One of the most important characteristics of a successful teacher is the ability to be effective within the context of the culture of the school. Cultures can be different in their styles of communication, their understanding of the roles of teachers and students, and in what works and doesn't work in the way of motivational strategies. Without taking cultural differences into account, misunderstandings can lead to a perception on the part of a teacher that they are teaching "bad students," when in fact the teacher is failing to teach the students effectively within the context of the students' different pre-existing cultures. So, when students have a different cultural background than the teacher, it is important for the teacher to know how to observe that culture and form his own understanding of how to be as effective as possible within it.
As a 42 year old former
engineer who grew up in a small,
overwhelmingly white university town, the author has plenty
to learn
about the culture of the urban area where he is beginning his
credential program - where white students are not a
majority and where a large number of students speak English as
a second language. Thus the importance of learning how
to be an educated cultural observer - learning how to observe with an
open mind,
to give meaning to the observations through finding motivations
behind actions,
and finally to understand how one's own cultural background both
enhances and limits an observers ability to understand the context of
another culture. This is the essence of the field of
ethnography.
This ethnographic study was
performed on a group of
students
who came from diverse ethnic, cultural, and primary language
backgrounds. The main focus of the study came to be on the
different
roles played by the students, how the teacher interacts with the
students based on the role they are playing, and how the teacher can
effect what roles the students take on in the classroom.
I had already spent a couple of sessions observing a particular pre-algebra class being taught at Michael Collins Middle School [all names in this ethnography are pseudonyms to protect the privacy of the subjects of the study]. So, when I started this ethnography I thought this school would make a good subject for the five weekly observations I had planned for this study. I had a lot of admiration for Mrs. Smith, the teacher of that class - an African American woman teaching in a school where the vast majority of the teachers are white even though most of the student body is not.
I had found out from my
previous observations that she did not
believe
in sending students to On Campus Suspension (OCS). This is a
disciplinary action which is
broadly used by many teachers on campus to remove
kids causing trouble from the classroom and put them in a detention
hall - where they are out of the way, but unlikely to really learn
much. I wanted to
see how Mrs. Smith manages a classroom without resorting to
this tactic, and I also wanted to see if I could observe if her ethnic
background made a difference with how the students (a large percentage
of which are African American) related to her and the subject she was
teaching. However, I also determined that I would make my
initial
ethnographic
observations with no particular subject in mind so that I could narrow
down my final topic based on the data that I observed. As it
happened, one of my observation days fell on a day
when the class had a substitute teacher. This provided a
contrast
in my observations to use as a comparison to how the class behaved
under their regular teacher.
By the time I had completed most of my observations, I had begun to notice a pattern in the data I collected. I had come to the conclusion that students within the classroom fit within certain roles in their interactions with the teacher, the classwork, and the rest of the class, and I decided to write about this. I also observed that the teacher interacted differently with the students based on the role the student was playing, and that the teacher could affect transitions in the students between roles. In particular, I wound up focusing on how subject matter expertise of the teacher could play a task in keeping student in an "on task" roll, because the substitute teacher (who was not a math expert), provided an excellent contrast in this area.
There are a few readings that I had in my limited ethnographic background which affected the point of view that I brought to this project.
First, there is the article
"Questioning at home and at school: A
Comparative study" (Heath, 1982). This article highlighted
differences in communication styles between African American families
and European American families, especially with regard to the meaning
and use of questions as a learning tool. This study motivated
me
to look for differences in teacher-student interactions when the
teacher happened to be an African American woman. I did
perhaps
find some differences, but I don't feel that I had enough comparative
data to really make a finding out of it.
Second, there is the book "Made
in America" (Olsen, 1997) - a
wonderful book about how immigrants in a California high school
experienced high school much differently than the American born
students.
Finally, there were a number of
readings within the course material
(Loeza, 2005) which convinced me to take a more informal style with
regard to my presentation of this study - writing it in the first
person and highlighting my own background and point of view as an
observer in my writings. The various readings in the course
had
convinced me that ethnography is intrinsically an activity that
involves the particular viewpoint and cultural prejudices of the
author - and it is more honest and true to the nature of the
ethnography
to open up that point of view to the better judgment
of the reader than to maintain a false illusion of complete objectivity.
