Catching Up in Context: Names, Actions, and (Untamed) Wild Hearts

Wires have been crossed and I’ve been making lapses in judgment. I find myself signing off letters with one name when I should be using another, for instance. Growing up as “Andy,” I acknowledged but never relied on my given name, “Antero.” Andy was simply the name I heard and used as I grew up. As I moved toward more professional endeavors of late, it felt both useful and refreshing to go back to the name that appears on actual legal documents. And so, I live in two worlds: in much of my personal life and in the exchanges at my high school, colleagues and friends interact with Andy. As I cross the city and head into the towers of academia, I quickly change – like Clark Kent? – into Antero. It’s a silly shift and one I’ve been struggling to maintain. As doctoral peers become friends I find myself unconsciously signing off as “Andy.” The context of interaction shifts and my positionality with it.

Likewise, I think the name “Andy” comes from a history of (not-so) subtle assimilation. Looking at my father and his three siblings, it’s a telling rendition on “Mexi-pino” identity politics: My father, Jose, was always “Joey.” His brothers? Leonard is “Uncle Skip” and Antero (surprise) is “Uncle Andy” (aka Big Andy, perpetually making me Little Andy at family gatherings). The youngest of my Grandmother’s children was born years later and stuck with the already anglicized name Leslie. What shift in understanding and in need for naming lead to such a duality in names?

At Manual Arts, 10th grade teacher, Peter, gave many of his students last year nick names of the awesome variety: Silent Assassin, Senor Silencio, Sgt. Pepper, Skullfyre, and many others (what’s with all of the “S” names?). It’s interesting to see how, a year later, many of these students still use these names happily in my classroom. In being recognized and individualized in such a large school, they don the name and context given by a caring teacher.

And again, I’d like to extrapolate further – the concentric circles of naming and context moving toward the unified & unedited heart muttered upon here. A class I initially balked about to whoever would listen concluded yesterday. Unequivocally, it changed my life in a way I didn’t think a graduate course could. And I left realizing that naming the context of interaction and of communication with one another is a necessary process of being. We may not have a perfect batting average, as the professor reminded us on our last class, but for us to understand the world and – more importantly – for us to be understood by the world, that uncomfortable step towards the precipice of recognition need be labeled. It is a part of our “infinite spiral path of empty fullness,” that Luis Valdez mentioned.

Rob Fischer’s current installation at the Hammer (a snapshot of which is at the top of this post) is another example of context shifting. I initially went to look at this in terms of its implications related to classroom space, but felt transformed by the magnitude of reconstruction within and around the Hammer foyer. A new layer of history and context uprooted and applied to the walls.

For the umpteenth time, this version of “Wild Heart” is stuck in my head. I’ve never been crazy for much of Fleetwood Mac’s studio music, this song included. But again, the context is what’s at stake. Spontaneity and uninhibited expression move beyond the confines of studio wankery. This song always makes me think of Gloria Anzaldua – stranger bedfellows, there have been few. Along the lines of music, I’ve also been thinking about the mythological construction of Parliament and the world and characters created; I think there’s a direct connection to how we teach students about mythology, but I’ll return to this in a future post. (I’m currently in an argument with Sir Nose D’Voidoffunk.)

As I write this, Jack Rose’s first album on the VHF label unwinds calmly in the background. The sudden loss of this gifted musician dealt a significant blow last night. Another gentle spirit on the ghost ship on the blue.

