Say My Name

It seems so simple.  Get to know your students and pronounce their names correctly.  

As a child, I had an unusual last name: Montenegro.  Maybe not so unusual anymore since it is a country and once in a while I hear its name mentioned on the news.  My youngest daughter even traveled to Montenegro while in Croatia, just to be able to say she'd been there, and found herself delighted by the countryside.  But for me, as a child, no one else had such a weird name in the affluent, mostly white suburb where my family lived, and many teachers could not pronounce it correctly.  Expect my Spanish teacher, but that figured.

As a teacher I made it a point to learn how to pronounce my students' names correctly, and to ask them what they preferred to be called by me in class.  

It's just respectful, right?

But there are too many stories of children whose beautiful names, lovingly chosen for them by their parents, often imbued with meaning or heritage, are shortened into pronounceable nicknames by teachers whose hearts may be in the right place, but who are actually doing damage.

When I worked at a middle school we had an attendance secretary who was the face of the school for families.  She often had to page students between classes, and she never mispronounced a name twice.  She kept a small spiral notebook at her desk where she wrote out challenging names phonetically: Siobhann = "Shih-vonn", or Mahmoud = "Mach-mood".  What a difference she made to those kids!

By pronouncing their names correctly she showed them respect and honored them.

Cultural competence or culturally and linguistically relevant educational experiences are at the forefront of current educational best practices.  I hope it's not just current, because it should be the standard if we ever hope to achieve equity.  To my mind, one easy way to set the stage for a positive educational experience for students is to learn how to pronounce their names correctly.

Here are a few links to articles on this subject that I've found compelling:

What's in a Name? Minnesota schools strive to say students' names correctly. Minneapolis Star Tribune
Name That Baby! mothering.com
Making name pronunciation a propriety in K12 education. Trumbull, CT
Names Do Matter from Teaching Tolerance