Good grief.
There is a professor in the College of Education at The University of Western Ontario named John Palmer. Last fall, I began receiving email from his students, given that my email address has my/our name in it and his doesn't quite.
At first I informed the students they had made a mistake and asked them to tell their prof about the confusion. After this went on for a month or two and became increasingly serious, I wrote to the professor, asking him to be sure to let his students know his correct address.
He responded that he had done so several times already and that he would be sure to do so again.
Since then I have continued to receive email messages from his students. I have two reactions:
- I no longer respond and I no longer set these students straight.
- These are people who think they are qualified to be educators.