Technolandy

Day 133 (of 2024/25) A student by any other name would still smell of axe

Well, Florida went and done it: fired a teacher because of name useage… https://www.yahoo.com/news/florida-high-school-teacher-loses-150102267.html

And I’ll be honest – I’m of two minds on this one. I’m not a fan of using deadnames, but I am also in favour of using full names… even when they are complex for my tongue – Xochiquetelolazal was one name that I found challenging – and at first I was happy when mom shared she went by Lola… but a couple of years later she wanted to go by Sochi (phonetic english S for the x) and that’s when I realized (and asked) that she would actually like to hear her full name. It took more time for me than it should have… but it did reconfirm a key notion – names are important; names have meaning. And a lot of dumb decisions are being made to ensure that the ‘legal’ name is being used (with accommodations made for ‘names as identified by parents).

Which means that an outlier like me would have every right to try to get schools in trouble by saying on Monday, I want my child to be properly identified as Ian. On Tuesday though, I think the nickname Tank is the right name to be used – and anybody not using that, I guess, is at risk of dismissal??

After all, all alterations to a student name are now banned – no more Juniors, no more shortened names, no more rhymed accompaniments no more ‘big dog’ or ‘sweetie’ or anything else when you can’t quite remember that student’s name even though you just talked with them last week!

Oh and on Wednesday, as a parent I realize that the way I usually identify my kid is just using the first phonic of the name Ian (better hope you don’t mess up an “I” sound with an “e” sound… your job depends on it!)

I know the intent with laws like this are to be very transphobic and target sogi related issues. I really hope that there is a flood of lawsuits by parents when their darling Emily is called Em by a teacher or Emily-bemily (the rhyme thing I mentioned and am guilty of frequently) until we can acknowledge that much like the collection of poems by TS Eliot, students, like cats can have three names –

(With apologies to TS…)

The naming of students is a difficult matter,

It isn’t just one of your holiday games;

You may think at first I’m as mad as a principal

When I tell you, a student must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.

First of all, there’s the name that the family use daily,

But I tell you, a student needs a name that’s particular,

A name that’s peculiar and more dignified

And third is the name that no adult research can discover –

But THE STUDENT THEMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.

So, as laws like this roll out, I hope teacher organizations will remind staff to not alter names – no Ian L as opposed to Ian S – just Ian and hope that at least one responds… No shortened names… no nicknames or pet names or familiars… no adaptions if your tongue can’t easily work out the blending of constants and vowels – be it Siona or Cymru etc. And I hope some parents like me add to the chaos by changing legally required names daily – and get angry and legal when school adults misname their child. I anticipate regular updates to attendance forms will go out hourly, because I’m hopeful someone will also change their mind mid-day as to the proper name for their child… hopefully they can check a text on their personal device at lunch!

Coaches and teachers are gonna be on the front lines of this and while it is clearly intended to target SOGI… I really do hope that a lot of other biased people (if you mindfully deadname a student, that’s you) get caught up in the power of names. I hope someone is listening in at practices and during games! Anything other than the legal name should be a forfeit… in places like florida at least…

I will continue to call students (as I do with parents…) by their preferred name and sometimes familiar names (though those nicknames usually come via coaching more so than principaling) and not names that are ‘more convenient to the way my mouth pronounces words’ nor names that do not reflect who they are.