Site: The site where the observations took place is a California middle school in the central valley east of San Francisco and the bay area. A few decades ago this was primarily an agricultural town, but in recent years it has also become a sort of long distance suburb of the bay area for families that cannot afford the high housing prices endemic there. It has also become an extension to the silicon valley for a handful of high tech businesses - providing a site for office facilities that are close to their parent companies without dealing with the high cost of living one hour drive to the east.
This recent change in the status of this small city transforming into a big city has resulted in a large influx of new residents and a reactive rush to build new schools to service them. Michael Collins Middle School is one of a number of new schools recently built in the school district to handle the growing population of students.
Participants:
All of
the participants for this study were eight grade students observed in
Mrs. Smith's first period pre-algebra class. The class
included a
fairly representative mix of racial backgrounds for the school, which
is composed of roughly 40% African American, 20%
Latino, 20% Asian, and 15% white students.
Aside from Mrs. Smith and her students, I spent one day studying the class under the direction of a substitute teacher, Mrs. Roberts.
Researcher's Role: I spent my time in the classroom passively observing the class from the back corner furthest from the main entrance. This tended to restrict my best viewing to the half of the class that was closest to me, and my observations were therefore dominated by the students in this area. From what I could tell, the other side of the classroom may have had a somewhat different dynamic, although I was never close enough to them to pick up the side conversations and various social behaviors that would have given me chance to define any differences.
I observed this class on five Monday mornings over a five week period. Prior to observing this class for the ethnography, I had also observed it for a couple of days for a different class (a week prior on a Tuesday and a Thursday). This had given me an opportunity to get a feel for the class and talk to the teacher a little bit.
Initially I tried to observe
the class with no particular agenda as
to what specific behavior I was trying to observe, and so my initial
field notes have no particular focus. By the third or fourth
session I was getting an idea of the sorts of behavior I would focus in
upon,
but my ultimate theme only congeled when my observations were done and
I began analysing my field notes in preparation to write this paper.
Data Analysis Procedures:
Having less than eight hours of data doesn't really support a detailed
inductive analysis, especially when when I took most of my field notes
when I was still looking for what areas I would focus in on.
So,
my key findings could really better be described as "anecdotal" rather
than as well researched. Still, each finding is based on some
perceived pattern of behavior over the time I observed and is supported
by at least some amount of real world data.
One thing I noticed in Mrs. Smith's classroom, and that I have noticed in other classrooms I have observed, is that students seem to act out different roles in class. Also, the way the teacher interacted with each student (and how much she interacted with the student) seemed to be highly dependent on the role the student was playing.
In general, I observed that the students in Mrs. Smith's class mainly had three different action modes in the classroom:
In addition to these action modes, the individual student relation to the class varied between attention seeking and attention diverting:
Since these are two independent ways of categorizing student behavior, the different action modes and the student's desire for attention can be matrixed and each intersection of action modes and attention seeking can be labeled. This I have done in table 1.
| Desire to be Center of
Classroom Focus |
||
| Action
State |
Attention
Seeking |
Attention
Averting |
| On
Task |
Class Spokesman |
Quiet Worker |
| Socializing |
Class Performer |
Covert Socializer |
| Tuned
Out |
Class Screwup |
Non-participants |
Of course, students didn't play the same role every day, or even minute to minute. The roles played by each student varied based on such factors as what the class activity was at the moment, how much the student "got" the material for the day, and the mood of the student at the moment. Nevertheless, I believe from my observations that the teacher seemed to interact with the student based largely on which of these roles they were playing.
I describe each student role in
more detail below.
The class spokesman is my name
for the student or students in the
class who were on task and who most vocally participated.
Perhaps
in some classrooms this role would be known as
"teacher's pet." However, I don't think this is a fair label
in this case because I never saw Mrs. Smith give obvious preference to
any particular student - rather this role seemed to be self selected by
the student and allowed by default from the rest of the class.
In Mrs. Smith's class, the role
of class spokesman was usually
played by Sally. She was the one who asked the most questions
regarding homework problems, and she was also one of the most likely to
come up with answers. More observations would be needed to
confirm this, but I suspect if Sally were to leave the class that
another class spokesman would eventually arise to take her
place.
I say this because most other classrooms I have observed seem to have
at least one person who plays this role - thereby enabling the other
students to take on a more passive role with respect to class
participation.
