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A Classroom Where Everyone Feels Welcome

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Six strategies for building the strong relationships with students that are the heart of a culturally inclusive classroom community.

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Taking the attendance at the beginning of class may seem a routine if not mundane task to many educators. But to students, their name can be a powerful link to their identity. Pronouncing students' names correctly - during attendance, a classroom activity, or any other time of the school day - should always be a priority for any classroom teacher.

Names holds ancestral and historical significance for many minority, immigrant and English learning students. Names bring stories, which students are often forced to adapt to an "Americanized" context.

That transition, however, is often painful and forces many students to take on names that are not their own.

Yee Wan was only 17 years old when she moved to the United States from Mainland China. After enrolling in the bilingual program at her school, she was faced with the overwhelming and unfair decision over whether she would keep her native name or change it to something more "Americanized." Why? So that educators would not struggle over the pronunciation. Wan later realized she had no choice but to take up the name her ESL teacher thought suited her. Her new name would be Winnie.

Years later, Wan sits as the current president of the National Association for Bilingual Education (NABE) and her personal experiences became the impetus for a campaign launched this year to spotlight the importance of student names. A collaboration between the Santa Clara County Office of Education (SCCOE) and NABE, My Name, My Identity is calling attention to the potential negative effects of a mispronounced name and the ways schools and communities can defuse the problem.

"Mispronouncing a student's name truly negates his or her identity, which, in turn, can hinder academic progress," says Wan, who also serves as director of multilingual education services at SCCOE.

'A Tiny Act of Bigotry'

Overlooking or downplaying the significance of getting a name right, explains Rita Kohli, assistant professor of education at the University of California at Riverside, is one of those "microagressions" that can emerge in a classroom and seriously undermine learning.

"Names have incredible significance to families, with so much thought, meaning and culture woven into them," Kohli says. "When the child enter school and teachers - consciously or not - mispronounce, disregard or change the name, they are in a sense disregarding the family and culture of the students as well."

"A tiny act of bigotry," is how former teacher and education blogger Jennifer Gonzalez succinctly put it in 2014. In a post titled "How We Pronounce Students' Names and Why It Matters," Gonzalez wrote, "Whether you intend to or not, what you're communicating is this: Your name is different. Foreign. Weird. It's not worth my time to get it right."

The effects can be long-lasting. In 2012, Kohli and Daniel Solorzano examined the issue in a study called "Teachers, Please Learn Our Names!: Racial Microagressions and the K-12 Classrooms." They found that the failure to pronounce a name correctly impacts the world view and social emotional well-being of students, which, of course, is linked to learning.

When a teacher- consciously or not - mispronounces, disregards or changes the name, they are in a sense disregarding the family and culture of the students as well" - Rita Kohli, University of California at Riverside

"Students often felt shame, embarrassment and that their name was a burden," Kohli says. "They often began to shy away from their language, culture and families."

Kohli points out that most educators are not doing so out of disrespect, but tend to be confined by a monocultural viewpoint that makes it "more challenging to center cultures outside of their own." Consequently, certain names sound unfamiliar and fall far outside their comfort zone.

Showing respect, however, doesn't necessarily require that an educator nails the pronounciation on the first attempt. "We can't say every sound or name in the world, but it is how we respond that matters," says Kohli.

Learn From the Mistake

At Iroqouis High School in Jefferson County, KY, where Mollie Robertson teaches math, English Language Learners will soon comprise almost one-third of the student population. For Robertson, every educator has an obligation to to promote equity and respect in the classroom.

"All students should have the opportunity to learn in a safe environment," Robertson says. "To fully accept and respect a student, you must at a minimum know how to pronounce their name."

Robertson adds that it's okay to make an error, "but it is not okay to ignore the mistake and not learn from it."

That's where My Name My Identity comes in. On the campaign's web site, teachers can access various resources on how to honor their students' names. The campaign looks beyond the classroom to ask all community members to make a pledge honoring their neighbors' and co-workers' identities. Students and their families are also invited to share the significance behind their name on the My Name, My Identity Facebook page, or by tweeting @mynamemyid.

While the focal point of the campaign is students' names, "My Name, My Identity" is about building a positive, inclusive school culture. With the teaching force still overwhelmingly White, the ability of educators with diverse classrooms to respect their students' identity is critical, says Kohli.

"All teachers need to reflect upon and interrogate their biases and any deficit thinking they may have. See the cultural wealth of students and families, and approach teaching and learning through the lens and culture of students and their communities."
Photos: Associated Press (Top) My Name, My Identity (Bottom)

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The Lasting Impact of Mispronouncing Students' Names

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Taking the attendance at the beginning of class may seem a routine if not mundane task to many educators. But to students, their name can be a powerful link to their identity. Pronouncing students' names correctly - during attendance, a classroom activity, or any other time of the school day - should always be a priority for any classroom teacher.

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First Person

Good teachers would never want to do anything that makes a student feel ashamed or embarrassed. They would never want to do anything that leads students to distance themselves from their backgrounds. But if teachers don't put in the necessary effort to pronounce students' names correctly, that might be exactly what they are doing.

I come from a teaching background myself, so I understand the struggle. I taught social studies and English to about 800 diverse 7th graders for five years, so I know the struggle of having to learn, memorize, and correctly pronounce a lot of names (and I've made my fair share of mistakes). I recognize how arduous of a task it can be to get names right every time.

But pronunciation matters. Research has found that students' socioemotional well-being and worldview can be negatively impacted by teachers' failure to pronounce their names properly, and can even lead students to shy away from their own cultures and families.

