“Good morning, Jennifer.”
“Good morning, Dr. Donovan,” Jennifer replies as she walks on by to her first period class.
“Good morning, Pedro.”
“Good morning, Dr. Donovan,” Pedro replies as he walks into our classroom.
“Is Jennifer our student? I don’t remember her. Gosh, I don’t know how I am going to remember all these names,” says my student teacher.
“Oh, you’ll know them soon enough, but I know so many names because I taught seventh grade last year, and these are eighth grade hallways.”
I stand at my corner hallway post in the mornings and during passing periods with a view of one hallway leading to the cafe and another leading to a separate wing of the building. I have post where I see many of our school’s 800 students. As students pass by my supervision post, I lean in trying to make eye contact as if to say, “I see you” or “I’m glad you’re here.” For those further away, I shout out name after name with a “good morning.”
This is the first year that I am experiencing a glimpse of what it is like to teach multiple grades. For over a decade, I just taught eighth grade. Last year,however, I was assigned to teach six seventh grade classes, and this year, I teach four eighth grade and two seventh grade reading classes. At the time, I had not known what a gift I was given by my principal — to be in a place of name-knowing — but I do now. And now is a good time to look for and express gratitude for all that teaching can give to our hearts.
As a little girl, my father would joke about forgetting my name — at least I hope he was joking. I have ten siblings, and my father would often simply count us to be sure we were all accounted for at the hardware story or even the dinner table. My mother would usually run through a few names before getting to mine if I got into some trouble. And in high school, teachers would recognize my last name on the roster but often confuse me with at least a couple of my eight sisters. “Which one are you?” they’d ask. I guess that, when I became a teacher, I didn’t want to be “that” teacher.
Once you know a sentence, paragraph, or chapter in the life of a student’s story, you won’t confuse her with her sister or any other student. Some may say that little things like names matter, but I would say that names are not a little thing. When we say someone’s name, we are saying that they are known, not anonymous. When I say a student’s name, I think that student knows that I know who he is,that I care who he is and that he came to school. I hope the students feel just a little bit less alienated from school, from learning, from teachers, from being. Even if it may be embarrassing to some students, I think saying their names aloud (with a tone that says “it’s good to see you”) values them. But, it’s not really about knowing the names.
For the students I know well, every name I utter calls to mind a story, and I feel like every time I greet a student by name that I am reminding her about all the beautiful things she read and said in our class. As the school year goes on, I bear witness to these students growing up. Many students once in awe of my 5’11” height now tower over me. Some proudly show me the novel balanced on top of their book stack. A few who rather hated my class at least acknowledge me not with an utterance but with a heads-up gesture or second of eye contact.
I say their names because I can. I feel a sense of power knowing the names. I am proud that I have the mental capacity to do so as I age, but as I stand at my corner post day after day, I stand with gratitude for the stories I carry with the names. I give thanks for my place of name-knowing, of just knowing.
As for my student teacher, after just a week of being in the classroom, she is already in a place of name-knowing: Pedro wants to be the first in his family to go to college. Jonathan misses his mother. Sandra keeps her frustrations inside but will talk about them if you ask.
Knowing is a privilege, and in this cold January with five more months of teaching ahead, I am thankful.