Thursday 10 December 2015

Wandering Misfit: Part 18 ... the student formerly known as Lucy

     Staying with names I was reminded writing the last post of a great student I had who had a terrible time with her name.

     I took over a class from the previous senior teacher and one of the girls really disliked me for replacing him. The kids in the class were in their early teens and so were just starting to get a little angsty. When I took over the class the girl's English name was Lucy. A little plain but overall pretty much okay.

     After 3 weeks of refusing to speak to me Lucy finally calmed down and decided that maybe i wasn't all that bad. She decided though that now she was old enough to pick a name for herself and that now she had a new teacher it was the perfect time.

     The name she settled on was Candy. Now I tried really hard not to groan or to discourage her after all she had only just decided to stop sulking in the corner and talk during class.

      The very next week though she came storming into class, walked right up to me and yelled "I hate you" right in my face. Not sure yet what exactly I had done to receive this kind of venom I waited to see what would come next. The T.A. looking a little worried went off to talk to Candy. Sitting in the corner chatting the T.A. suddenly started to laugh.

     At this point I was feeling a little hard done by and out of the loop so I set the other kids on a writing task and headed over to see what was up. It turns out that Lucy/Candy was upset because I didn't tell her that Candy was  stupid name. Apparently my instinct the week before had been dead wrong.

     At this point Lucy vowed once more to change her name but this time she said she would do her research first.

     Next week eventually rolled around and in walked Lucy. "So what is your new name?", I asked. "I thinked a long time and I want my name to be Reborn because that is what I am", was the answer. Turns out that when she said she was going to do research she really meant she was going to use a dictionary.

     Thinking back on the result of her last odd name choice i tried to explain that maybe she was being a tiny bit too literal, but she wasn't having any of it.

     From that point on she became to all but herself "the student formerly known as Lucy". As far as I know she still calls herself Reborn and no-one else in the class ever got the Prince reference.

     Rory McDonald is an online marketer and digital entrepreneur, co-founder of the Online Business Expert and passionate blogger. 

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