Topic: mnemoics

I teach evening classes to adults, and I often have about 90 students at a time. I remember all their names (at least the names of the students who show up regularly).

My first year of teaching, I didn’t. I just gave up: there are 16 of them per class and only one of me, and also a lot of them are named “Iftikhar” and “Joo-Eun.”

Once, I forgot a student’s name, and he said, “It’s John. John. Like a toilet.” And that made me sad. And I did indeed think of a toilet every time I called on him. This is not how John or I want to live.

There are some very good ways to remember names. More »