Reflection 3

At the moment, I am trying to put together an outline or storyboard of my ethnography. I think my story will be the "true meaning" of being a funeral director. I want to disprove the idea that being a funeral director is "gross" or "morbid. Though being in the presence of death is a part of being a funeral director, it is not everything. A funeral home is a business and the funeral director is a businessman (or woman). A funeral director has to create a name for himself, he has to advertise, and he has to compete. He is a counselor, an artist, and a nessesity.

My main secondary source is Thomas Lynch's novel, The Undertaking. He is not only a famous funeral director, he is also a poet. He has some pretty amazing and insightful things to say about the funeral business even though I may not like him very much. I also want to get creative with the history of the funeral business starting with the origins of the American funeral, then the old-fashioned home embalmings, and finally present day funerals. Chris Branson gave me some information about the history of Carlisle Funeral Chapel and I have pictures of the old funeral "office" before funeral homes become popular.

I want to do my ethnography as a webpage so it can be multimodal. My plan is to make the sight look like an obituary and have links do different parts of my story. I want one the the links to go to a page about an actual death that occured in Mooresville recently. I talked about it in a previous blog; the murder of Milton Lindgren. Other links will have the history of the funeral business with an interest in Carlisle Funeral Chapel, a page about Southern Illinois Univesity (where Sam goes to school), a page about what a funeral director looks like, and the stories of Sam Perry and Chris Branson.

Video Interview

This weekend, I did a video interview with Sam. It was very casual and was intended just to be a practice run but I think it was pretty good. I'll post it here when I get it edited. This was my first time using this particular camera so I didn't really know what I was doing. Sam was a good sport. 

I didn't script the questions so my grammar isn't the best. We were just at our parents' house and the fireplace was going. I had him sit in front of the fireplace and just asked him a few questions. The fireplace was neat but irrelevant to my project. I wish that we had gone to the cemetery but it was very cold and raining.

Blogging Pays Off

Using the blogs has turned out to be very helpful. I set up separate blogs for Sam and Chris and it's going really well. They both have really interesting things to say and I think that they enjoy writing about their careers.

If you look at their blogs (The Aspiring Funeral Director and The Experienced Funeral Director) they articulate their thoughts so creatively that the blogs themselves contradict my initial idea of a funeral director. They aren't stuffy or morbid at all. On the other hand, they are compassionate, thoughtful, and wise. Even Sam, who is 19 and a sophomore in college, has thought in depth about death and the importance of his chosen career.

So what's next? I haven't decided how I want to present my ethnography yet. I've been playing with idea of creating a webpage that looks like an obituary. I want to have a video interview with Sam and include some pictures and music. I need to find some more secondary sources. I have The Undertaking and I'll probably use that british skeptics book. Chris told me about a documentary but I have yet to find it.

In a few weeks, Sam is coming to Mooresville and we plan to take some video and probably talk to Chris some more. Until then, I'm enjoying their blogs and trying to come up with more resources. 

Milton C. Lindgren, Jr.

Milton died last Monday, October 20th. He was 70 years old and lived in Camby, Indiana just outside of Mooresville. His obituary says that he was an accountant and attended a Lutheran church in Mooresville. He liked to research geneology and family history in his spare time and he was apparently very fond of Daschunds.

What the obituary doesn't say is that Milton was brutally murdered in his townhouse along with his partner, Eric Hendricks who was 73 and confined to a wheelchair. The neighbors of these two men are convinced that it was a hate crime. There were multiple accounts of vandalism on their property saying things like "Faggot" before they were found dead, beaten to death.

Carlisle and Son is doing the arrangements for Milton but not Eric. I haven't talked to Chris about it yet because the memorial is Thursday and he's probably very busy with the family. I'm interested to know why Eric wasn't mentioned in his obituary. If a married couple is killed together, they usually have joint obituaries and especially their funerals together. Why aren't the families acknowledging their partnership? What does Chris think about this? What will the funeral be like?

Since I have a few commitments on the day of his memorial, my mom is going for me. My family is supportive of the gay community and feel like they need to go anyways so I'm going to have her talk to me about what she sees on Thursday.

The Undertaking

I've been reading this book called The Undertaking by Thomas Lynch. Chris and Sam had recommended this author to me for my research and it is turning out to be a very valuable resource. 

The Undertaking is a non-fiction account of Lynch's life as an "undertaker". He is from Michigan and has taken over the family funeral business. He makes his funeral home sound so small town but I found out that the Lynch family owns about six funeral homes in Michigan. The other five funeral homes are under the direction of Lynch's brothers and sisters. Sam dislikes Lynch whereas Chris believes that he is accurate.

