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Hannah has a homework assignment that I dislike greatly. It’s called “Investigating My Name.” It is antiquated, and needs to be done away with.
The assignment requires us to fill out the following information about our child:
1. What is my full name?
2. What other names did you consider?
Boy
Girl
3. Am I named after anyone in our family? If so, whom?
4. Am I named after anyone who is not in our family? If so, whom?
5. What are all my different nicknames?
6. What does my name mean?
OK. I can answer questions one, five and six. The others… I have no stinking clue. Do I lie and make something up? Nope. I’m sending a note to the teacher. Most of the teachers in the school know that my kids come from foster care and adoption. Even the principal knows this.
I composed a short note that states my feelings.
Assignments like this are very difficult for foster and adoptive children and parents.
We don’t have this information, or any way to get it.
This assignment presumes that all children have been born to the parents they now live with, and that is not the case in today’s society.
I’m going to leave the teacher with the burden of how to figure out to answer these questions without making my child feel singled out.
According to the note I received, this project is in honor of “Nn” week. They are discussing how their names make them special. Isn’t there a better way to do this assignment? Couldn’t we discuss if the child’s name sounds like mom or dad’s or has the same number of letters as mom or dad’s? This is the only way we can do this? We are starting out a version of the family tree issue in Kindergarten. At least with the family tree, the child has a choice of putting up the adoptive family on the tree.
I didn’t choose my kids’ names. They came already named. In some cases, the name has been modified. Sammy chose my husband’s name as his middle name. Kory was going to have my dad’s name as his middle name. Hannah’s name came from her birth mom. Her name is as beautiful as she is, and we have no intention of changing it. She was baptized with this name today, and it will stay with her.
I shouldn’t have to give this lengthy narrative for a school assignment. I’m guessing parent/teacher conferences are going to be interesting this week.
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This assigment is about as sensitive as the Family Tree. Let us know if the note illicits any response, and how the parent/teacher conference goes!
Kelly,
The teacher likely has no frame of reference for “how” to change this assignment for children who are not living with the parents who named them. But it’s just as likely that there are other children for which this is hard. I’m thinking of those raised by grandparents where the parents are out of the picture.
If you wanted to give the teacher some “help” – you could just tell her that Hannah will answer #1 and #5 & 6 as well as the following questions — What’s so special about your name? (any answer here will do) and Do you know anyone else who has the same name as you? If yes, tell me about them.
I know in LuLu’s case she would talk about a Queen who shares her name and a woman who works at our local fabric store.
If the teacher’s intent is to make each child feel special about their name…these are better questions anyway – and allow those named after family members to answer the way she originally worded the question.
What can you do? My 5 yr old had to write a letter to her grandparents, and the grandparents were expected to write a letter back to the class, telling the class about their family and their interactions with the grandchild. The only problem was that we have no grandparents. So my daughter spent a week having it ground into her about how wonderful grandparents are and what wonderful things they do with their grandchildren. She sent her letter to her aunt and uncle, but they didn’t count because the lesson for that week was grandparents.
I did receive an apology note from the teacher today saying they would be more cautious of these types of things in the future.