I'm Not a Linguist...

I try, but sometimes I am not very good at pronouncing some names.

When taking roll I'll most likely mispronounce unusual names that have no vowels or even some that have too many.

When I try to repeat the name as close as possible to what I "hear", I'm often wrong and it becomes like that commercial for insurance about "Frog protection". The kids will eventually help me out by giving me an alternative name to use.

This also is a problem when reading history, social science or the current novel

Now, whenever I encounter one of these situations, I just write the name on the board and tell the students that whenever I say "Dude", I mean the guy whose name is on the board.

If the character is female, I use "Dudette"

Roll Call...

 I've had my problems with roll call, but not like this guy...

Credit: Key & Peele: Substitute Teacher on Comedy Central
 Description: A substitute teacher from the inner city refuses to be messed with while taking attendance.

Unusal Name Update - March/2011

Miracle - Girl
Contessa - Girl

Facebook? Is Facebook present?

Ohhh, from the "say is ain't so" file: 

"...Kids with odd names like "Apple", "Rumer" and "Mathew" with one"T," but one man in Egypt may have topped them all. Inspired by the role FaceBook played in the recent protests and ultimate overthrow of Egypt's president, the twenty-something year-old man felt a need express his thanks, and and did-so by naming his newborn girl "Facebook."

From: Egyptian man names daughter "Facebook"

Odd Name Update - Sept/2010

Moon - boy
Princess - girl

My New Grandson!

My new grandson!! (...who is yet to be named)

Born April 2, 2009. Weight 9 lbs 1 oz, Length 21"
Update: The parents finally settled on a name: Sean (normal spelling, normal pronunciation...)

This Week's Odd Name Update...

Odd kid names for the week:

Vyvy - girl (pronounced Vee-Vee)
Benz - boy
Chanel - girl
Xochili - girl (Pronounced ???)

Odd Kid Name Update - for April/2008

Most unusual name (baby girl) for April/2008

Dreamylove Story (last name withheld....)

Just wondering, would it have been slightly better as Dreamy Lovestory? Guess not...The kid is going to have life long problems with it either way.

It’s the Last DAY…

G2

It’s the last day before Christmas break.

I picked up a 2^nd grade class assignment for today. The only assignment this week. The last assignment for 2007. Minimum work on a minimum, 4 ½ hr day.

A piece of cake.
…or so I thought.

Lesson Plan:

1. Take roll
2. Busy work
3. Recess
4. Busy work
5. Lunch
6. Play the video: The Muppet Movie
7. Dismiss

Everything was proceeding along as “planned” until they came back from lunch. All I had left to do was play the movie and then send them on their way home.

Well is seems that this one girl had already seen The Muppet Movie and has declared it boring.

But because SHE’S bored she assumes that everyone should also be bored. She starts acting up by pushing her chair around the room until she can start loud conversations to the distraction of the other kids trying to follow the story line.

I’m not gonna force any kid to watch a Disney movie in class. It’s the last day!

My efforts to limit her mobility by having her sit next to me in the back of the room only last for a few minutes until she starts scooting away from me an inch or two at a time. I notice but I let it slide. It’s the last day!!

As long as she isn’t too disruptive and to the other kids aren’t complaining, I’ll let it go just for today because it’s the last day!!!

Big mistake. This movie lasts an hour and twenty minutes. That’s too much time to tempt little Miss Bored to act “civil”. Four return trips to the back of the room next to me is my limit.

The ultimate 2^nd grader punishment of “turning her card to yellow”, writing her name on my report for her teacher or asking “What would Santa think?” had negligible effect. By negligible, I mean absolutely none.

Finally it’s time to go home. I’m sooo glad that it’s the last day!!!!

Off topic note. Today’s odd kid name for today: Malaysia (girl)

What! Are You Nuts?…

That comment was from Claudette when she heard I accepted an assignment to sub for…Kindergarten...the day after Halloween.

I accepted the afternoon class in Kindergarten for a couple of reasons.

Kindergarten isn’t at the top of my preferred assignment list, but I feel that I should try a Kinder class at least once each school year to see if my bias for the upper grade levels is still valid.

The real reason I accepted the assignment was that I hit the wrong button choice on the automated caller system. So instead of declining the assignment and expecting to hear a menu of “reason for declining” selections, I heard a confirmation message giving me the assignment number and time to show up.

Even before the kids arrived for class, I knew I was in for an interesting afternoon. On the class attendance list there were twins named (…and I kid you not) “Knowledge” and “Wisdom”.

I could be wrong but I can only speculate twenty or thirty years from now, the encounters these kids might have with their unusual monikers:

“Welcome to “Are You Smarter Than A 5^th Grader”! On the show today, we have Knowledge from California. She’ll be playing for the big prize and with a name like hers; we have a sure winner…”

“President Wisdom, are you sure invading Canada is the best way to solve Universal Health Care?...”

