The Casual Dance Teacher's Podcast

Welcome to the Casual Dance Teachers Podcast. I'm your host, Maia, and I'm going to do something a little weird today. I'm going to talk about something that I'm really bad at. Let's talk about how the heck can we remember all of our students' names at the beginning of a new dance season, or if we're switching dance schools and have to learn everybody's name fresh. Let's talk about it.

Hey everyone. So as I mentioned, I am not good at remembering people's names. It's really embarrassing. I wish I was better at it, but I've started at a new studio now multiple different times in my career. And every time, of course, I have to learn every single student's names in each of my classes all over.

And the biggest area where I struggle is when I'm not able to remember all of my students' names. So I'm going to talk about I have a lot of students in a class that have similar names, names that start with the same letter or have the same vowel sound in them. This happens all the time. And I get really stressed out about it at the beginning of the year. Like, how am I going to remember all of these students' names? So I just kind of did a quick brainstorm and I'm going to go through what I came up with. And I would love to hear your thoughts as well. You can turn to Facebook to share with me on the Casual Dance Teachers Network, please.

Number one, if at all possible, I really try to get the lists of my students' names before the dance season starts. I do treat this kind of like homework along with planning my lessons and my curriculum where I look over the class lists multiple times and try and familiarize myself with the names ahead of time. So that way, when I'm coming into the classroom, at least if there's a name that for some reason I have a hard time remembering, maybe this has always been the case. I feel nowadays people are trying to be more and more creative and unique with names. So you'll get names that you've never heard before, and they can be harder to remember than a run-of-the-mill name that you've heard a million times. So I get the class lists. I try and study them. I try and make sure there's no name that I'm like completely held up on that I can't even bring it to mind to remember it. Then I also make charts with assigned spots for all my dancers. Now for older dancers, maybe you don't want to do this because it just seems like they're old enough that they don't need assigned spots, but I'm a very spatial learner. Surprise, surprise being a dancer. I learn really well through just remembering spatially where something is versus remembering what it looked or sounded like. So if I can write down the name and have a picture of where that name is in the room, and then I see the student there, it's way easier.

So I do tend to make the charts ahead of time and try and memorize where each name is in the classroom. So then all I have to do is match the student's face to the name. Of course, this also helps if you forget a student's name on, for example, the second or third week of class, and you bring the student in and say, 'go to your spot,' and then you can check your chart to learn the student's name without having to ask them. But I would never be shy about asking a student's name in the first couple weeks of class and just explain to them, you're trying to memorize a lot of students' names, and you're very sorry if you get mixed up, but you're asking for their help to help you learn their names as quickly as possible.' So the charts help me astronomically.

Again, with a lot of names being similar, I would recommend that you do not do these charts in alphabetical order by first name, because if you have a bunch of A's, does anyone else have a million students in their classes whose names start with the letter A? That seems to be the number one. So I would recommend that you do not do these charts in alphabetical order by first name, for names to start with for girls in dance classes for some reason.

So I don't want all of them next to each other because that's going to make me even more confused. So spread them out, find a different way to arrange them. You could also do name tags on the first day of class. I have personally never done this. I think they can be a little bit of a distraction. So I don't do name tags, but I can definitely see where you might want to utilize that and give every student a name tag to wear for the first class or even the first couple weeks of class, especially if you have a huge studio and a huge number of students whose names you have to learn. What I do instead is just carry my attendance lists with me around the class for the first couple of classes.

I make it a point to greet every student by name as they're entering the classroom. So for the first week, I will ask them, 'what's your name?' I'll introduce myself, try and come up with some something that's memorable about their look or about them that could help me associate with their name for when they come in in the future. And then I give them their assigned spot. And after that, I try to make it a point to use each student's name at least three times throughout the class. And I'm generally having to look at my attendance list and find the name for at least the first class, maybe even the first two classes before I can go off. Again, after the first week, when they're coming in, I generally won't remember everybody's name.