So far, I have only covered the first few chapters but it is almost exactly what Chris has told me about the funeral business. It's just that: A business. Lynch covers everything that Chris and I had talked about. Lynch goes fromom the fascination and curiousities people have for funeral directors to the federally-mandated "unit pricing method" for funeral arrangements. 

Lynch also talks about another author who Chris had recommended. Her name is Jessica Mitford, the author of The American Way of Death. Mitford is a British author who writes about the barbarianism of American funerals. In Lynch's and Chris' opinion, her book slanders funeral directors and makes them look like money-hungry businessmen benefitting from the grief of others. 

According to Sam, Lynch is a hypocrite. I do not know exactly why yet but I am getting there. I personally think that Lynch is sort of a snob. He makes assumptions about his customers and seems to poke fun at them. In general, he has a cold, matter-of-fact way of describing his profession but I guess he's right, every job can get monotonous. He says, "The dead I bury and burn are like the dead before them, for whom time and space have become mortally unimportant" and "the dead don't care". 

Report 2

After beginning my ethnography about funeral directors, I am having trouble coming up with a goal for my project. At first, I wanted to research funeral directors to satisfy my own curiosity about them but now there is so much I want to cover that I am not sure where I want to go with it.

So far, I have visited a funeral director and I have been in constant contact with a mortuary science major at Southern Illinois University. Chris Branson is the funeral director that I visited. He is the new owner of Carlisle and Son Funeral Chapel in Mooresville, Indiana. I met him at the funeral home where he gave me a tour and told me quite a bit about the funeral business. Before he met me, he was volunteering at a paper drive in town so naturally, the conversation started with the work he does for the community.

Chris explained to me that part of being a funeral director is being involved with the community. He mentioned at least four different community organizations to which he belongs. The purpose of belonging to all of these organizations is to develop a good reputation among community members so they go to him when they need to organize a funeral. 

Basically, all of the work he does is to promote his funeral business. Everything he does reflects his business. If he goes out to dinner with his family, he must smile and greet everyone he recognizes. He must remain professional but at the same time, compassionate and human at all times. 

When I imagined a funeral director, I imagined a dark and morbid single man living alone but Chris totally contradicts that image. He is your average family man and overall just a nice guy. The mortuary science student also contradicts my idea of a funeral director. His name his Sam and he is also a nice guy. He is young, trendy, and has a positive personality. Following these two members of the funeral director sub-group would be a great argument against the morbidity of the funeral business.

Right now, I am reading The Undertaker by Thomas Lynch. I have only just begun the book but so far, Lynch seems pretty similar to Chris and Sam. Lynch is a poet but also a funeral director from a small midwest town just like Mooresville. I plan to reference this book quite a bit because Lynch says some very intriguing things about his life as an "undertaker". 

After talking to Chris and Sam I want to cover society's need for funerals, the pressures of being a funeral director, and death as a business.

Meeting with Chris

I'm not feeling very inspired to write but I felt like I needed to record all of this information right away before I forgot it all.

I met with Chris Branson today at Carlisle Funeral Home in Mooresville, Indiana. Thanks to him, I have a great starting point for my project. We covered the following things:

- Funerals as a business

- The value of a good reputation

- The struggles funeral directors face

- Controversies

- Traditions

- Having a family

- Education

- A funeral director's day-to-day

- Texts, Documentaries, and other secondary sources

Dumb Blog

I've run in to an issue with the blogs I've created for Chris and Sam. I guess they have been considered "spam" blogs or some crap. Until they get reviewed, I must do some other research. I want to read a narrative about funeral directors and I know that Sam has a few good resources. In my next email, I'm going to ask him for the titles and authors. i know I've not posted much but I hope that after my meeting with Chris on Saturday, I'll have some good information to use.

In Class Narrative Practice

When Chris Branson leaves for work in the morning, he grabs his coffee and newspaper and walks out the door. He makes sure to give his wife a kiss and pat his boys on the head as his wife buckles them in to their car seats in a white mini-van. His wife is getting ready to take them to daycare. Her and Chris have a busy day ahead of them. 

Chris walks across the driveway and in to the front door of the funeral home.  

Opening Questions

I've already given Sam some general questions to think about and I'm probably going to work from his answers to create new questions for Chris. I want to keep them aware of everything I'm doing. I also want their insight so I can make an ethnography that would benefit them and cater to the questions they have about their career.

Both Chris and Sam are very open to the idea of blogging, maybe even excited about it. I'm excited about getting their different perspectives. Chris and Sam are on the opposite ends of funeral service. Sam, the "aspiring" funeral director is very progressive whereas Chris tends to be traditional and conservative.