Class Performer is my label for students I've observed who are frequently seeking the attention of the teacher and of the class in general. Also, the class performer is either trying to engage the teacher on a topic which is just slightly off task, or is interacting with other students in a fashion which tends to draw the attention of the entire class.
In the class I observed, the number one class performer was a student by the name of Julie. My field notes are full of observations of Julie engaging the attention of the teacher (or the whole class) through such behaviors as:
The class performer seems to
take up more classroom focus than
almost any other student category, but is not necessarily the biggest
focus of classroom disciplinary actions by the teacher.
This is my admitedly unflattering label for students whose behavior is largely asocial, but which nonetheless seems to intentionally draw the attention of the teacher. The role may be similar to that of the class performer - except the class screwup mostly tuned out of both the subject material being taught and the social interaction of the other students.
Diego, who was the boy who sat closest to me in Mrs. Smith's class, often seemed to play the role of class screwup. Very rarely did I see him take notes or do any homework in class. However, rather than sitting quietly (like the students who were "Non-Participants"), Diego had a habit of doing things that would inevitably catch the teacher's (negative) attention. For instance, he would take the handout for that day and use it as a telescope. Sometimes if he half understood the assignment for the day he would blurt out answers to the problems the teacher was presenting - answers which were right maybe 30% of the time.
Diego generally was the subject of more of Mrs. Smith's disciplinary actions than any other student - even more than Julie (the class performer), who was noisier and arguably more distracting. On several occasions Mrs. Smith would send Diego up to a desk at the front wall of the room to sit by himself. However, when Diego was trying to participate in class (even when his answers were largely wrong), Mrs. Smith tried to encourage his participation.
Some of the students stayed on task most of the time but didn't usually try to participate in classwide discussion. These students were generally ignored by Mrs. Smith unless they had questions, although on occasion she would wander in among student desks to see how they were doing on assignments. It would be interesting to see if the quiet workers got as much attention at these times as their more attention seeking counterparts, but I didn't try to measure this behavior.
In general my observation notes
mostly ignore this category of
students. I suspect they get ignored a lot. As a
future
teacher, this is of more than a little concern to me. Are we,
in
a way, short changing the students who putting in the most effort in
our classrooms simply because they don't represent a problem that must
be dealt with?
The covert socializer is my label for the students who are talking to each other rather than doing the class work. Unlike the class performer, the covert socializer is uninterested in the attention of the broader classroom and is avoiding the (negative) attention of the teacher in particular. At any given moment during in class homework time, the covert socializers were about as numerous as the quiet workers. Often, students would alternate between these roles - doing a little bit of homework and a lot of chatting, or vice versa.
Generally, Mrs. Smith would try
to break up this kind of socializing
if it became very obvious, although the bulk of the students seemed to
know how to do this behavior "under the radar." If the
socializing became overly noticeable or distracting, Mrs. Smith would
try to direct the student back on task with a mild threat such as by
saying "Mark, if I asked to see your notes, would you have
them?" If socializing became really distracting, Mrs. Smith
would
send the worst offender to sit at the desk in front of the class butted
up against the front wall.
The non-participant is my label for students who didn't interact with the classroom by taking notes, doing homework, or even by interacting socially or by trying to get the attention of the teacher. Some students would slip in and out of the non-participant role - often into the covert socializer role. However, other students maintained this role almost all the time. For instance, one student had a habit of coming to class late every single day - and I never saw him take notes or work on homework.
Mrs. Smiths behavior towards
the hardcore non-partipants was
generally to ignore them. This might seem counterproductive,
but
the main alternative is to threaten the students with On Campus
Suspension (OCS), which simply moves the students to an environment
where they can socialize with other non-participants and where they
don't learn anything
anyway. Nor did I observe Mrs. Smith trying to apply other
methods of discipline to these students - such as sending them to the
desk that was up against the front wall. Perhaps she felt
that
socially isolating them would not be a very effective threat since they
weren't necessarily socializing anyway.
On my first day of observations for the ethnography, I had the good fortune of watching a substitute teacher, Mrs. Roberts, take over the class. I should say that it was to my good fortune, but not to the good fortune of Mrs. Roberts since the class pretty much ended in chaos. In fact, by the end of the class I had observed all of the following instances of bad behavior from the students:
Clearly, Mrs. Roberts had lost control of the class this day.