If you do, that's amazing. Please tell me how. But the second week, I will say hi. If I remember their name, I'll say it. If I don't, I will apologize. I will explain again how I'm still learning. I will say something that I do remember about them. So, oh, I remember how you had such a beautiful skirt on last week. Or I remember how you pointed your toe so well when we did tendu last week, but I don't remember your name. Can you please help me? That way, they don't feel like you just completely forgot who they are. Of course, one of the biggest ways that I remember students' names is by playing name games. I have some favorites, some tried and true. I'll be honest, I'm not very creative. I kind of do the same thing every year with name games. But I also kind of have to admit that I've been at the same studio now for the past several years. So I do know a lot of the students. Of course, every year I have plenty of new faces, but I may be having to learn only half of the names from scratch and the rest are returning students. So it's not as challenging for me now as when I first joined the studio or anytime that I've had to join at a brand new studio and learn everybody's name fresh. One name game that I came up with for my ballet dancers, and I do apologize that I use ballet so often as my example here. I just have been teaching that the longest. So I feel comfortable using examples from ballet. I hope you guys all can find your own connection to what I'm talking about. But I came up with this little ditty a couple of years ago. It's really kind of dumb. You could probably come up with something way better yourself. But I like the rhyming aspect. I guess that's all I'm trying to get at is that the rhyming helps me with memorization. So you just all do this little chant together, like in a circle, and one person will go, 'My name is Maia. I love ballet. I dance like this. And then they do any one dance move that they want. Hip, hip, hooray."

And then you can, you know, point to your hip and put your arm up on high and whatever you want to do. You can come up with some little moves for it. So you keep everybody moving. Then everybody as a group, repeats it back. So I would say that on my own. And then everyone together goes, 'Her name is Maia. She loves ballet.' She dances like this: hip, hip, hooray! That way everyone's learning all the names. You can probably guess I wasn't doing this with my teen ballet students. I was doing this with my young ballet students. Probably not a surprise. They really liked it. And that was probably one of the most helpful games or chants that I did to start off a class because then everyone was learning.
So I would say that on my own. And then everyone together goes, hip, hip, hooray. And then everyone got involved in learning everybody's name. And there's that element of movement to it as well. So I'm sure you can Google and maybe find some better rhymes than mine for whatever style you're doing, or just something about dance in general, a fun little rhyme or a fun little ditty like that. And it's especially good if you can get a movement aspect in there. If you don't want to do the little rhyme or the song, especially with older students, they're probably not going to love that. They might feel like it's a little bit too much, but babyish. So you could have them just say their name and do a move at the same time.

So again, for students that are more kinesthetic learners, associating the name with a movement will help them learn or for you if you're more of a kinesthetic learner. So you do the move at the exact same time as you say your name, and then everyone will do it and say it back to you. If you have more advanced dancers that can handle this too, you can not only do them one at a time where one dancer says Maya and does a little arm flourish, and then everyone says Maia and does the arm flourish back, but you could actually turn it into a whole combination. So I'm first, I say Maia and do my arm flourish. The next student's name is Jackie, let's say, and she does a spin.

So then we have this combination building. We're going to go Maia, flourish, Jackie, spin. And we keep building and every student gets to contribute and you make a whole combination. And it's kind of a warmup. You're getting the names out there. You keep repeating them over and over again. That can work. That's probably not going to work for little, little kids. It gets, it's just too complicated, but for kids that can handle it, that really helps with the memorization. I've also had some really fun ones with just tossing a ball or rolling a ball around in a circle where this helps a little bit more than the general group change. So this is another one that can work well.

If you have students that don't already know each other and aren’t already peers, you can get them making eye contact and addressing each other by name. And that's not always the easiest step, especially for young students. They might be shy if they're not already peers from something else, they might have a hard time making that first initial contact. But if they're not already peers from something else, they might have a hard time making that first initial contact. So if you give them a ball and you say, 'You are going to make eye contact with a student across the circle from you, they'll tell you their name, and then you say their name and roll the ball to them. That just opens up the door that they now feel comfortable addressing each other.