These kids will eventually reach adulthood. As adults, they will probably marry and have children of their own. They will more likely than not want to give those children names.

If so, my only wish for these future parents is that better “knowledge” of American culture will give them the “wisdom” to choose names that won’t cause awkwardness and difficulties as their kids grow and mature.

P.S. The twenty Kinders drove me nuts today. My bias for the upper grade levels remains intact.

Amnesty …

I sometimes don’t understand the goal or reasoning of some parents in the determined effort to burden their own child with thee most unique, original, inventive, odd, whimsical, quirky, eccentric or tongue twister fanciful name.

When taking the roll in class: “Is Amnesty here?”

I have to wonder if it’s just a case of the usual “it sounded pretty” choice or a family celebrating the change in legal residency status that saddled this little girl.

Miss Issippi…

Well, I’m back in the 6^th grade class with the backed-up plumbing problems (now fixed) from last week and I’m not sure if I’ll survive the rest of the week. It seems that they have had a diet of three other subs since I was here last.

They chewed up one sub a day since last Tuesday and couldn’t seem to get anyone to come back for a repeat performance. That should either be flattering that they want me back for four days straight or I’m missing a big clue as why no one seems to want to take more than a single day with these guys.

Maybe it’s the lack of lesson plans, an over abundance of “bad actors” in the class or they aren’t as desperate for a big check this month to put a dent in some unexpected medical expenses due to the crappy health insurance policy we switched to last year (…more about that in a future blog posting).

A fantastic teacher spent over 45mins this morning generating lesson plans for me to cover the rest of the week so I’m not left hanging. I’ve subbed for this guy before and will take his class any time he asks.

But for what ever reason I find myself here this week, I’m glad that 25% of the assignment is now over.

I got so tired of hammering on the Beatles guys (John, Paul, George and a 4^th whose name isn’t Ringo but DOES end in ‘O’) and a sassy girl with a cutesy name of a state in the U.S.of A. that I kinda lost my control of the class.

After she slammed a book down on her desk after I told her to stop knitting (yes, the yarn and needles thing) and get back to work, I kicked her out to the office for being disrespectful. I tried to notify the office but no one was answering so I went on with the lesson.

Fifteen minutes later, “Montana” returns and tells me a tale about talking with the principal, apologetic contrition, and promises to behave and being allowed to return to class. This is out of character for the principle I know who is pretty tough on class clowns, but “what the hey?” Maybe he’s got too much on his plate today to deal with “Virginia”

Since I couldn’t contact the office by phone earlier, I stopped on the way to lunch to let the office know why I booted “Carolina” earlier in the day.

The secretary looked confused and asked who I had sent. When I repeated the name, the secretary said that “Ohio” HAD come to the office in the morning and said she was here to pick up more raffle tickets for the sale and then returned to class.

Miss “California” was then called out of the lunch room to have a “real” conversation with the principal.

Now that she knows that I do talk with the office staff about what goes on in the classroom, we’ll see what stories “Miss Issippi” will come up with in the next three days.

More Bad Kid Names...

From the AP: Couple Fights to Name Baby "Metallica"

"... STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Metallica may be a cool name for a heavy metal band, but a Swedish couple is struggling to convince officials it is also suitable for a baby girl."

School pressure is hard enough without some parents thinking it's cute to saddle their kid with a really stupid unusual name.

It's All In A Name...

EG15-G5

I’ve always been bad remembering names.

It takes me at least three or more encounters before I can remember the name to attach a face. This may be a major character flaw or maybe it’s just something I can attribute to the frequency of changing work groups while working at twenty three different high tech companies over a span of the last thirty three years.

Getting to know the names of the people with whom you work is easier because almost everyone in “the industry” wears a company ID name badge with picture.

Even so, for the first few weeks I would make lists of people’s names that I had to interact with until I could greet them by name without first searching for that ID badge clipped on a belt, purse or hanging from a neck chain.

I can still go blank when I run across someone I “know” from only a year or so back if I encounter them out of context in a location like a hardware store or a fast food court in the mall. I usually end up confessing in an awkward exchange that I “blanked on your name” and try to laugh it off blaming it on genetic Alzheimer’s.

I’m finding it harder to play the same trick with this substitute teaching gig.

I rarely sub for the same teachers more than three or four times in a whole year. Nobody at the schools wears ID badges. I meet a new group of twenty to thirty kids every day I go to an assignment at which time I usually see the name exactly once during attendance.

Of those thirty or so names, a small percentage will be unpronounceable (…”Is Pwllheli here?”). Another group will be spelled correctly but pronounced wrongly (…"Is Joel here"…"It’s pronounced JOE-ELL!!"). Lastly we have the “clever, cute” names: Afrika, Contessa, Chynna, DeStani (pronounced “destiny”).

