DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am a middle school teacher, and although we are not beginning classes in person yet this year, I cannot stop thinking about something that always bugs me at the beginning of the school year.

Many of my students walk around campus with some type of earbuds in. It is an expectation of mine that when talking or listening, students take them out. This is because the other person involved cannot know whether the person with earbuds is listening to audio or to them.

I explain this to the students, and emphasize that it is an issue of showing respect to the person you are conversing with. They often fight back on this rule and insist that turning off the audio when conversing is enough.

Am I missing the mark on what’s important here? Do you think removing earbuds is something that shows respect or lack thereof?

GENTLE READER: These students will also probably try to convince you that they can listen while playing video games, texting their friends and playing with slime, but the optics are still rude.

Proper etiquette is so often shown through symbolism. Taking one’s cap off in school provides no practical purpose, but it shows reverence for the institution. Demanding that ear pieces be removed when talking to others is, Miss Manners assures you, entirely within your jurisdiction. You are the teacher. It is your duty (as well as the parents’) to teach your students respect. In fact, it is probably the most valuable and practical lesson they can learn.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: What is the meaning of white hydrangeas and lilies in a vase left at the doorstep of a single woman?

GENTLE READER: That the sender wants to tempt the recipient’s innocence and then to mourn its loss.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: We have two great-nieces who are sisters. One has graduated from college, and the other from high school. They are truly lovely girls, both very intelligent and mature.

They live in another state, and we would like to send them both monetary gifts to mark the occasions of their graduations. Normally, we would send more money for a college graduation gift than a high school graduation gift -- and therein lies our dilemma.

The girls are both currently living at home, and while we would obviously send a separate card/check to each of them, it feels odd to send one great-niece more money than the other. As I mentioned, they are both very mature, and I don’t think they would question the differing amounts, but I still haven’t been able to write the checks.

GENTLE READER: Then refrain. That is the problem with giving money as a present: The beneficiary knows exactly how much the gift is worth.

While your great-nieces may not question it now, it will soon occur to the younger one, at least, that her status is not going to change. You can avoid this with equal checks, but Miss Manners instead recommends choosing presents that reflect their differing tastes -- not the relative value of the recipient’s achievements.

(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My husband and I often enjoy margaritas on the rocks with salt on the glass rim. He has a habit of first licking the salt on the rim and then taking a swig.

I think this habit is rude, but he thinks it is no problem. I simply take a drink normally, enjoying the salt while drinking (not licking!). Is his habit socially acceptable, as he claims, in the context of margarita drinking?

GENTLE READER: Licking is the prerogative of those not old enough for margaritas -- and, even then, it is limited to popsicles, lollipops and other inherently silly foods.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I just started walking a friend’s three dogs in the evenings while he’s at work. They are very sweet animals, but one of them has difficulties interacting with other dogs. Even if she seems excited, she can snap and get protective when another dog gets really close.

I’m strong and calm enough to hold her in place safely, and we specifically try to walk at times and on side streets that won’t have many other people out with their animals. The problem is a single path through a local park.

Usually when we go, it’s more or less abandoned. It isn’t a dog park, or even fenced in. It’s not very wide, and it’s the only way back to the house that doesn’t involve a main road with sometimes-dangerous traffic. And, especially in bad weather, it’s almost impossible to move off the path onto the grass, which is what I’ve done with other anxious or excitable dogs in the past.

Despite all this, there have been a couple of occasions when someone has had their dog off-leash and tried to engineer a meet-and-greet. By “engineer,” I mean their dog was already much closer to us than the owners, and they called out cheerfully to let us know that their dog was friendly.

What is the polite way to approach this situation? The last dogs I walked were very small, so when someone else was being unsafe about letting theirs charge off-leash -- or giving me incredibly dirty looks when one of “my” dogs started barking because they saw someone else’s approaching down the street -- I could just pick the dogs up and carry them around the nearest corner or in the opposite direction.

But one of these dogs is almost 50 pounds, and while I can keep her at my heel in a bad situation, picking her up and walking off just isn’t an option. I’d rather just avoid these situations altogether, but when someone is being so friendly and oblivious while doing something so dangerous, I feel like a deer in the headlights.

GENTLE READER: The approaching owners communicated that their dogs are friendly. You need to communicate that yours (really, your friend’s), to your regret, are not.

Take a firm grip on the leash, lean back as if the dog is about to pull you forward, and tilt your head to one side with an apologetic shrug. This may work, but it may not: In Miss Manners’ experience, dogs are often better at reading body language than their masters. If that is the case, call out, “I’m so sorry, but I’m the dog walker and this one is not good around other dogs.”

(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)

DEAR MISS MANNERS: It often happens these days that I am sent an email from a friend or family member containing a claim or allegation, usually political in nature -- e.g. “Candidate So-and-so is actually a lizard alien.” (They are usually not quite so obvious, of course.)

Upon checking credible sources, I find that the claim is false -- aka not true, fake news, A Big Fat Lie. I reply (courteously!) to the sender and let them know, including links so they can check for themselves.

Thus far, I have no qualms. However, it often happens that the email I receive has been forwarded several times, without removing previous senders and recipients’ names and email addresses. Therefore, I am 1. aware that many other people have received this false information, and 2. in possession of a way to contact them.

What is my ethical obligation to these people? Should I include them in my reply to the sender? This seems uncomfortable, since I don’t know most of them. On the other hand, false news and rumors are such an enormous problem today that I also feel an ethical obligation to alert people when they’ve received such things. And of course, I always harbor the hope that alerting them will also make them more careful in the future about what they send on.

What is the correct thing to do here?

GENTLE READER: Although she does not doubt the accuracy of your research, Miss Manners worries that the other recipients may feel about any correction from you the same way you felt about the original: bothered and aggrieved.

Once everyone starts shouting, the neighbors are more interested in restoring silence than in parsing who is correct. She therefore counsels you not to copy others unless your response is short and contains information they need -- such as the desire that you be dropped from the thread.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Whether it’s work or personal email, often the person I’ve messaged has answered a question I didn’t ask, or only answered one in a list of many (separated for clarification). How can I politely say, “Go back and actually read the email I just sent you”?

I am having to interact multiple times simply because they have not read the content carefully. I don’t appreciate wasting my time or having to repeat myself, and it is negatively affecting the way I view these people.

GENTLE READER: The frustration of talking to someone who is not listening predates email, as does the solution: repeating yourself until you get a response -- with as much patience as you can muster.

Miss Manners realizes this is an imperfect answer, so she appends her own sympathy, and offers a shortcut: copy and paste.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: What is the most polite way to ask about the possibility of returning a gift? Signed, Four Sizes Too Small

GENTLE READER: With the truth plus a bit of sugar: “I just adore it, but of course you didn’t know my size. I’m so sorry to trouble you, but could you please tell me where you got it so I can exchange it?” Miss Manners urges you to assume as much of the burden for effecting the exchange as is practically possible.

(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)