Now you could add in multiple balls to make it more complicated and fun and exciting, especially if you have students that are a little bit older. I've also done this with a lot of students that are a little bit older. I've also done a fun one with one of the other teachers in my studio. She introduced me to this where she had a beach ball, and she wrote numbers on it. And whatever number your hand landed on, she had a question that she would then ask you. So her questions were numbered, you land on number four, she asks you, what's your favorite color, you know, just random questions that were assigned by number to match up with the ball, and then everyone got to know each other.

But they had to say their name before they threw the ball to somebody. And then they had to say their name before they threw the ball to somebody. And after they caught it. So that's another good one. If you have students that are a little bit shy, you want them to open up, you want to start actually getting to know them a little bit beyond just their names. Another one I've done for students that have been dancing for a little while is to ask them to perform a step that starts with the same letter as their first name. So for example, for me, Maia, I could do Mazurka... ballet. Sorry, I am so ballet centric. Right now, I'm going to try to throw in some non-ballet examples at some point.

Mambo, I could do Maia Mambo, I could do Maia... Okay, I tried to think of another example. And I couldn't. So throw out some other M's at me when you get the chance. I'm so sorry. But this is like a good little pop quiz. So not only are you introducing names, especially if there's students in the classroom that don't know each other, but you're also giving them a little quiz. How well do you know your terminology? How well do you know the names of different steps? So finally, at the end of class, as they're leaving, especially the first couple weeks, when you're still learning their names, make sure that you have their names in front of you, whether that's a name tag, or whether you need to go and pick up your sheet or carry your sheet with you to dismiss them one at a time by name.

Of course, if you're dismissing them to a parent, then this is a good opportunity to make sure you know, anyone that's picking that student. Up to so you know, the students name, you know what they look like, you know, what the person who picks them up looks like. And you can make this a time of learning so that everybody is kind of covered and on the same page as far as dismissal goes. I also will use this as a time; you could do this at the beginning or at the end, it's really up to you. But I always make sure on the first class, there is a time that I'm asking if they have a preferred nickname. Now that I'm saying this, I have no idea why I said you could do it at the end, because then they've got a whole class without being able to express that to you. Again, this is just a brainstorm. So I realize I'm not the most polished when I'm talking about these things. But yeah, do that at the beginning of class when you're first greeting them. Even if it's a student whose name you already know, sometimes they might come up with a new nickname that they want to be called over the summer since you last saw them. So greet them, say, 'Hi', and then just check in with each student independently, whether it's at the time that they're first walking through the door, or when you're having circle time, or when you're assigning them to their assigned spots.

You just have a moment with each student that you say, 'Hey, so I know on the attendance sheet, your name is such and such, would you prefer that I call you any particular nickname in this classroom? That also works well if you have a couple different students with the same name in the class, which like I said, can happen quite frequently.
If you have multiple students who prefer the exact same name or nickname, you might suggest something that you could say to differentiate whether it's the first letter of their last name or a variation, and just make sure that they're comfortable with that. I sometimes get stuck on students with the same name, I don't do it intentionally, I will just say the name and they get confused.

So I try to have a game plan. I sometimes find that first letter of the last name can be tough to bring to mind if I quickly shout out a correction at students. So I try to find some way to differentiate the names themselves if I have multiple students with the same name. But of course, at the end of the day, you want to call the student whatever they're comfortable with, and they want to be called. So just ask them. And that's really all I've got for how I learn names. I've definitely gotten a lot better. But like I said, it's gotten easier on me as the years have gone on at my current studio. I would love to hear from you.

What's your process? Let me know. I will see you all on Facebook. We'll chat a little bit more in the Casual Dance Teachers Network there. Quick shout out to GB Mystical for my theme music. And for today's quote, I found this really fun one about music that I thought was really beautiful and hopefully you connect with it. This is by Pablo Casals. "The divine way to tell beautiful poetic things to the heart."