ... he ... opens ... his ... mouth. The parent will write that she will most-certainly-for-sure-you-betcha-damn-straight deal with this behavior, and you will assure the parent in a return email that you understand that LaQuanda is at an age at which impetuosity and lack of self-control are common. Then you'll hit the send button and say, "Now get that little foul-mouthed tramp under control before I show start showing all 10 hours of Roots over the next two weeks."

Be sure that emails about misbehaving students are done in just the right tone. If you're too sugary, you'll raise some red flags, as even the most loving, delusional parent knows that the kid they ignored for most of their lives can be a real asswipe in class. But if you're too negative and angry, then the parent gets defensive and might fire back an email whose viciousness explains why their kid is such a monumental turd. So, you start off with a few lines about what a hard worker Sven is, and how he is really intelligent in so many hard-to-quantify ways, and that he's fun to talk to one on one, and that he's got a great sense of humor and laughs at all your jokes. Once you've slathered the parent with a tub of bullshit butter, then and only then do you get to "the regrettable reason for this email." Even then, when you describe the way Sven whipped out his pecker and told you to "suck this thing dry, you faggot" because you told him to sit down so that others could watch the movie, you must convey a sense of understanding that this was just an aberration in the life of otherwise crackerjack, whip-smart young man. They will agree to address this action. (You know they won't.) You will agree to forget this ever happened. (Not a chance in hell.)

Yet another advantage of email is that it allows you to address your own fuckups before the angry or embarrassed kid can get home to put his own adolescent lying-assed-motherfucker of a spin on what went down between you and him in class. Let's say a kid opens himself up to a great comeback, and as the teacher, you valiantly fend off the urge to act maturely and instead just slay the kid with a devastatingly embarrassing line, mocking perhaps his penis length, or his braille-like acne, or his permanent paralysis. His ashen face and non-stop crying tip off his intent to go home and whine to mom that his fourth period teacher humiliated him in front of the entire class. As soon as that class leaves, the derisive laughter at the defenseless victim still echoing in your room, you run to the computer to begin composing a set of lies and half truths worthy of an White House administration selling an Iraq war. By the time you explain what really happened, the parent will have no choice but to send back an email thanking you for being such a funny teacher who knows how to reach kids in an unconventional manner, and they'll be sure to explain to their child, as soon as they wheel his blubbering ass into the house, that you were really just trying to make him feel good about himself when you said, "That will cost you an arm and a leg, kids ... unless you're Mr. Christopher Reeve over here in the first row. No one's gonna want one of his useless limbs, the crippled bastard!" I guess you have to hear it in context, a context that was most assuredly explained in the email home.

Finally, email sometimes allows you an immediate analysis of the sanity or maturity level of a parent, something that can be hard to decipher in a phone call or personal conference, as parents can be as adept at faking it as teachers are. Email addresses can tell you more than a six-page biographical sketch of a parent. For example, if you go to contact the parent of that irritating redneck kid in second period, and you see that the dad's email address is "my.38Berrettadoesmytalkin@yahoo.com," you know that you might want to proceed gingerly or, better yet, just forego the email and continue to put up with Jethro's antics. If you have to email "supremebootiegal33@hotmail.com," you know that this woman's priority list places her sluttish daughter's bookroom blowjobs far below her own pathetically adolescent pursuits of finding just the right fuck-me pumps to wear to this Tuesday's happy hour. If you get an email from "allpraisetoourlordjesus@cs.com," you know that the parent just wants to hear that their child has a good heart. And if you get an email from that hot MILF you remember from Open House, you know that you need to send an urgent return email telling this caring piece of ass that her daughter's grades and behavior are so in need of addressing that perhaps you should both meet at that little place just across the county line, you know, that place with the darkened back room, that place that serves a delicious veal piccata ... but only respond with that type of email if the address is something like "Ineedsplithard@irs.gov."

Ned Bitters teaches high school and dreams of one day seeing one of his former students on stage at a strip club. You can contact him at teacherslounge@hobotrashcan.com.