When we chose to center our presentation on students who, in our estimation, were falling through the cracks, little did I know that the case study of particular students would open up issues that I never imagined existed. Not only did I discover what was happening to students, I also came to know the institutional context within which students could fall out of synch with their peers and the program. Centering on single students allowed me to see phenomena and behaviors that I would not have noticed before. It also caused me to spend more time listening to the students (and their versions of what was happening to them) and to take up a new role, one of advocacy within the system. When hard questions were asked, I think I surprised others by how much knowledge I had of the students and the situations. That would not have been the case if the particular students were not the ones on whom I was focusing attention.
Comments (4)
Cheryl -
I understand exactly how you feel. The students that I am using for my focus/case study, I feel I have a pretty good idea of their achievement and the holes in their educational background. I worry about the other 150 students that I did not focus on in my inquiry. How much do I really know about them? How good of a teacher am I for them, if I do not know them as well?
Posted by Michaelann | May 19, 2005 10:34 AM
Posted on May 19, 2005 10:34
Knowing that one needs to know more is important, but also there are the human constraints on being able to do more for more people, particularly since forces are not always working in the same ways as we are... I like Cuban's idea of intractable dilemmas, dilemmas that are not ever going to be solved, but dilemmas which we can manage through thought and action. I think that what is probably very valuable about our work is how we make the management of these dilemmas public.
Posted by Cheryl | May 20, 2005 8:03 AM
Posted on May 20, 2005 08:03
Making our work public is a crucial piece and why I find the use of the blog a way to be public in a continuous way rather than twice a year at presentations. Although, if no one reads it or builds - is it truly public?
Posted by Michaelann | May 27, 2005 7:53 AM
Posted on May 27, 2005 07:53
What I always find surprising is the idea of dissemination of work and how it is always demanded of some people (i.e. teachers, qualitative researchers, etc) but those who are administrators or sit on decision making boards never have to share the context within which they made decisions to act in certain ways. In fact, they sometimes sign confidentiality agreements declaring that they never will disclose these details. It seems to me that some people are more accountable "to the public" than others are...
Posted by Cheryl | June 4, 2005 12:48 PM
Posted on June 4, 2005 12:48