Column: A 6-year-old's lesson for her teacher

My name is Edward Rangel (ron-hell). But it hasn't always been.

When I was a kid, we went to my Grandma Toli's after church for our family meal. One day, over chorizo and eggs, pan dulce, beans and arroz con leche, my Grandma heard how I pronounced my last name.

"Rangel." (rain-gull)

"Mijo. What's your last name?" Grandma asked.

"Rangel." (rain-gull), I repeated it without hesitation.

She took my hand and, with a playfully scolding look on her face, smacked the back of it.

"It's Rangel." (ron-hell) A light rolling of the R and a guttural "-ng" midpoint.

It was quick. It was direct. It was the first time I had been corrected on the pronunciation of my last name. In that moment, even though I didn't understand it at that time, it was Grandma's way of telling me to keep my last name a part of my identity.

Fast forward to January 2013, my first year of teaching in Indianapolis Public Schools. Six-year-old Maite is raising her hand in my first-grade math class and I respond by calling on her.

"Maite?" (My-tay). I pronounce the "t" as a hard "th" sound.

She pauses quizzically and gives me a shy grin.

"Can you not call me that? That's my Mexican name."

A thousand thoughts start running through my head in the brief seconds that I'm stuck, unresponsive. Who told her that she has two different names, one Mexican and one "non-Mexican"? Isn't that what her mom calls her? I've heard her mom call her that.

"Maite, isn't that what your mom calls you? Isn't that what people call you at home? I didn't change your name, I just pronounced it the way it's supposed to be pronounced. Your real name. May I still call you that?"

She smiles again and says, "I guess so." But she's not finished.

As soon as a I turn around to begin helping another student, Maite doesn't wait for me to call on her.

"Then can I call you Mr. Ron-hell. That's your real name, isn't it?"

Through the brilliance of a 6-year-old, I realized that I had always heard my father and uncles pronounce our last name as 'rain-gull.' What influences had told them that it was not permissible to have a Mexican name, but rather make it more English-friendly?

According to my grandmother, it was something they picked up at school.

Every day that I teach as Mr. "Rain-gull," I deprive another student of a reflection of their authentic identity. Our IPS student population is growing more diverse every year, but our teaching force does not reflect that truth.

Superintendent Lewis Ferebee and the new school board must make the recruitment and retention of high-quality, diverse teachers a priority for the district. Our students deserve the opportunity to see, read, meet and be taught by people who look like them.

It has been a quick switch this year, but my fifth-graders now call me Mr. "Ron-hell." It's not funny. It's not awkward. It's my real name and I am hopeful that IPS will begin working to recruit and retain a more diverse group of teachers for our students.

Rangel teaches at Key Learning Community in Indianapolis Public Schools and it a Teach Plus Teaching Policy Fellow.