Since Sam is my brother and Chris is a friend of my family, I already have some prior knowledge about them.

Sam is a sophomore at Southern Illinois University. He is a very "free spirit", compassionate, thoughtful, and witty.

Chris has a family. His wife's name is MaryBeth and he has two toddler sons, Buddy and Benji. MaryBeth used to be a teacher but now works with Chris at the funeral home. Chris is very friendly and conversational.

Yay for new topics!

I've contacted Chris Branson and my brother, Sam about using them to write an ethnography about funeral directors.

Chris Branson is the owner of what used to be Carlisle Funeral Home in Mooresville, In (My hometown). Sam is my little brother and  mortuary science major at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, IL. Both are totally willing to help me with my project. I've scheduled a meeting with Chris on Ocober 11 at 2:00 at his home in Mooresville.

For both Sam and Chris, I'm going to create them a blog so they can record their thoughts and day-to-day activities.

Getting Started on Report 2

The teachers I tried to contact are not replying to my emails and it was suggested in my conference with Dr. McKinney that I should give them the rest of the week. If they aren't replying, I need to find a new subject to research.

It's Thursday now and I think I'm pretty sure that I need to switch to "Plan B". I'm going to start working on a new ethnography about funeral directors. Since I know quite a bit about them already, I can answer a few of the research questions.

Attire: This one is easy. Black. The funeral business is very professional especially when a funeral or showing is taking place. Then owner of the funeral home I am interested in wears dark suits and ties unless he is embalming or working on a body.

Report 1

Starting this project, I already had some prior knowledge of inner-city school teachers. I am a senior secondary education major so naturally, I have taken a few classes concerning this group of people. I was attracted to the idea of writing about inner-city teachers in my ethnography because this semester I discovered that that is what I want to be when I graduate. Originally, I wanted to teach somewhere similar to my high school back home; rural, upper-middle class, and white. I changed my mind because I feel like students in the inner-city need me the most and it will be more rewarding.

So far I have yet to actually contact the teachers I want to study. I did contact one of my education professors and he is in the process of contacting the teachers of Shortridge Middle School in Indianapolis. From looking at their website, http://www.514.ips.k12.in.us, this is a respectable school with a variety of students. This website is basically a resource for parents and students and the only thing about the teachers is a directory. This would be a good site for finding email addresses and a calender of events but there are not any teacher profiles or personal information.

Another resource I have is my mother. She teaches at a school that used to be considered inner-city but it no longer has inner-city students. She has some interesting stories about parents, the kind of work she does, and the salary she makes. She will not be a primary resource because I would consider her school more suburban and maybe even rural.

Since travelling will be slightly difficult for me, my goal is to use technology to conduct my interviews. I have an idea to set up a confidential blog for the teachers I will be following so I could have a personal account of what they do on a daily basis. The blog will also keep our communication from being too formal.

My goal of this ethnography is to get an idea of what my career will be like and to help other students like myself to get a true understanding of what teaching in an inner-city school will mean for them. My Educational Foundations professor, Mark Malaby, told our class recently that the majority of Ball State teaching graduates go back home to teach. He is disappointed that more students do not teach at more disadvantaged schools. The rural, upper-middle class schools do not need more teachers. It is the inner-city students that need help and that is why I want to research and maybe even teach in a school like that.

Epiphany!

I just thought of a great communication tool for the teacher I plan to contact. Since I'm trying to write about the lives of the teachers, I thought it might be a good idea to use this blog system to communicate.

I plan to ask this teacher if he/she wouldn't mind writing maybe five blogs about their day-to day activities, thoughts, and struggles. I do not want to ask them to change your daily lives for me so I thought five was a decent amount for the time I have. This way, the teacher can talk to me at their convenience. 

Shortridge Middle School

The following is a link to the official Shortridge Middle School website. 

http://www.514.ips.k12.in.us/

I can easily navigate through the website to get email addresses and the school calendar. I do not know which teacher Dr. Metzger contacted for me but I'm really excited about meeting him/her. Since Indianapolis is a reasonable distance for me to travel, It will probably be easy for me to do personal interviews. 

Yay for Prof. Metzger!

This weekend, I contacted my ENG 350 professor, Kenan Metzger. He proved to be a valuable resource for a particular school. Here are our emails:

Hello Dr. Metzger,

I am writing an enthnography this semester about inner-city school teachers and I was hoping that you could help me with something. I want to be able to go to an IPS school and talk to some teachers but I'm not quite sure which schools would be the best for what I want to do. I want to know about the teachers' lives, what kind of struggles they go through as teachers, and explore some of the perceptions of inner-city school teachers. I was hoping you might have a school in mind or maybe even some actual teachers that would be willing to let me go and ask questions. Thanks for your time! I really appreciate any resources you may have.

