I have to make a confession. When I started my career in teaching I could never remember children's names. When you first start out in secondary teaching you have 7 or 8 groups of 30 children to teach. You meet them all once within the first 3 days, that's 240 names to learn. In my first year I struggled terribly for the first half term and there were still about half a dozen children whose names I could not remember. Part of the problem is that when you start teaching there are a bewildering array of things to learn, systems, timetable , staff names, discipline systems (or more usually a complete lack of them).
After the first 2 weeks I met with a Mother who wanted know how her son was getting on. I didn't know who he was. There was not much point making excuses that I was a new teacher and was suffering from information overload. I managed to fluff my way through with some generalisations and from then on resolved never to be caught out again. I developed a number of tricks to make sure that I had a class' names taped within two lessons.
Amazingly, I come across people in the business world who only meet 1 or 2 people at a time and yet still don't remember their names second time round. Greeting someone by their name is a compliment, especially if you have only met them once before. When someone greets you by your name they have clearly taken the effort to value you as an individual.
Two tips for remembering names with more to follow:
1. Repeat the name as you are presented. I don't mean repeat christian name and surname like Arnie in The Terminator, just say "Tom nice to meet you". Verbal repetition is a useful way of memorising something. You are also positively reinforcing your new acquaintance's identity.
2. If you've taken a business card from someone then send them a brief courteous e-mail that evening. By looking at the card and recalling the name and face you will again be embedding that person's identity into the memory bank.
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