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.