how DO you do it?
Names. I SUCK at remembering names. Or, is it that I don't take the time to know names in the first place? I think it's the latter. For instance, in my British/Irish Fiction class, we have:
- The Girl Who Sits in the Front and Asks Lots of Tangential Questions, but Never Reads the Novels
- The Girl Who Once Bred Turtles in Her Backyard
- The British Boy
- The Girl from Alaska-Anchorage
- me
- The Girl Who Added the Class on the Third Week and Who Was in My Vict Lit Class
- The Nice Girl Who Sat in the Back of Vict Lit Class, Who is Also in AmNovel
- The Jr. High English/Spanish Teacher Who Sits at the Front, Who was Also in Vict Lit and is Also in AmNovel, and Doesn't Finish Reading the Novels Until the End of the Course
You'd think, with knowing all of those things about them, I'd get their NAMES in there at some point (ok, I actually know the names of the last two). But no...
This is actually a bit of a problem in my Business & Society class, because after each session we have to give the prof a note that says something like "Denise made a good point about [whatever] during discussion." This is how our participation grades are calculated—by others. It's a better method than the "rate yourself at the end of the semester and tell me [prof] what grade you'd give yourself" method, which a lot of Biz profs here tend to use (and I think we know how that usually works out). The Business & Society class method also helps the prof learn our names, because at the beginning of the next class she walks around with little slips of paper that say either "1" or "0," depending on if anyone mentioned you. There are a maximum of ten possible points, so if I say insightful things on ten days, I can shut up on the other six. But let me tell you, it's hardcore sad when she walks over and hands you two "0" slips!
Oh, so why is it a problem? Because the prof is secretly forcing us to walk around and be sociable! Gah. After class, people are running around saying "What's your name?" implying "I'm writing it down and giving you a point" and "you're going to ask my name now, aren't you?" which I always have to play off like "oh, I've got your name right here..." when I really don't, because I'm a big meanie. No, no, not true. It's just that I only vote for people who make really good points, not just who showed up and said "I agree," and the former group is so small that even
I can remember their names.
What the hell was my point? Oh yeah, how do you remember names?
