Entry 5

The podcast named how we say our students’ names…. and why it matters made me reflect on history and culture. I realized that it is important to learn our students’ names because it demonstrates respect and proves that they matter. It is sad to see that our world is becoming more diverse and teachers still don’t assimilate that. I believe that teachers should be responsible for learning the names in order to accept that the world is changing. The students might have names that are popular or meaningful for their culture, but when we don’t make an effort to get the name right, we decrease its value. Yes, it’s hard to learn and say a name that is not part of our culture, but it is doable. I recognize that some names are hard because they have pronunciations that we don’t use in our language, but practice can make a huge difference. It is not okay to call someone by another name just because we can’t pronounce his/her name. Throughout the years, the names are going to become more diverse and we will have to adjust to new and unique names. As technology has had much advancement and we love it, we should also love the process of learning new names. I personally remember that I had teachers who didn’t even try to learn my middle name. They would just call me F rather than Maria Fernanda. Other teachers would pronounce /F/ /E/ R/ /N/ /A/ /N/ /D/ and they would pronounce an O rather than an A. I always asked myself, “they got through the first 7 letters but couldn’t they have made an effort to look at the last one”. Teachers assumed my name was Fernando. This made me hate my name when I was younger. I would already feel embarrassed before the teacher even called my name because he/she would always pronounce a boy name.  This podcast opened my eyes and made me think about the importance of my future students' names. I will make sure that I look up or ask the student for the pronunciation to his/her name because it matters.