Dating : What’s In A Name? New School, New Lessons [complete]

“Good morning, young people. Welcome to the first day of a new school year, and welcome to your freshman year of high school.

Everyone here calls me Ms. P., so you may as well, too, since you’re stuck with me for the next four years,” the teacher said looking out at her students.

A young man asked, “What do you teach?”

“I teach Hebrew, German and Russian.”

“I’m not taking any of those,” the young man said with confusion on his face.

The teacher chuckled and said, “No, you don’t have to be taking any of those classes to be stuck with me. You keep the same homeroom teacher all throughout high school.”

“Oh,” the young man said with relief on his face.

The teacher looked around and asked, “Is anyone in here taking any of those languages?”

A black student raised her hand and said, “I’m taking Hebrew. I put in my application over the summer to hopefully go to Israel as a foreign exchange student. I already know some German and Russian. My dad is in the military.”

The young man who asked the teacher what she taught asked the black student, “What branch?”

“Army.”

“My parents are in the Air Force,” the young man said and added, “I live here with my grandparents while they’re overseas.

“Me, too,” an Asian student said.

The teacher chimed in and said, “Lemme get this roll call out of the way, and then we’ll take some time to get to know one another. If you don’t hear your name, please let me know. It’s normal for a few students to have schedules that didn’t get updated over the summer, which means your homeroom has been changed. We’ll get you to the right place, so don’t worry about that.”

While the other students whispered and chattered around her, the black student who’d mentioned waiting to be a forerign exchange student in Israel sat quietly, looking around at the other students and waited for her name to be called.

This was always a tense time for her. She was in a new school and new teachers would have to learn to pronounce her name. She always knew when they got to her name on the roll, because there was a pause, and the teacher’s brow furrowed slightly.

“Tray — Tray — ,” the teacher started.

“Tray-mo-nee-a-threece,” Tremaniathrice said slowly.

“Whew, that’s definitely a mouthful,” the teacher said.

“Yes, I know. I’ve had it all my life. I have no idea what my parents were thinking,” Tremaniathrice said and joined in the chuckles of her peers.

“OK, so do you have a nickname?” The teacher asked with a smile on her face and a rise of one eyebrow. She was hopeful.

“No,” Tremaniathrice said.

“No?”

“No,” Tremaniathrice repeated again.

“OK, well, let’s go with Miss Jennings then,” the teacher said as she looked back down at her clipboard and put a check by Tremaniathrice’s name. When she looked up, Tremaniathrice had her hand in the air.

“Yes, Miss Jenkins, I mean, Miss Jennings.”

“You’ve called about nine names before mine, and you didn’t call any of them by their last names,” Tremaniathrice said without attitude or bitterness.

“Well, no, but…,” the teacher started.

“Do you think it’s fair that you call me by my last name, because you won’t even try to learn how to pronounce my first name?”

“Well, I just don’t want to continue to mess it up, that’s all,” the teacher said hoping to get off the hook.

“I don’t think that’s fair,” Tremaniathrice said in reply.

“Well, all the students call me Ms. P, because they can’t pronounce my last name,” the teacher said with a little chuckle. She really wanted to move on.

“Well, Ms. Petrakovilovich,” Tremaniathrice said pronouncing the teacher’s full last name perfectly, “when they gave me my schedule a month before school started, I asked how to pronounce your name. They told me everyone called you Ms. P, and I thought that it was unfair of me not to even try to pronounce the name given to you and that connects you with your family and ancestral line. I had the secretary say it over and over, and I wrote down the phonetic sounds, so that I could practice, Ms. Petrakovilovich.”

There was an awkward pause as Ms. Petrakovilovich’s cheeks flushed crimson. Finally, she spoke.

“You know, Miss Jennings, you are absolutely correct. I appreciate the tactful way you handled this situation. Please see me after class, and help me learn to pronounce your name,” Ms. Petrakovilovich said.

The bell rang, and everyone got up to leave. Tremaniathrice approached Ms. Petrakovilovich’s desk with a stack of notecards. She extended one to Ms. Petrakovilovich, who looked down at it.

The card contained Tremaniathrice’s name on one line with the phonetic spelling on the line below it. Tremaniathrice smiled at her teacher and spoke as she headed out the door.

“One down, six more teachers to go. See you in Hebrew class, Ms. Petrakovilovich.”

Copyright © Faydra D. Fields. All rights reserved.