The new preacher of a local Baptist church has set himself a daunting challenge: learning the names of his 12,000 parishioners within the year.
I know I couldn't do it.
When I started teaching, I was pretty good at remembering names. Last semester, it was a struggle to learn the names of students in my classes, even with a "cheat sheet" of photos/names to study from. The semester ended and the names auto-erased almost immediately. Turns out one of my students from last spring became a student assistant in my department and I didn't recognize him at all--AND he has distinctive tattoos. He was crushed. I was ashamed.
Yet that same week, a student from nine years ago turned up in the department, told me which of my classes she had taken, and I remembered her name (though she looked significantly different). Go figure.
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