The Lost Art of "Thank You"

I had an interesting experience that made me think. And because I actually thought about it, I deemed it worth sharing with all of you.

I recently received several gifts from my students, both from a party they threw and from teacher appreciation week. I was very grateful for their thoughtful kindness, and being a person who follows the rules of etiquette, I hand-wrote each kiddo who gave me something a thank you note. (I was feeling a bit like a cheater since I put them in their in-class mailboxes rather than actually mailing them, but that's another story.)

Upon finding these notes in their boxes, I had a few kids come ask me if they were in trouble. I asked why they thought that, and each of them said, "Well, there's a sealed envelope with my name on it. What do I do with it?" I was a bit surprised by this, so I responded with something like, "Oh, that's just a thank you note. You can open it." I was a little baffled at their question, but I work with junior high kids, and some of them are in the mentality that if you talk to them, they must be in trouble. I chalked it up to this and moved on with my day.

Well, I tried to, anyway. Upon opening their thank you cards, I saw something incredible. Several of them ran around the room, showing their friends the card that I had written them, as if it was some big prized possession. (I did sign them, but I don't think my John Hancock is that valuable!) Then, a few of them approached me and said things like, "Jessica, you didn't have to do that - that was so nice of you!" or "Thanks for the note, Jessica!" I realized that these kids have never seen a thank you note before, let alone received one.

I thought this was bizarre. I mean, when you get a gift, you write a thank you note, right? I don't know when I learned that or when I started doing that, but I try to do that as consistently as I can. So I got to thinking - is this a generational thing, or is it just this particular group of kids? I did some quick Googling and found 21,300,000 results in my search of "the lost art of thank you notes." Really and truly, these kids are growing up in a world where "thank you" doesn't exist. The art of putting pen to paper to express gratitude is unheard of to them.

Part of me was just sick at this - where did manners go? Who still believes in etiquette? Oh humanity! But another part of me took hope - now that they have heard of a thank you note, seen one, and received one, who knows? Maybe they will be inspired to write these kinds of notes.

But then there's part of me who wonders if it's just this generation I work with. So I shall posit a questio to you, my readers: is the art of the thank you letter dead? Do you write thank you notes? Should a person write thank you notes anymore? What do you think?