NAMES! SO MANY NAMES!

I've been assigned to teach social studies this year in addition to one section of English, so my work load has increased exponentially. Also added to my plate: STUDENTS! I have 3 times as many students this year as I had last year. It's not that big a deal, I had triple digit numbers for a couple years back home, but the difference is I'm only teaching my social studies classes in three, 40 minute periods per week. That means I'm only seeing my 25 student classes for a total of 120 minutes in a work week. Compare that to the 275-400 minutes of weekly exposure I had at home, and maybe you'll understand why I'm having such a hard time remembering SO MANY FRICKIN' NAMES!

I hate that I'm about to begin the third week of school and I'm still fumbling with connecting names and faces. Growing up, I was the forgettable girl. Not because I had a blah personality, but because I had a difficult last name and/or I had an older sister who was kind of a rockstar in the academic department. Therefore, teachers either just didn't try to learn how to pronounce my full name, or they just called me by my sister's name.

I. hated. it. A person's name is the foundation of her identity! I have always prided myself on being the teacher who remembered 100% of her students' names by the 3rd day of school. And now here I am in the THIRD WEEK of school, and I can't get it right. I'm starting to see the hurt on a lot of my kids' faces, and it frustrates me.

I'll pull it together. I've only got 2 or 3 faces in each class that just haven't clicked. Hopefully I'll have it all together by the end of this week.

The good news is, I have a TON of repeats this year, so when in doubt, I can just call out 1 of 4 names, and chances are I'll get it right. I made a wordle of my girls' names so you can see what I'm up against. Compare this word cloud with last year's, and you'll get a visual image of how much my class load has increased!

Teacher friends, I know this sounds like the whiniest blog post ever, but I also know you can relate. I don't even get the luxury of the old teacher trick of taking pictures of the kids on the first day and using them as flash cards. Can't take pictures of Muslim girls! 

Vicariously yours,

for those interested: You can create your own word clouds @ wordle.net

Name Game

Working in an inner city school, I always had creative and interesting names on my rosters. Parents combined their two names into one (appropriate considering the whole process of conception), so I had kids with names like "Jacwelynarius" or "Jimesha" or "Juantanya." There were often creative uses of the apostrophe or poetic license taken with the long "e" sound (it could be spell "ee" or "i" or "ea" or "ye" or "yy" or "y". the possibilities were endless)

When I was first handed my roster in Saudi Arabia, I was a little intimidated by the names that had the uniquely Arabic phonemes. For example, the "gh" sound might be transliterated a "gh," but it's actually a glottal sound that has absolutely no equal in the English language. Thus, saying names with the "gh" sound elicits snickers from my student.

After practicing the pronunciation of my students names and getting as close to correct as I could, I found out that just about all Arabic names have a meaning behind them. Like a real meaning, not a sentimental meaning. I love that fact and it makes my students even more beautiful. I get a mental picture each time I call out a name in class.

I've created a word cloud of my students' first names. You'll see a few familiar ones on there, but they are not pronounced the way you think. Arabs roll their Rs, so "Rhonda" sounds much more beautiful over here than at home. If there is an A in a name, it's pronounced "ah" not "ay." So "Nadeen" is so much more sophisticated sounding, in my humble opinion.

Anyway, here's the word cloud. Enjoy.

Vicariously yours,

p.s. I create my word clouds using wordle. I ::heart:: wordle

First day of SCHOOL!

Well, today was our first day with students. For me, it was very overwhelming. I've definitely got my work cut out for me, but all my girls seem really sweet and I hope we're going to have a lot of fun.

Every year I have my kids fill out a survey telling me about their interests and fun facts about themselves. This helps to break the ice and allows me a little snapshot of their learning styles and what kinds of books they might like to read and other insights teachers find useful.

One of the questions I asked my girls today was the location of their favorite vacation spot. The typical answer I got to this question back in the States was usually something like "Six Flags" or "Florida" or something pretty domestic like that.

I've created a word cloud of the responses I got today from my girls:

These kids are better travelled than I am! Not that I'm surprised by this fact. I am, of course, insanely jealous.

I also ask my kids what they want to be when they grow up. My most common answer in the States was "I don't know." Here's a word cloud of my Saudi students' responses:

I think it's important to note that I only had two kids say they didn't know.

It's definitely going to be weird to be in a building with so many females, but I think it'll be a fantastic challenge and I can't wait to try all the fun girly tricks I've picked up over the years and I didn't use because I knew my boys would whine.

Vicariouly yours,