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.