Roster Anxiety

I saw a school bus in my neighborhood this morning.
I saw kids waiting to go to school. It gave me the shivers.

It was 8:50.

And I wasn’t all ready there at school -- rechecking my plans, pacing the halls, reviewing the same opening procedures, and thinking about throwing up.

It makes my heart beat fast to remember those first days of school for thirty-three years.

A few minutes ago, I looked at the clock and it was 10:23. If I was at school, I would be looking at my roster for my second period class and trying to figure out how to pronounce their names.

When I first started teaching, the problem with the class rosters was calling students by their wrong names. They would have last names and first names, but students would always want you to do something other than what's on the list.

I’d call the roll:

Me: James Kane.?
James: I go by Jim.

*make mark on roster*

Me: Lily Kennedy?
Lily: I go by Angie. It’s my middle name.

*makes note*

Me: Allison Longward.
Allison: It’s LongWOOD.
Me: Whoops, sorry.

Me: Allison Moore.
Allison: Here.

*makes note which Allison*

Me: Frank Norwood.
Frank: I go by Frank.
Me: *nods and makes note*

Then two years ago, I got a roster in my second period class. I was sweating like a farm animal. The list of twenty two names looked like this and I wanted to buy a freakin' consonant:

Bavna
Keshav
Shiva
Zain
Mieya
Kiyonhi
Abjeet
Ahsan
Tyna

I struggled through about ten names on the list -- and the sweat was pouring off of me, down my shirt, heart was beating too rapidly, felt light headed, and I finally looked up from the roster and commented:

Me: Where are all the American children?
Drew, on the back row, whispered to his buddy: Can she say that?
Buddy: *shrugs* She can say what she wants; she’s scary and I haven't done my summer reading.

The pronunciation of all those names was tough on an old Southern bird like me --- I resorted to callin’ each of them either “sugar” or “darlin” and pointing at them, "You, read" when that didn’t work.

So, my teacher friends out there -- I hope you had a good day.

*wipes brow*


BTW: For my friends who have heard this story, muah -- but for the rest of you, this is a true story. Sad, but true. Ask my friend, Margaret; she'll verify it.

Margaret: You should have been fired a long time ago.
Me: True story.