2 thoughts on “Catching Up in Context: Names, Actions, and (Untamed) Wild Hearts

  1. Peter Carlson

    I was recently working with my students on onomatopoeia. I’ve noticed a popular interest from my students regarding the etymology of words which is helpful when introducing literary terms. It turns out that the word onomatopoeia comes to us, predominantly, from two Greek words, ὄνομα for “name” and ποιέω for “I make”. So onomatopoeias are words that make the sound that is their name. It’s a simple term that has a something of circular logic in its definition. But with examples the students take to it. The actual word “name” has traces through Old English as “nama” which is closely related to Old High German “namo”,which in turn translates from the Latin “nomen” and the Greek ὄνομα, or “onoma”. Why other literary terms has evolved much more while onomatopoeia has kept much of the original Greek, I have no idea. I know it makes for interesting moments at the classroom white board trying to correctly spell the sucker.
    This is all early holiday inverted research to begin describing what I feel the effects and power naming things has for us all. There is obviously a bit of that human attempt to control an environment by putting a personal perspective on things outside our own being. We name things according to how they relate to us. Children are thereby named by parents or other close relations, given titles that indicate what the adults hope and feel for this new life. The child grows with this name, and yet can feel little attachment to it. In class we use http://www.behindthename.com and research the etymology of each students name. We compare the denotation of their names with the connotation of that name, or rather the personality traits that the individual student is known for. There are occasions where a name’s definition is eerily close to the personality of a student. However, most definitions are vague and are a struggle to even loosely connect to a students attributes.
    Many other cultures allow members of society to carry many names throughout their lives. This allowance takes into consideration that a name can describe a person for a time and yet that person should grow into something else, something that needs new definition.
    Perhaps I unconsciously considered all of this when nicknames started to arrive in my class. What was a conscious decision was noticing traits, certain group dynamics, tastes, and tendencies in my students and then titles would spring to mind.
    “Frontline” is a student that played offensive line on the football team and also was one of two central news reporters in our class newscast.
    “Thug Life” was called to the dean three days in a row. She was only a witness to something at school and was called for statements. But she is also quick-witted, extremely astute (her reading level entering high school was already at collegiate level), and loves reading urban crime fiction. She set the tone for the group of friends in she had n our class. So the names built upon their collective – “Silent Assassin” names because she rarely spoke in 9th grade but then was something of a charmingly chattering student in 10th grade, “Gangsta” who is very quiet and reserved, “Mafiosa” who has the last name of Sosa (one of several with that last name), and “Abi”, who revealed in a journal prompt that she goes by that name at home because her true first name is the same as her mothers.
    Other names came about at seemingly random moments, and certain students took to them beyond any plan. “Sgt. Pepper” always drew pictures from Beatles’ films in his notebook and he sat next to “Dr. Pepper”. The latter’s name was so well received that he signed all his work as Dr. Pepper. We have a gag reel from our filmed newscast based around a written transition that introduces the next correspondent, “Dr. Pepper”. Frontline couldn’t stop from laughing.
    There is Batman, who could just do anything, really, and he sat near She-Hulk and Wonder Woman near the end of the year. Those were very empowering names, most likely influenced by the comics in the classroom.
    “Alice” took her name from a character in Twilight. Everyone took to calling her Alice for the year, confusing the host of this blog who didn’t realize that her given name was Yesenia.
    How long these names will stay with these students, who can tell? That doesn’t really matter. What often came about through verbal irony or mental post it notes I used to remember new students ended up offering another avenue of student empowerment. Students were recognized beyond the printed name on the classroom roster. Something they did or they liked began to define them. From their they began to define the new name.
    one particular student was extremely reserved in 10th grade. She had strong attendance, avoided speaking aloud in class, barely uttering words when I had one on one conferences with her. She showed aptitude and understanding when activities were described and started, but then could navigate a class time without completing any work. Thus “Anti-Matter” was christened. Is that name demeaning? Is it wrong to call a student something beyond their given name without permission and consultation? Are students empowered, or am I just ruling my little classroom kingdom dictating new names just like other adults giving names to babies that have no input on the decision making process? I do know that Anti-Matter speaks a little more now, she completes more work in class as an 11th grader, and at her nicknaming we took some class time to discuss what, scientifically, is Anti-Matter. At the end of that discussion, which Anti-Matter only watched and did not verbally participate in, her nick name was respected and a little bit envied. The class was introduced to a student that had silently sat by them for months. And that student knew that all the times she came to class she had been recognized, her efforts, attempts, and other activities were noticed. She wasn’t invisible, she an essential member of a small, 90 minute community.
    That initial “nick-naming” class is now 6 months removed from my room. Yet I still find new post-it notes stuck to my ceiling throughout this new school year – “Assassin wuz here”, “”Thug Life 4-evah”. Students and other teachers drop by and refer to each other by these names. What part did the naming have in aiding the ongoing growth of a community out of a printed roster?

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