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?