My Story As is the case with a lot of children, the first day of school for me often led to confusion about my name. They would surprisingly usually get my former last name of Hirschy right (said like Hershey; was often pronounced by others as Hirsky), but my first name was another story. I would likely get called Jo Ann and/or RaeAnn (my twin sister's name) at some point if not multiple points on the first day. Coaches of sports where we were on the same team would often just call us Hirschy to not have to learn or mistake which of us was which. In college I found myself debating whether or not to correct other college students I met while out and about with friends on calling me JoAnn after I had already pronounced it once for them. What was the likelihood I would interact with them again? Was it worth the time and energy to correct them? This was how I started thinking. Friends would often correct people on my behalf. As an adult professional going into my 10th year of teaching and my 5th year in the same building, I still have a few colleagues that misspell my first name in every email they send to me. Names matter. Repeatedly mispronouncing or misspelling a name sends a message that you do not deem it worth your time to learn the correct pronunciation or spelling. Names are always worth our time. Mispronouncing names or insensitive things people say around names are also microagressions. I've heard folks say things such as, "I'm never going to get that right," "I have no idea how to say this one," or attempt the name and then say, "Oh I give up, that's too hard. What is it?" Please stop. Those are harmful things to say Breaking old habits & starting new ones Yet my first day of student teaching a decade ago, what did I do? I called roll. Why? I thought that's what I was supposed to do. I mispronounced multiple names. I tried to make up for it and did learn the correct pronunciations quickly and diligently, but that was not the foot I wanted to start off on. I still had a negative impact on those students that I couldn't undo. I can't remember what I did my first year of teaching, but I do remember that my second year of teaching I gave each student a letter/number card and had taped labels to desks ahead of time (i.e. A3, B2, C4) as they walked into my room (an idea I had gotten from Harry Wong's The First Day of School). I went around to ask each of their names, checked them off on my attendance sheet, and then made notations about nicknames or phonetic pronunciations. (While I was doing this, they had a little writing exercise to do.) I used that as my beginning of the year seating chart. I told students I would get their names down in a week or less. During that first week, I would hold up that seating chart and quiz myself while students were working. I would say the names in my head to get it right. I would leave picture seating charts with my attendance and phonetics/nicknames for subs. I was trying to protect my students' names. I continued to do that each year while I was in the classroom. Then when I switched to the library, names got trickier again. Try as I might, there was no way I could learn 1200 names, but I felt bad repeatedly asking students whose name I was unfamiliar with to reteach me. Sure, no one expects me to know all 1200 names, but it is not okay for me to ask the same students to keep reteaching me their names and my forgetting. So I started making phonetic notes in Destiny (the system we use for cataloguing and checking out books) in a spot where I could see it when students checked out but not that they would see on their end. I could ask once when I checked them out and then have it to refer back to. I also ask students who's names are commonly shortened if they go by the full or shortened version to notate that as well. I've seen educators on Twitter talk about using Flipgrid to have students record their names to teach others their names and how to say them. I love that idea for the classroom. I'm not perfect at this, but I am mindful of it and am always striving to do better by my students and their names. What other strategies do you use to learn your students name or help subs/others say them correctly? What's something new you can start doing to help your students' names be used correctly inside or outside of your room/presence? other resources When I'm not sure how to say an author's name, I go here: TeachingBooks.net - teachers in Indiana have free access. I'm sure some other districts/states do as well.
Jennifer Gonzalez recommends this site for student name pronunciation: Hear Names. (I've also used YouTube before for name pronunciations.) She also wrote a blog post about the importance of names a few years ago. Chapter 1 of Sara K. Ahmed's Being the Change has a lesson on "Placing Ourselves in the World: Stories of Our Names." Teaching Tolerance also has some resources on names such as "What's in a Name?" and "Names Do Matter."
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