As a high school English teacher, I have utilized the play “The Diary of Anne Frank” as an educational tool for many years. One year, I was tasked with teaching a small class of students, and as we read the play aloud, we discussed Anne’s story, the history of the persecution of Jewish people, and World War II. I am a strong believer in teaching the importance of empathy to young people because it enables students to understand their classmates, as well as others in the world around them. One of the many purposes of teaching this play is to reduce instances of bullying and conflict. Anne’s detailed prose allows readers to feel as if they have been transported to the summer of 1942 and are living with her in the annex.

After we finished the play, I gave a test, and one of the questions read, “What role does hope play in this story?” I anticipated responses describing Anne’s hope that light would dispel darkness and her hope that evil would come to an end.

However, during the test, I noticed that one of my students looked particularly troubled while taking the test, tapping his pencil with a furrowed brow. I was surprised by this because he had been an active reader and had regularly participated in our class discussions. I quietly walked over to check in with him to see what was troubling him.

Me: “Hey, How’s it going? You look a little confused. What seems to be the trouble?”

I was careful to speak in a soft tone, not wanting to single him out in front of the other students in the otherwise silent classroom.

Student: “Mrs. [My Name], I’ve been sitting here wracking my brain about this question.”

He pointed to the question about the role of hope in the story.

Student: “I thought I knew this story pretty well, but this question has me stumped.”

Me: “How so?

Student: “Well, I can tell you anything you want to know about Anne’s family, Peter’s family, and the dentist guy, but I’ve got to ask you an honest-to-goodness question.”

Me: “Of course. What’s your question?”

Student: “Who in the world is Hope?”

I was a senior in high school in 1999. My school failed to close in time after a freezing rain started. They first thought they’d just send us all home at 1:00 pm. Half an hour later, they changed it to 11:00 am. Fifteen minutes later, it was, “It’s 10:00 am. Get the kids out now!“

The ice was already an inch thick outside. Those who made it to private vehicles got home. Those who chose to get on the buses got to stay put for five hours!

Parents threatened to sue, and the school now closes at the first sign of bad weather. We used to make fun of another school district for doing the same. Of course, they’d gotten snowed in for three days back in the 1980s. The teasing stopped after the ice storm.

A few months later, the ice dam that had formed upriver finally thawed and broke, flooding downtown. Cue three more weeks of no school. (The high school was a town shelter.)

We had been set to graduate in early June. We ended up graduating on the twenty-first. That was the seventh year in a row that, despite all best-laid plans, school ended on the twenty-first. (My birthday is one week later; I never did get to celebrate it in school.)

One day in gym class, one of the girls from a wealthy family dropped her coin purse. It probably contained $30 or more in quarters that she kept for the vending machines, so when she dropped it, it practically exploded, sending quarters flying in all directions. Some of them started rolling toward the bleachers, which were a pain to get under unless you were really small, so I ran to grab them for her. I grew up really poor, and everyone knew it, but they also knew I was honest and helpful — or so I had thought.

Me: *As I’m picking up quarters* “Don’t worry, [Girl #1]! I’ve got them for you!”

As I was picking up the quarters, another girl, who was also pretty well-off, started yelling at me.

Girl #2: “Oh, my God, [My Name]! Stop stealing [Girl #1]’s money!”

I looked over to [Girl #1] and found that she and [Girl #2] were both glaring at me as they were kneeling on the floor picking up quarters.

I was furious; I had just told her I was helping, yet she seemed to believe [Girl #2], who was calling me a thief. I locked eyes with the rich girl and gave her the nastiest smile as I flung the handful of quarters I’d gathered under the bleachers.

Me: *Gasps loudly with a wide-eyed expression* “Oops! Sorry! I didn’t realize you didn’t want my help!” *Smirking* “Have fun getting your money out!”

I was the only person in class who was small enough to easily slip under the bleachers, so they spent the whole class fishing out quarters by sitting on the bleachers and straining to reach through the gaps between the seats.

I have a really unusual double name; it’s like Anne-Marie, except it’s so unusual that I have never encountered another person with my name. Let’s say, for the story’s sake, that it’s Mary-Ellen. My name is way more unusual, but it has the same amount of syllables and, like Mary-Ellen, it is made up of two very common girl’s names, without any unusual spelling.

The story behind it is that when I was born, my parents initially couldn’t decide on a name. My dad liked “Mary” and my mom liked “Ellen”. Instead of choosing between the two, my dad suggested combining them. There was no question of saving one name for a future kid, because it was a minor miracle my parents even had me, and there would be no other kids; my parents had been told they couldn’t have kids because of my mom’s health issues. My last name is prosaic in comparison — a common, profession-based surname, easy to remember and spell. Let’s say it’s Baker.

I like my name; I think it’s pretty, I like the story behind it, and to me, it represents both of my parents, whom I adore. My mom passed away when I was ten, and the second part of my name feels like a reminder of her. These are all reasons why I always go by my full name, not part of it or a nickname. I used to go by the first part of my name when I was very young and it was hard for my classmates to say my full name, but when I got older, my father insisted I go by my full name and I honestly agreed. (My father is a name-purist. He’s the only one — in a family where half the men have the same name — to go by his full name instead of a nickname, and he’s also the only one to call my stepmother, who has quite an unusual, difficult-to-pronounce name for the area she grew up in, by her full name and not the nickname everybody else uses.)

However, for some reason, maybe because it is so unusual, people always cut my name in half when they first encounter it. Especially in high school, whenever a new teacher, teaching assistant, or substitute teacher showed up, which happened every couple of months, they would mangle my name on the first roll call. This was really annoying to me, even more so because I was not the only person in my class with a double name; the others were just more common.

At one point, there were three other people with double names in my class — two boys and a girl — but my name was the ONLY one the teachers would mess up. Every. Single. Time. I had to correct them so many times that it became a full-on Thing in our class.

Whenever we had a new adult doing roll call, the following interaction would take place.

New Teacher: “Anne-Marie Smith?”

Anne-Marie: *Raising her hand* “Present!”

New Teacher: “John-William Jones?”

John-William: *Raising his hand* “Present!”

New Teacher: “Mary Baker?”

I’d raise my hand, slightly annoyed that this was happening AGAIN.

Me: “My name is Mary-Ellen, sir/ma’am.”

The rest of the class would then say, as one:

Rest Of The Class: “Present!”

This happened so many times that the teacher who handed me my diploma upon graduating high school made a joke about it in his little speech. Thankfully, every teacher I had was willing to use my full name after I mentioned it, though they did occasionally need reminding.

One of the only things I ever got detention for in high school was regularly being late to class in my nightmare maze of a school.

When the school was first opened, it had five halls with an open-air courtyard between halls four and five. But then, they decided to expand the school by building four new halls. For some reason, these faced perpendicular to the other four, between halls four and five, with only one doorway on each side in and out of that area.

I had to go from hall five to hall one through the sideways, crowded mess of halls seven through ten.

I don’t know why they did it like that, but it was literally impossible to get there within the four-minute passing periods they gave us.