{"id":530,"date":"2008-01-15T23:49:00","date_gmt":"2008-01-16T05:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/royblumenthal.com\/wordpress\/?p=530"},"modified":"2008-01-15T23:49:00","modified_gmt":"2008-01-16T05:49:00","slug":"please-call-me-jennifer-desk-card","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/royblumenthal.com\/wordpress\/please-call-me-jennifer-desk-card\/","title":{"rendered":"Please call me Jennifer &#8212; Desk Card"},"content":{"rendered":"<style type=\"text\/css\">.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }.flickr-yourcomment { }.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }<\/style>\n<div class=\"flickr-frame\"> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/royblumenthal\/2192880327\/\" title=\"photo sharing\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"width: 388px; height: 139px;\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2067\/2192880327_e1af1f3d2c.jpg?w=605\" class=\"flickr-photo\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><br \/> <span class=\"flickr-caption\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/royblumenthal\/2192880327\/\">Please call me Jennifer &#8212; Desk Card<\/a>, originally uploaded by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/people\/royblumenthal\/\">royblumenthal<\/a>.<\/span><\/div>\n<p class=\"flickr-yourcomment\"> Jennifer starts her school term tomorrow. The school she works at has a pretty &#8216;stifled&#8217; management, who seem to insist on being called Mister and Missus by the children.<\/p>\n<p>That strikes me as a way of creating a non-learning environment. And Jennifer despises the formality.<\/p>\n<p>Some time ago I created a name tag for her to use with the kids. This is a mild modification of that tag, to be placed on the reigistration desk for the 10-year-olds and their parents to greet Jennifer right the first time.<\/p>\n<p>Getting off on the right foot.<\/p>\n<p>[UPDATE:]<br \/>Jennifer popped this card on her registration table in this huge hall, filled with kids, parents and teachers.<\/p>\n<p>Kids absolutely loved the name tag, and really responded to Jennifer&#8217;s request that they use her first name.<\/p>\n<p>The parents also loved the name tag. And responded very positively to Jennifer as a consequence. (One of the reasons they respond to her so positively is that she has a reputation as being one of the most exciting teachers in her school. I was there yesterday when a parent who had a kid in her class last year kicked up a fuss because her second kid wasn&#8217;t in Jen&#8217;s class this year. The matter was rectified.)<\/p>\n<p>The interesting thing is that the staff and management of the school responded with indifference, and, in some cases, disdain. Shame on them. They&#8217;re ULTRA fixed on &#8216;the old ways&#8217;. And as far as I can tell, this makes them dinosaurs who are going to need to take urgent action to avoid extinction.<\/p>\n<p>Using a teacher&#8217;s first name in class hurts noone. It doesn&#8217;t break the &#8216;authority&#8217; of the teacher. It&#8217;s about learning, for goodness sake. It&#8217;s not about petty ego issues.<\/p>\n<p>Ah well.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re a teacher, and you&#8217;d like a name tag like this, I&#8217;m willing to do freebies for a little while, when I have time. Drop me an email on <a href=\"mailto:schmucknews@gmail.com\">schmucknews@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div class=\"blogger-post-footer\">Roy Blumenthal is a writer, director, artist, and <a href=\"http:\/\/snipurl.com\/visualfacilitator\">visual facilitator<\/a>. Hire him to make pictures of your meetings or workshops.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Please call me Jennifer &#8212; Desk Card, originally uploaded by royblumenthal. Jennifer starts her school term tomorrow. The school she works at has a pretty &#8216;stifled&#8217; management, who seem to insist on being called Mister and Missus by the children. &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/royblumenthal.com\/wordpress\/please-call-me-jennifer-desk-card\/\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Please call me Jennifer &#8212; Desk Card<\/span> Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-creativity","category-learning"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p521FP-8y","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/royblumenthal.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/royblumenthal.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/royblumenthal.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/royblumenthal.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/royblumenthal.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/royblumenthal.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/royblumenthal.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/royblumenthal.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/royblumenthal.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}