This is familiar territory for many teachers. Educator Jennifer Gonzalez, the creator of the website Cult of Pedagogy, puts it best: "Mutilating someone's name is a tiny act of bigotry." And Adam Levine-Peres, a teacher who created the online series " Project Bronx," suggests that mispronouncing a student's name fails to establish an environment of trust, sends the message that perseverance is not important, and communicates disrespect.

Even the National Education Association reports that minimizing the significance of getting a name right is a kind of microaggression -an everyday act of discrimination.

Speaking From Personal Experience

I am South Asian American and spent over a decade mispronouncing my name for my own teachers to make it easier for them to say. My name is pronounced Pu-nee-tha; but for years, I said "Puh-nee-da." I'm not alone in doing this; a lot of South Asian Americans I know offer an Americanized pronunciation of their names (Unn-jal-ee goes by "Anne-julie"), if not another name entirely (Sanket goes by "Prasad"). In spite of offering teachers what I imagined was an easier version of my name, most still pronounced it wrong ("Poo-needa?" "Paw-needa?").

In fact, my own frustrating experiences informed the work I'm doing now: I founded an outreach organization to improve South Asian American students' experiences in schools. When I spoke with South Asian American students about their experiences, many indicated in interviews that they didn't feel teachers understood them or their cultures or knew how to say their names. And the importance of pronunciation goes beyond any one background or culture -it's important for all students, no matter where they're from.

Knowing that this issue is widespread and cuts deep doesn't necessarily make the pronunciation task for teachers any easier. So what's a teacher to do during preservice week, when she or he is handed a full roster of difficult-to-pronounce names-especially when they may be responsible for over 100 students?

I created a guide-thanks to my own research and experiences (and to Twitter crowdsourcing from fellow South Asian Americans and educators serving diverse populations)-with tips to help educators develop strategies for pronouncing the many diverse names they are expected to learn every year.

Practice before day one. If there are names that already look like they might be a challenge for you, try to learn how to pronounce them before you even meet students. I recommend the Pronounce Names website (which now offers an Android app) or Voice of America's pronunciation guide to become familiar with the names of the students you will interact with on a daily basis.

Get smart. If it's more comfortable, you can put your roster of names on an overhead projector or smartboard for the whole class to see and have each student pronounce their names for you. Practice saying them in response. Then, write them out phonetically on your own copy for future reference.

Make it private. You can privately ask students who use a Westernized pronunciation if they prefer to go by a pronunciation that their own families might use. Keep in mind, however, that many students aren't offering the pronunciation for your benefit, but for their own comfort (it's complicated!), so listen carefully to what they prefer. For those students who have had their own names repeatedly mispronounced, it can become preferable to offer a more pronounceable version by default-in which case, it is that much more critical to make your best effort to say it correctly.

Try a call-and-response name game. Have each student pronounce their own names as you go down the roster while other students repeat the name back (until everyone's got it). Put whatever spin on this you'd like, but don't set the game up so that students whose names somehow look more complicated or foreign are the only ones who have to participate.

Celebrate identities. Think about ways to celebrate your students' names. The Santa Clara County Office of Education in San Jose, Calif., started the My Name, My Identity campaign with the mission of improving teachers' pronunciation of student names, which, as the office states, is key for "healthy social, psychological, and educational outcomes."

In my own social studies classes, I've asked students to create Coats of Arms that represent their names, family traditions, and cultural backgrounds as part of a lesson related to the Middle Ages and heraldry, and by creating a flag with symbols that represent their backgrounds during lessons related to cultures of the world. In my English classes, I've had students write personal essays that delve into the meaning or stories of their names at the beginning of the year.

Expand your horizons. Become familiar with common sounds and names from different cultures. This can happen naturally by purposefully consuming more diverse literature and media. In an effort to support teachers in diversifying the book lists in their own classrooms, ISAASE launched the Brown Books Project. Increasing exposure to students' diverse experiences, cultures, and voices helps them become culturally proficient.

Be respectful and continue fine-tuning. There are three types of name-mispronouncers, according to Gonzalez: 1) those who fumble over the names, seem apologetic, and feel at fault for mispronouncing, but ultimately still fail to get the name right; 2) those who assume their own pronunciation is correct or barge ahead with their own version even after being corrected; and 3) those who recognize that getting a name correct will require effort and continue to fine-tune their pronunciation of a name as time goes on. The third group is the one you want to be in. There are a variety of complicated Anglo names that we as a collective society have figured out how to say properly (like former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and actors Renée Zellweger and Zach Galifianakis). There is no excuse not to try.

Learn from your mistakes. Mistakes are acceptable, and they will happen. The important thing is to make an effort to learn from them. As any dedicated teacher knows, good teaching is not about doing everything perfectly, but about constantly striving to improve our own pedagogy and compassion for our students.

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Pronouncing Students' Names Correctly Should Be a Big Deal

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As a South Asian American student, Punita Chhabra Rice spent over a decade mispronouncing her own name to make it easier for teachers to say. Now that she's an educator, Rice shares eight pronunciation tips for teachers of students from diverse backgrounds on how to get names right the first time.

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Test your bias

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TED Talk Subtitles and Transcript: Around the world, black girls are being pushed out of schools because of policies that target them for punishment, says author and social justice scholar Monique W. Morris. The result: countless girls are forced into unsafe futures with restricted opportunities. How can we put an end to this crisis?