Ashley, Ashleigh and Ashlee

In high school during the late 80s, my friend had Mr. Jewett for 10th grade biology. Over twenty years later, I was working as a historic site tour guide where “Toby” was one of the veteran guides. Although I recognized him immediately as being one of the teachers from my high school (he had always been bald and grizzled), I couldn’t remember his name. I couldn’t remember if he taught math or science. And while I knew he hadn’t been my teacher, I had no idea who I knew who did have him.

He remembered MY name.

HOW?!?

Granted, in high school, students are trapped in (usually) a single building for (usually) four years instead of spread across a sprawling campus with thousands of students, but, still! I was never his student, and it has been nearly twenty years since I last saw the inside of my high school.

So how come I can barely remember my students’ names when they’re sitting right in front of me?

I blame baseball caps and bleach. How can I tell one boy from another if they all look the same under a fashionably mutilated baseball cap? How can I pick out an individual girl in a sea of bleached-blonde hair?

The black kid, fine, I’ve got him down, but I can’t call on Casey all the time. It’ll look suspicious. All the minorities I manage to remember because there are so few of them in the sea of pale. In addition to the brown, tan and ecru students, I know the old lady, the guy who wears camouflage every day, and the midget. The exceedingly zaftig students I can pick up, too (not literally). But you don’t want these “unusual” students to know you remember them because of their port wine stains, their wandering left eyes, or their unibrows.

It’s those average, white, hip (but not glaringly hip) students that I just cannot pin down. And when there are three Ashleighs… I’m toast.