It's never been officially
diagnosed (and it's not quality of life impinging) but I'm fairly confident
that my two sisters, my mother and I all suffer from Anomic Aphasia. It's not to the degree that we can't find any
words and are non-communicative; it's primarily people's names that we find
difficult to retrieve. Over the years I
have learned a few coping mechanisms around this deficiency.
My wife, Connie, and I have
developed a signal for when I meet someone whose name I can't recall. If Connie knows them, there's no
problem; she will either introduce me or I can ask her discretely what
their name is, or wait until after the fact (and hope it sticks until the next
meeting). If Connie doesn't know them,
then we use the following code: If I say
to the person, "Bruce, this is my wife, Connie" then Connie knows
that I know his name. (Fairly obvious,
you say? Well, yes, but here's where it
gets sneaky.) If instead I say, "Have
you met my wife?" then that cues Connie that I have no idea what the
person's name is and then Connie is prompted to say, "Hi, I'm Connie"
and the person replies, "Hi, I'm Bruce". Problem solved. The only impediment is if the person does not
emulate Connie's proper etiquette and fails to identify themselves.
I also use my smart phone
(and before that, my Palm Pilot) to generate lists of people's names based on
location. So, if I was going into a
certain store I would peruse the list before I entered, greatly improving the
odds that I'd be able to address someone by name.
A few years ago, we went to Kalahari with 4
other couples and their children whom I had fairly recently met. Not only could I not keep straight who was
who, I also couldn't match the spouses or the children. Before we left I had Connie explain the
relationships and give me the names and I recorded it all in my phone. All weekend I would surreptitiously check to
match names to people.
So, teaching hundreds of children every year (with each of them having their own name!) is a challenge for me. To offset my aphasiac handicap, I have had to develop coping mechanisms.
The most prominent one is
using Buddy, Bud, Sweetie, Bonehead, Mr. Trumpet, etc. in place of names.
Sometimes only the first
letter of a name will come to mind. I
can't count the number of times that ex-students have approached me and I can
tell them what letter their name starts with, but that's all. I play it as a kind of quirky joke, but the
unfortunate truth is it happens all the time.
I always have class lists
in my phone for when someone asks me, "Who's that kid in red over
there?" I pull out my phone and scroll through names until the right one
pops out. Just last month a fellow teacher, with whom I
was on yard duty, after witnessing a student using rough play, turned to me and
asked, "The boy in the blue ball cap, what's his...?" She stopped mid-sentence. "Why am I asking you?" She then turned to the other teacher on duty
and proceeded to ask her the student's name.
Yup. My fellow staff members know
me well.
My marking sheets have
the names, what instrument they play, and also what number that instrument is
for every student in the class.
This is
especially helpful early in grade 7 when I begin testing them. Because I generally test during individual
practise times, the students are usually not sitting where they play in class,
so a seating plan is not helpful. As
they are testing, I scan my class sheet looking for all the students who play
that instrument. Usually, if narrowed
down by instrument, I can match the name to a face. When it's just not happening, I wait until
the student is done and nonchalantly ask, "What number is your
instrument?" After they respond, I
ask them, "Is it playing ok?"
Ta-da! I really don't care what they answer; I have their name! Problem solved and no one
is the wiser.
When students need a new reed, I allow them to purchase on credit
(because reeds can break unexpectantly).
They bring the money the next period and give it to me at the beginning of class while everyone is
sterilizing mouthpieces and assembling instruments. So here's a challenging dilemma for an anomic
aphasic: I must pull the student's name
out of nowhere with no instrument clues, no seating plan, and I often can't even
get a hint at what instrument they play from the cost of the reed because they
rarely have exact change. I used to grab
the class list of reed money owed and quickly scan it for who owed me money and hope
the name popped up, but under pressure, my aphasia is always worse. I finally found a sneaky way that the
student doesn't know that I can't retrieve their name.
I take the class list, place it on my desk, and instruct the student to find
their name while I "fumble around" finding a pen. I come up with a pen, ask them to point where
their name is, mark it as paid and reply,
"Thanks, <insert name that I
read off of the list, here>".
