Monday, January 12, 2009

But I Have a Disability

If I can't be bothered to learn my students' names this semester, would it be wrong to tell them that I have a disability that manifests as an inability to connect a person's name to their face?

That would be really wrong, wouldn't it?

I might do it anyway.

6 comments:

  1. AnonymousJanuary 13, 2009 at 11:35 AM

    I'm not officially diagnosed or anything, but I do honestly have a problem with remembering names/faces.

    I think that you can tell this little lie if you went out and did a random nice thing after wards to put karma back into balance. ;)

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  2. AbbyJanuary 13, 2009 at 12:03 PM

    Do it! You can justify it as a social experiment.

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  3. melanieJanuary 13, 2009 at 3:15 PM

    Hi Julie! Long time reader, first time poster. Ha! I am friends with Kimberly, just for a little reference. Anywho, I wanted to let you know that I never really judged any of my profs or AIs or grad assistants or teachers or what have you (in college) for knowing/not knowing my name. They have a lot to do and lives and other classes and all that stuff. Don't stress too much on it. It's not worth it, in my honest opinion. :) Have a great day and keep blogging - I'm addicted!

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  4. julieJanuary 16, 2009 at 8:53 AM

    All right, I didn't exactly tell them that I have a disability, but I did tell them that I have a hard time connecting names to faces, although after a few weeks I'll have no trouble connecting their names to what grade they're making or what their writing looks like (all true).

    I'm also making each of them get up for a couple of minutes at the end of class for a few weeks and talk about themselves, and while they do that I stare very intently and unnervingly at their faces and mutter to myself, "Ashley, Ashley, Ashley..."

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  5. ArtisttiaJanuary 31, 2009 at 10:20 PM

    Beings ad the inability to connect names with a face is an actual disability and common not uncommon after a head injury, I think it would be in poor taste. I know this is after the fact but I thought you might want to know this info for future info.

    If you approached you students more like, " I could lie to you and tell you I had head injury...but I'm human and impaired in putting names and faces together." That way you'd educate your students that this is an actual condition and let them know you can laugh at yourself as well.

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  6. julieFebruary 1, 2009 at 7:43 AM

    I could totally have an actual disability! That's kind of cool to know.

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