How do teachers do it? I imagine it was hard enough to learn the names of dozens, maybe even hundreds of names each year as a new crop of students comes into the school back when half the kids were named Mike or Jennifer.
Now that I work at my daughter’s school and the fad is to give your child a creative, unusual moniker, I can’t remember so many of the names. Is that little girl ELL-ia or ALL-ia? AWL-ia or Ah-LEE-ah? Elissa? Eliza? Elyssia?
People like original names, I get that, it’s just that some of the variations are so very varied, as well as so similar to each other. I can remember a truly distinct name, like Hugo, or a name I’ve heard before, like Owen, even if there are several in the first grade class. Owen P., Owen R., if I’m looking at the Owen in question and saying “Owen,” they respond.
It’s the names that are subject to little vowel flourishes that really give me trouble. Alliah, Emmelia, Amaleya and Amilla. Elissa, Elysia, Elina, Alynna. Melina, Mylina, Melanna. Trust me, if you call Melina Melanna instead, she will turn around and angrily correct you.
Back in “my day” (October 4, 1982) those kids would have been Amelia, Elizabeth and Melanie, names I’ve seen before and can remember. The variations, not so much.
There’s a whole set of J names that give me trouble, too. I talked to a woman who has a Jalen, Jaden, Kayden, Kaden, Zaiden, Jayalynn and Jayvaun in her group of students. Jaden I have down pretty well at this point, but the variations stump me.
Another teacher I talked to had a Madison, a Madysen and a Madi in her class. And still another laughed at all of us and said we didn’t know from trying to learn hard names until you had lots of Indian students.
I guess it doesn’t really matter that much if I know all the kids’ names at the school, but it surely does help. Screaming “Aliya, stop trying to go down the stairs on stilt walkers” (this really happened!) is more effective than, “You! Stop!”
How do teachers remember the kid’s names at school? Teachers: Has it gotten harder? Or is my brain old and leaky and full of moth holes?