Abby Connolly
If you took a language class in middle or high school, did you ever get called by a different name closer to the language in class by the teacher?
It’s something a lot of language teachers do, but not every student is thrilled with their new name for the school year.
One woman recently had to stand up for her daughter, who didn’t want to be called a different name in her Spanish class.
She has a 14-year-old daughter named Alexandra. Ever since she was about 10-years-old, Alexandra has had a strong aversion toward people giving her nicknames or calling her anything else but Alexandra.
“The family respects it, and she’s pretty good about advocating for herself should someone call her Lexi, Alex, etc.,” she explained.
“She also hates when people get her name wrong and just wants to be called Alexandra.”
In middle school, Alexandra started attending Spanish class. The teacher had a class tradition where she called students by the Spanish version of their name if there was one. So, Alexandra’s teacher started calling her Alejandra.
Alexandra spoke with her teacher about her name, and her teacher respected her wishes and called her Alexandra for the duration of middle school Spanish.
But when she got to high school, it was a different story.
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