Add to the mix we have kids with first names that might or might not be fully printed because the parents INSIST on the full hyphenated last name on the “last name first” column of the class attendance sheet.

I don’t know how many times I’ve asked if Alber was present only to be informed that there was no Alber in class, but there IS an Alberto.

I have even been known to compensate for what I assumed was a “truncated name” asking for Christopher only to be told that the name is indeed Christoph.

Even with all these hurtles, I still make feeble attempts at names instead of referring to the kid as “third from the back in this row”.

Now we come to Friday's 5th grade lesson plan entry. I was to read from the next chapter of The Book of Three (Prydain Chronicles) which their teacher is reading to them in class.

Truly a cruel joke. It’s a fantasy story about elves, gnomes, dwarves with …you guessed it…unpronounceable names.

Why can’t elves, dwarfs and gnomes have names like Tom, Dick, Mary and Butch?

Instead we have Melyngar, Eiddileg, Dallben, Doli, Ffewddur, Nevvid, Gwydion, Medwyn, Eilonwy, Gurgi, Prydain.

So stumbling half way through the assigned chapter, I gave up and announced we’re going on to something else. Problem is that I have this same class for Tuesday and Wednesday this coming week and I’m sure this lesson item is on the plan for both days.

If I can’t get a student volunteer to read the next chapter(s) for me, I may have to bribe one with a worthless coin or two.

A Royal Pain...

The winter rains have finally taken a break only to be replaced with early summer.

It’s only 08:00am and it’s already mid-70’s when I opened the door to a blast of heat in my 3^rd grade classroom. The heater is on full and the temperature must have been charging past 80F.

This should be a simple enough situation to deal with. I’ll just switch it off and leave the door open or switch it to A/C till class starts. I discover that there are NO controls on the thermostat! No off switch, no temperature adjustment knob, nothing!

I called the office asking how I turn off the heater and she told me that a technician has to do it and will be sent out.

With the door propped open, I begin the search for my detailed lesson plan.

There isn’t one. Damn! Suckered again!

There ARE two notes from another sub that had this class Tuesday and Wednesday. Her notes seemed to indicate she encountered the same situation but forged ahead listing the assignments and homework SHE had them do. This sub is obviously a seasoned, experienced ex-teacher who knows what to do on a “no-plan” day.

Unfortunately, I’m still too raw and inexperienced to duplicate the process. I NEED crib notes! Had this been indicated on the sub caller’s “additional info”, I would probably have passed on this class.

I DID find a teacher “general plan” for the month that indicated a spelling test and a math work sheet scheduled for today. Nothing else was marked on the plan for today. I added “silent reading” and “journal writing” fill out a pretty sparse day.

The kids arrive and promptly notify me that I have “something” on my back. In attempting to figure out what I had backed into, another kid points and says, “It’s on the front of your shirt too!”

I’m sweating through my shirt at 08:30am. Damn that heater! When’s that tech coming!

As if on cue, the guy arrives and plugs his laptop computer into a data port on the bottom of the high tech thermostat to turn the heater off and the A/C on.

“Isn’t that a little overly complicated for a simple thermostat control?” I ask. He looks at me and comments “Yep...” as he exits out the door.

During attendance I come to the name “Duchess” (this is a public blog so this is not her actual “parent should be shot” name but a close enough equivalent). She’s the cute blond hair, blue eyed, freckled faced kid standing on her chair furiously waving her hand announcing “HERE!” in response.

I can already tell it’s gonna be one of those days.

I go through the “HOMEWORK” rule even though I already know it’s a bluff. This is the last day of a short week and with a minimal lesson plan, I can’t fault the kids for this one.

Duchess is coloring her nails with crayons.

The morning goes pretty good. Silent reading and journal writing is going well.

Duchess can’t seem to find a book to read and she seems to have “lost” her journal.

I grab a random book from the class library and sit with her to see if she can’t or won’t do the work. She effortlessly reads the two whole pages I selected at random so I know it’s not “can’t”.

I spend 50% of the rest of my time till the first recess just trying to get her to stay in one place and at least pretend to write a journal entry on note paper.

After recess we spend time on the spelling test.

Duchess can’t seem to remember the word to be spelled at any given moment. Pencil broke, needs another. Got a new pencil but lost her spelling paper.

Math assignment is pretty much the same. While most of the rest of the kids can read the board for the page numbers in the math book, Duchess doesn’t seem to know what page she’s supposed to do. When I point to the board, she can’t seem to find her math book. When I hand her the book from the pile of books on her desk, her pencil is broken again.

The rest of the day ends pretty much the same.

The hard life of a royal pain…