Where everybody knows your name
Well, on Thursday morn, Yau Neih taught her first solo class. (She's team teaching the class she had on Wednesday.) I was in attendance in order to photograph all the students so Yau Neih can have a visual record of who's who. (a wonderful chance to use up my camera batteries and exercise my unused DTP skills) The class session itself was a typical introductory session: "Hi, I'm your teacher, here's the rules, who are you?" However, most of Yau Neih's time was taken up by going around bestowing English names upon her students.
Apparently the norm here is that English students get tagged with "English" names that become their identity in English class. (I have heard of students here with names like Fernando, so I have to qualify the "English".) I don't remember doing such a thing in Spanish class, but then "Juan" is so unremarkable that I might have forgotten it. In this case, Yau Neih went to each student and asked if they had an English name. If not she offered to either choose a name for them or let them choose one for themselves off of a list of names. (I think 98% of them either didn't understand or wanted Yau Neih to handle the task.)
As I watched the process occur again and again, I was a bit surprised to discover that I have a bit of name prejudice. I mean, there are certain names that I would never give a kid. Some names are, to me, Grandma names. They're names that I will always associate with my Grandmother's generation. Mabel, Della, Esther, Henry. Those names have all been officially retired in my mind. Then there's the Yuppie-kid names. Ashley, Paige, Courtney, Thurston--the ones all my contemporaries have been handing out to their offspring. I never could do such a thing myself, as I would be afraid that the kid might grow up and start frequenting Starbucks.
And finally there's the Hippie-kid names. Sunshine, Moonglow, Stonebreaker. Actually, there's part of me who wanted to bestow such names, but I never had the guts. And doing it to unsuspecting English students, that would be a tad unethical. Actually, in that sense, those kids were lucky I wasn't the one passing out names. I wouldn't necessarily tag anyone with Dweezil or Poodlepums, but I might be tempted to name a Jake and Elwood, or Lucy and Ethel, or even a Leonard, Arthur and Julius. (Yeah, I know, some of those are Grandma names, but I'll sacrifice all sorts of standards for a joke.)
Seriously, when I think about the whole naming process, I'm of two minds. On one hand, it seems a tad degrading to have to surrender one's name to the conventions of a college program. Especially since the name is handed out by a teacher who may have just met you. On the other hand, I can see how it might be fun to get into the whole course of study and establish oneself with another identity. I mean, I have had plenty of nicknames myself. And when you get right down to it, whatever the name used, when it's spoken with love and respect, will smell so sweet. Or something like that.
posted by John @ 7:38 AM
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