Name Permutations

Marrying and changing your name to one like "Isenbarger" has its pluses and minuses. It's hard to spell and it gets mispronounced. ("No, sweetie, it is NOT pronounced IsenBOOGER or IsenBURGER. It's IsenBARger.")

If you meet someone new who knows an Isenbarger, most likely that Isenbarger is a relative. Case in point, Kyle is the ward mission leader in his ward in Florida. A new sister missionary was introduced to him Sunday, and she said, "Hmmm, I know a Vanessa Isenbarger. I wonder if she's related to you."

(It turns out that the sister missionary was one of Vanessa's bridesmaids!)

Then there was the time I was presenting at the biggest education conference in the world, AERA, down in New Orleans. Education leaders and researchers from all over the world come to AERA, and it was a huge deal for me to be accepted as a presenter. So, I was thrilled when a man approached me. Someone who wanted to know more about my presentation! But my bubble soon burst. "Are you any relation to John Isenbarger who played for Cleveland?" he asked.

::pop::

One of the cutest botchings of my name was in Primary when I taught the three year old class. Those little kiddos could not remember my name, but they could remember what it sounded like. Sort of. They called me "Sister Raisinbarger" and finally just shortened it to "Sister Raisin." I still smile when I remember that.

After sixteen years in the classroom, and working with gifted kids, most of the plays on the name Isenbarger have already been bandied about. But yesterday a student came up with a new one. Or if it's been done before, I've forgotten (a real possibility these days!)

We were collecting data from an experiment that has been ongoing for several weeks. We're looking at the effects of light on pumpkin ripening and the children have been surprised as the results we're seeing are not what was expected. And so we were tossing out ideas as to why we were getting these unexpected results.

We're also using the scientific method as a learning framework and to help the kids become familiar and comfortable with its terminology.

TC came up to me with a grin and a twinkle in his eyes. "Hey, Mrs. I, I know what YOU call it!" he announced.

"What do you mean?" I asked, aware that whatever it was, he was finding it pretty funny.

"You don't call it a 'hypothesis;' you call it an 'I-pothesis!'"

Now that's pretty clever!