What is the last thing you learned?
Every year we welcome students from all over the world, and this year they arrived from 35 different countries. One of the small disciplines I try to keep is learning their names, not just acknowledging them when we pass in the corridor, but greeting them as accurately as I can.
Sometimes students make it easier for me by offering an English name, but I always want to learn the name they most want to be known by. This week I learned how to pronounce the name of a French student, Clothilde. It took effort, and more than one attempt, but it felt worth it.
Names are small things on the surface, just a few sounds in the right order, yet they carry something much larger: identity, history, dignity, belonging. Getting a name right will not solve the great problems of the world, but it is one way of saying to another person, clearly and concretely, you do not need to become someone else in order to be welcome here.
The Afterword 
Leave a comment