Sometimes in foreign language courses, students are made to choose a different name to go by in-class. Someone in my Spanish I class once chose the name ‘Yolanda.’ But if you’re a twin and you share a teacher, odds are you’re going to get called the wrong name anyway. In fact, we don’t even have to be in the same class period for teachers to mix us up.

From first grade on, my twin sister Emma and I were purposefully placed in separate classes. It was like an unspoken rule that we couldn’t be paired up. I guess the school system just didn’t want us to become shy, friendless hermits. You tell me if it worked.

Now, a lot of people are under the impression that it’s an advantage to be in the same class as your twin. Sure, we can complain about the same workload and help each other with aspects of the curriculum that we don’t understand, but I have to say that our wits are pretty well matched. We focus on homework together, we don’t tutor each other.

Plus, plenty of classmates assume that because we’re in the same course we split up assignments and cut our workload in half. In all honesty, sharing a teacher doesn’t equate to sharing homework. That would be too obvious, don’t you think?

Of course, our schedules aren’t identical. I’m currently in AP Psychology, whereas Emma is taking Art. So most nights we won’t be working on the same coursework. Our differing interests take care of that.

Not only do we handle different workloads, but sometimes we don’t even get the right assignments back. Teachers call us by the wrong names all the time, not to mention their tendency to hand back my twin’s work to me. Recently, I received Emma’s essay instead of my own. I know that it can be confusing because Emma and I have similar problems with our essays, Ms. Reed, but there is no way I am fixing any more of her ‘to be’ verbs.