One of the hardest things about teaching classes in which everyone is wearing masks is learning the names and faces of my students. After three weeks of in person classes, I am finally starting to learn and remember some of them!
For each class, I start by taking roll, memorizing each person and their given name as I go and reviewing those I've memorized in groups of several students, till I get to the end of the roll and have memorized all the students in that class at that time. It takes less than ten minutes for a class of about thirty people. The problem is that they're all wearing masks. Another challenge is that there are often students with similar sounding names (Riko, Riho; Yuri, Yumi; Ayano, Ayu; Arisa, Akari; Nano, Kanon; Shunsuke, Shunhei; Yukiko, Yuiko; Ryoto, Ryuto; etc.). The result is that, although I'm pretty good at memorizing them for a given class on a given day, by the next week I've forgotten most of them because we only meet once a week. Another challenge is that I have stopped getting photo-name cards from students... I used to require ALL my classes to give me photo name cards. The merit of that system was that I could easily review their names and faces before each class and remember them more quickly and more deeply that way, especially when the name card memorizing was reinforced by meeting them in person in classes (without masks). But I stopped making them give me photo cards because I thought it was a burden on them and because after over twenty years teaching in Japan, I'd started getting too many photo cards in my office... Also, last year when we were online for the entire year I didn't know how to actually receive their photo name cards from them had I made them make them, so I just jettisoned the practice. Finally, if I had photos of them without masks, the photos might make it harder to recognize their masked selves that I meet in class! Anyway, luckily, taking roll that way becomes a little easier each week, because the students have remained ghostly in my memory and take less effort to refresh therein each time. One of the interesting things about this effort is that I pay more attention to eyes and hairdos than in the past; or rather that my main visual information when memorizing has become eyes and hair, whereas in the past student faces would be part of my memorizing... It makes me think of burkas but for boys and girls, and how interesting people's eyes become. Windows of the soul, as the saying goes, in this case enhanced by not being able to see their noses and mouths and chins etc. I can tell when they widen their eyes in surprise or question or crinkle them in humor; I can appreciate big eyes and almond eyes and every other kind. They are all the same color, brown, being all Asian, but they are usually interesting, indicating interest or boredom, cheer or doom, and so on. I do like learning their names and faces, so I will soldier on memorizing them at the start of each class and hope that eventually I'll remember all of them for some next class before the end of the semester comes. Another interesting feature of our new weird way of doing classes now that we're back on campus is that I've been running into second-year students whom I taught last year in all online classes with all student videos off, and they are recognizing me and saying hello as if they know me because before each online class, I'd have my video on as I greeted the students and took roll for several minutes... It's an odd feeling to have some students I think I've never met and have no idea as to identity or name etc. say "Hello, JP." They are of course aware of the situation and so introduce themselves at such times... Finally, it sure is strange times to be taking classes for them and to be teaching classes for us. But we're all (mostly) doing our best. So far (knock on wood) I apparently haven't caught the coronavirus, and these days the numbers of new cases in Fukuoka and Japan have been dramatically decreasing. I bet we'll make it through this semester (about eight weeks to go) staying in person. Good luck to us all!
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Jefferson Peters (JP)
Can you find me in the picture above? Archives
December 2023
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