Anomic Aphasic Teacher

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>".