Learning names

Learning names has been a big challenge lately. There's a lot of new people I'm interacting with in various environments. So for my high school classes, I concocted a game that will force me to learn my students' names.

Once every day, if everyone in the whole class raises their hand, I have to stop what I'm doing and go through the names of one of the rows or sections of the choir. If I get someone's first or last name wrong, or mispronounce it, I have to give them a piece of candy. This means I have been going around all day with a bunch of Werther's Originals in my pocket. I am giving away less and less candy as time passes, but I still have visions of the town dentist storming into my classroom, yelling, "What are you doing to my patients?" At least I'll be able to respond, "But they're sugar-free Werther's!" (They are. It was the only kind I could find in the grocery store, and then it occurred to me that this was a good thing.)

In other news, I biked to the high school for the first time yesterday. It felt good to be a bike commuter again, and it's only a 25-minute ride, meaning it's one of the fastest ways to get to work. Of course, I forgot that it was Friday, and Friday is the day I collect my students' music theory packets to take home and grade...meaning I had a stack of paper about 2/3 of a foot high that I had to figure out how to fit into my bike bag. Speaking of which, I should probably go do some grading.