Pronouncing Names...Butchering Roll Call

1. What do you Think??  REFLECT:  Perhaps you have a name or you can recall a classmate with a difficult name to pronounce.  Predictably, year after year, teachers butcher the same name.  What was the outcome?  Was it awkward, long-lasting, humiliating?  What was the impact??

My mom had a difficult name for people to pronounce (D'Andrea) and she hated it. It was frustrating for her when people tried to shorten her name (Andrea or Dee) because that wasn't what her parents had named her. It was also annoying for her when people didn't ask her how to pronounce it and leaned into their incorrect pronunciations (arrogant manglers). As a result, she named me Sarah and my brother John--she thought that our names would be "standard" enough in the United States for people to pronounce them correctly. Despite her best efforts, it was hard for people to associate me with the name Sarah. I had teachers that would add extra syllables to my name (Sahara) or change the letters around complete (Sasha). It made me feel like my name didn't fit, like they couldn't imagine someone who looks like me with the name Sarah. As a result, I've always been militant about pronouncing names correctly.

2. Now What??  How might you become a “calibrator?”  What steps will you take this school year to learn student names properly in your class?  (avoid a side-show!)

I set my norms up at the beginning of the school year where I have all students know that they are able to correct my pronunciation at any time as long as they do so in a way that isn't disrespectful. It's one of the examples that I use to demonstrate mutual respect (I will call you by your preferred name and pronouns, you will hold me to that respectfully). Because of my experience with teachers assuming that my name was different than it actually was, I have students write down what their name rhymes with in my beginning of the year. This helps me memorize the pronunciation more easily, and i love seeing what rhymes students come up with.