What do you see in the picture? What do you think this story is about?
Children might think this is about gender and names, pink and blue stereotypes, which might be an interesting route to go down if it is brought up, but that is not what this story is about.
This story is about a 14 year old girl called Alexandra. All through her life, people have tried shortening her name to Alex or Lexi, and she really doesn't like that. She wants to be called by her name, which is Alexandra.
You could argue, why does it matter? Is Alexandra making a fuss over nothing? Isn't this just an example of people being friendly? What do you think?
When starting secondary school, Alexandra was taught Spanish and the teacher told the class that she would be using the Spanish pronunciation for each of the students' names. So Alexandra would be called Alejandra.
Is this ok? Isn't the teacher just trying to immerse the class in Spanish language? It's only for this lesson. What are the arguments for and against this?
Alexandra asked to be called by the name she prefered, but the teacher refused. The teacher argued that if the pupils were in a Spanish speaking country, they would be called names using Spanish pronunciation.
Alexandra argued, if she went to a foreign country her her name was Anthony and people called her Antonio, she would say, "No, it's Anthony" and people would respect that.
Who is right here? Is there a right and wrong? What solution do you suggest?
A debate ensued on social media and someone said, "I live in an area with lots of Mexican immigrants. if someone tells me their name is Pedro or Juan, the last thing I would ever think of doing is calling them Peter or John."
What do you think happened?
In the end, the teacher changed their mind and Alexandra remained as Alexandra during Spanish lessons.
- This story is about one Spanish lesson and a decision about names. But is there a wider discussion here? What is this story actually about?
- Who gets to decide what name you use?
- Are there other examples where different names might be used or preferred?
- If you find a name hard to pronounce, is it ok just to shorten it? What should you do?
- What do we say in our school about names?
- Why is this about No Outsiders?
- Which British Value is this about?
www.no-outsiders.com
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