The Roll Call We All Remember
Most teachers have seen the Key & Peele Substitute Teacher sketch. Mr. Garvey confidently transforms ordinary names into “Jakequaline,” “Balakay,” and the unforgettable “A-A-Ron.” We laugh because the names are so absurdly mispronounced.
You done messed up Ay-Ay-ron!
The joke works because we’ve all been there.
Maybe not as dramatically as “A-A-Ron,” but every teacher has looked at a class roster and silently hoped, Please let me get these right.
“Reenie Bo-wen”
I remember my first day of first grade. My teacher was young and enthusiastic. She smiled as she called each student’s name.
Then she got to mine.
My last name was Bowen, but my father’s family pronounces it with a short o instead of the more common long o. I was already prepared to correct that.
What I wasn’t prepared for was my first name.
She looked at the roster and cheerfully announced, “Reenie Bo-wen!”
The class burst into laughter.
They weren’t laughing because my name was funny. They were laughing because they knew my name.
I was six years old, and I still remember it.
Many Years Later
Fast forward to my twentieth year of teaching.
By then, I knew better.
Before the first day of school, I studied every class roster. I asked colleagues for help with unfamiliar names. I highlighted the ones I knew I’d need students to pronounce for me. During roll call, I always asked students what they preferred to be called, but I also wanted to learn their given names correctly. Names matter.
Then I came to one student.
“Tanisha.”
She looked up at me, her voice dripping with teenage disdain.
“What did you call me?”
“Tan-EE-sha… right? Or do you go by something else?”
“My name is Ta-NIH-sha.”
Same spelling. Completely different pronunciation.
I apologized, wrote myself a phonetic reminder, and promised I’d get it right.
I wish I could tell you I never missed it again.
I did.
About once a week.
Every time, I’d apologize. Every time, I’d try again. By the end of the year, she knew something that mattered far more than whether I was perfect:
I cared enough to keep trying.
The Sweetest Sound
As a six-year-old, I remembered the teacher who didn’t know my name.
As a teacher, I wanted my students to remember something different.
Not that I never made a mistake.
That they were worth the effort.
Parents have become wonderfully creative with names over the years, which means first-day roll call has become a bit more adventurous. I’ve taught students with wonderfully unique names, unexpected pronunciations, and even names that made me laugh—inwardly, of course. More than once I looked at my class list the night before school started and thought, I’m definitely going to need some help tomorrow.
But that’s okay.
Because getting a name right isn’t about being clever. It isn’t about having a perfect memory. It’s about showing other human beings that they are worth your attention.
Dale Carnegie wrote, “A person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.”
I think he’s right.
This year, when you call roll for the first time, don’t be afraid to ask, “Would you say your name for me?”
Then listen.
Write it phonetically on your attendance sheet.
And if you get it wrong, apologize… and keep trying.
Because fifty years from now, one student may still remember the first time you called his or her name.
Let’s give that student a reason to smile.
