I have my final class of the semester tomorrow and while I'm finding it hard to be excited about it right now, I know that tomorrow at 5pm I will be a new woman. Ahhh... I can't wait. Before I tackle my heaps of work for the night though, I'm choosing to keep the promise I made to myself. I'm gonna blog.
For my educational research class I was required to conduct some sort of research study with my students as subjects. Our only real requirement was that we ask a question, acquire the answer, and analyze how that answer would affect our future teaching. As a result of my severe aversion to any kind of math - statistics, data, all of it - I chose to go the qualitative route. I asked a few questions: Why are some student-teacher rapports good from the beginning while others aren’t? Is it more than a mere difference in personalities? How big of a role do preconceived notions about race, gender, age, or even regional origin play?
I'm not going to bore you with the results. They were as obvious as you would expect. What I do feel is worthy of sharing are some of the answers the kids gave me. As they often have the ability to do, they got me laughing pretty hard today.
Q: What was your first impression of me?
A: We thought you was a nerd for real. You always be talking all nerdy and lame and stuff and be correcting EVERYTHING we say. We also thought you were gonna be snooty because of the way you held your coffee cup and crossed your legs and stuff. We thought you was gonna be prissy, too.
At that I had to laugh. Me? Prissy? The horror!
Q: Did the fact that I was young, white, or not from around here affect the way you approached my class?
A: No... well... yeah... well a little. We thought since you was young you would be crunk. We also thought we'd be able to do whatever we wanted... we was wrong. You tried to be so mean... but I guess that was good because some folks tried to take advantage of you.
Q: Why do you think some kids didn't click with me from the beginning while others never had problems?
A: Ms. B, you know these kids ain't got no home training.
Q: So it had nothing to do with my personality or classroom rules?
A: Maybe a little... but anyone who has home training knows that there has to be rules. Some people thought you had attitude. Your attitude ain't nothing compared to ours though, so that was alright.
Q: Were you ever intimidated by me?
A: Psh... not at first because of the way you looked. But we learned pretty quick that you was kinda bad. You know, how you played golf and everything...
Q: You thought I was bad, like the good kind of bad?
A: Yeah.
Q: Because I played golf??
A: Yeah!
Oh the things they choose to focus on....... thanks for the laughs today, guys.
For my educational research class I was required to conduct some sort of research study with my students as subjects. Our only real requirement was that we ask a question, acquire the answer, and analyze how that answer would affect our future teaching. As a result of my severe aversion to any kind of math - statistics, data, all of it - I chose to go the qualitative route. I asked a few questions: Why are some student-teacher rapports good from the beginning while others aren’t? Is it more than a mere difference in personalities? How big of a role do preconceived notions about race, gender, age, or even regional origin play?
I'm not going to bore you with the results. They were as obvious as you would expect. What I do feel is worthy of sharing are some of the answers the kids gave me. As they often have the ability to do, they got me laughing pretty hard today.
Q: What was your first impression of me?
A: We thought you was a nerd for real. You always be talking all nerdy and lame and stuff and be correcting EVERYTHING we say. We also thought you were gonna be snooty because of the way you held your coffee cup and crossed your legs and stuff. We thought you was gonna be prissy, too.
At that I had to laugh. Me? Prissy? The horror!
Q: Did the fact that I was young, white, or not from around here affect the way you approached my class?
A: No... well... yeah... well a little. We thought since you was young you would be crunk. We also thought we'd be able to do whatever we wanted... we was wrong. You tried to be so mean... but I guess that was good because some folks tried to take advantage of you.
Q: Why do you think some kids didn't click with me from the beginning while others never had problems?
A: Ms. B, you know these kids ain't got no home training.
Q: So it had nothing to do with my personality or classroom rules?
A: Maybe a little... but anyone who has home training knows that there has to be rules. Some people thought you had attitude. Your attitude ain't nothing compared to ours though, so that was alright.
Q: Were you ever intimidated by me?
A: Psh... not at first because of the way you looked. But we learned pretty quick that you was kinda bad. You know, how you played golf and everything...
Q: You thought I was bad, like the good kind of bad?
A: Yeah.
Q: Because I played golf??
A: Yeah!
Oh the things they choose to focus on....... thanks for the laughs today, guys.
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