Have a good day!

Sarah Perry 

shperry@bsu.edu

317-417-5231

Sarah,

I do know some teachers at Shortridge Middle School who I think would be good to talk to.  However, I think you need to get clearance from the research office on campus to do such a study since you will be working with human subjects.  Let me know as soon as you are approved, if you aren’t already, and I will contact the teachers I know and let them know of your interest.

Dr. M. 

Dr. Merten

I contacted Dr. Merten, an anthropology professor, about potential contacts in the inner-city school system. I had heard that he studied and taught in Chicago. His focus was mainly inner-city students but if he actually taught, he would be an extremely valuable resource.

I sent him an email on Friday (9/19)but have yet to get a response. My fiance is one of his former students and told me he takes a while to respond so I might just visit him during his office hours.

Meeting with Mom

I think I've said this before but my mother is a fourth grade teacher at Valley Mills Elementary. I had lunch with her this weekend and her best friend, Cheryl, who is also a teacher. I talked to them about my project and they seemed very interested.

Valley Mills used to be considered inner-city but not anymore. When it was inner-city, they had students bussed from Indianapolis to Valley Mills in Decatur everyday. My mom and Cheryl had a very diverse group of students. The majority of students were on free and reduced lunch, were part of single parent families, and were either black or hispanic.

Now, I want my ethnography to be about the TEACHERS in these schools and not the students but I feel like the students are a huge part of it. In many cases, Mom was the only positive role model for these kids and that took a toll on her personal life. She told me that there were at least three students that she would have loved to adopt.

Talking to Cheryl and Mom raised a few questions for me that I would like to cover in my ethnography.

1. Generally, how are inner-city teachers perceived? By the community? By parents?
2. What do they do in their free time?
3. How has teaching changed their lives?
4. Do they even like the students?
5. What made them choose this career?

Brainstorming Session

1. Collecting visuals: What kind of visuals will I have and how will I collect them?

- Pictures of the teachers I will be writing about, with permission from them of course.

- pictures of schools, the city, neighborhoods, and empty classrooms

- create charts about teachers - their salary, hobbies, gender, education

2. What are the existing visuals?

- articles about specific schools

- awards, recognition of teachers

- personal pictures that teachers have taken of classroom, home life, etc.

3. My subject: What kind of person do I want to research?

-  fairly new inner-city school teacher

- tenured, experienced inner-city school teacher

- principal, friends of teacher

4. Story: What do I want to say about these people?

- teachers'  lives and how they are affected by their chosen career

- Scary situation in classrooms

- rewards of teacher disadvantaged students

Second Thoughts

I'm worried that I will not have enough resources to do my ethnography on inner-city school teachers. I feel like if I want to interview these teachers, I'll have to travel to Indianapolis or Chicago for a good one. I do, however, know an anthropology professor who studied inner-city students in Chicago. I haven't emailed him yet but I'm hoping that he'll have some good contacts for me.

I wanted to research inner-city teachers because this is the only thing I'm really passionate about that I could use as a teacher in the future. I have other interests but they do not relate to my field at all. I thought about truckers because I work in a terminal and it would be easy for me to conduct interviews. I also thought about funeral directors because my brother is a mortuary science major and his stories are always interesting. 

I guess I'm just concerned that once I really start making calls and contacting school, it will be too much for me to really make time for. I do, after all, have another "immersive" project this semester and I'm starting to feel overwhelmed. 

Initial Thoughts

It was pretty easy for me to think of a subject for this ethnography project. Since I'm nearing graduation, I wanted to do something that would benefit me in my future career as a high school English teacher. Instead of focusing on the type of students that I may teach like all of my education classes, I want to focus on myself a bit. As education major, we are taught the standards, about classroom management, lesson plans, and most of all, we're taught about all of the different types of students we will have. We are not told what our lives as teachers will be like. We are not told how to feel and how to deal with our environment. This is something that gets slammed in our faces the first day we have students of our own.

With this project, I want to research the type of teachers that I want to be: high school English teachers at an inner-city school. I want to know what happens to teachers once the last bell rings and how they go about their everyday lives. All but one of my education classes that I've had so far scare us away from inner-city schools. We are told that students will get violent, they do drugs, they have family problems, and the majority of them are minorities and will hate us because we are upper middle-class whites. I just want to know if this is true and I want to know how these teachers deal with it every day. 

I think that if I do my project about the teachers or something related to this idea, I will have an advantage over all of the other scared education majors.