Nicknames

Roger was working with a grade 5 teacher who I thought had a great idea.

She had already decided that she wanted to do a set of “dog tags” for her class.  The great idea was that before the kids knew there were to be dog tags,  she asked the kids in her class what nickname they would like to be called.  Interestingly, for many of the girls, they chose what they were called by their parents (“Princess”, “Angel”, “Bunny”).  The boys were inclined to pick masculine nicknames or the names of sports heroes.

She passed the list of nicknames on to Roger who produced the dog tags using the nicknames rather than the child’s first name as was usual.

Well, the reaction was fascinating.  We expect a positive response to kids getting a dog tag with their name on it; the kids were over the moon when they saw the dog tag with their nickname. 

- Peter