Admittedly, there is a strong tendency among students of almost any age to misbehave when a substitute takes over a class. A large part of this behavior can be traced back to the fact that the substitute will not be their teacher for very long and she rarely knows the students by their names - so it is hard for a sustitute to maintain a sense of consequences for bad behavior. Still, the way that the students reacted to Mrs. Roberts' teaching of the class (even before the stink bomb - which seemed pretty premeditated) provides an interesting contrast on how a teacher affects the roles taken on by her students..
The importance of subject
matter expertise as a piece in the broader
structure of classroom management is seldom noticeable until it is not
there. On the Monday that Mrs. Roberts came in to take over
the
class, the
class was reasonably well behaved - up until the point when Mrs.
Roberts started having some problems teaching the material.
For
example, she got the formulas for area and circumference of circle
confused. Then she started asking some kids from the class to
come up
and help with problems. I believe the confusion over how to
do
the homework problems caused students who were normally "on task"
(whther they are normally attention seeking or attention averting) to
seek other roles,
and this led to a greater degree of class disruption.
For instance, only after Mrs.
Roberts stumbles with the subject
matter material
and pulls Sally into the confusion does Sally switch roles from
"Class Spokesman" to "Class Performer" by writing "Are you guys bored?"
on
the overhead projector. As Mrs. Roberts has more and more
trouble
with
the subject material, including a lot of erasing and restarting
problems, the students get more restless and ill behaved. In
effect, the students who might have been "quiet workers" shift into
"covert socializers."
Side Note: Dealing with Stumbles
As opposed to the substitute Mrs. Roberts, Mrs. Smith knows the pre-algebra material quite well and only rarely makes any kind of a significant error. Nevertheless, I did oberve her making mistakes now and then. However, the way she dealt with her own errors helped keep them from becoming an issue that would drive the students off task.
For instance, Mrs. Smith is rather poor at drawing geometric figures. Often her 30-60-90 triangles looked like 45 degree triangles, and vice-versa. However, when she did a poor job of drawing a figure, she would make her own joke about how bad it was. On another occasion she used sine in a problem when she should have used tangent. When she quickly realized her mistake, she made another humorous comment: "no, not sine - I must be trippin'."
Once or twice I saw some students try to throw in their own comments on top of the teacher's joke, but it didn't tend to go on for long. By making her own joke about it, I think Mrs. Smith had taken most of the fun out of criticizing her for her mistake, and this perhaps helped maintain overall student confidence in her knowledge of the subject.
Much of the
general attention seeking behavior I observed in the classroom seemed
to be aimed at getting the
attention of the teacher. Even the class screwup seemed to be
trying to get (negative) attention from the teacher - since I believe
he could have easily chosen to entertain himself off task with less
noticeable behavior (as per the non-participants who manage to remain
under the radar).
However, when the students lose interest in getting the attention of
the teacher, most of this attention seeking behavior becomes redirected
at their fellow
students instead.
I speculate that this redirection of attention seeking behavior, along with the elimination of the "on task" role, could be another source of the misbehavior I observed when Mrs. Roberts substitute taught in the class. When Mrs. Smith teaches the class, I usually observed a lot of behavior aimed at getting teacher attention. However, when Mrs. Roberts taught the class the attention getting behavior was primarily aimed at fellow students, especially towards the end of the class when the students lost interest in the "new" teacher. For instance, there was much more talking and milling about at the end of class than I normally observed.
The data I have for supporting
this conclusion is a little limited,
but it seems like this is a line of inquiry that could use more
investigation.
As a teacher, one of the key things I learned doing this study is a new way of examining the classroom. The act of recording my field notes, transcribing them, and especially analyzing them and looking for a patterns caused me to look at the classroom in a more methodical and analytical manner than I normally have. Whether or not my conclusions in this study are profound or especially accurate, I think that the methods I've learned will serve me well in the future - whether or not I choose to apply them quite so rigorously again.
As for my particular findings presented in this paper, I do have some reservations about them. The tool of categorization - especially when applied to people - can be a pretty blunt instrument. Even if a particular grouping scheme happens to be meaningful and appropriate, the fact remains that students can be grouped in all sorts of different ways with all sorts of different consequences on how we view them. Also, a given student might fit in several different categories during the day depending on their changing moods, level of interest in the different classes, immediate social environment, or any number of factors. Certainly, the roles of "Quiet Worker", "Class Performer", etc. are descriptions that apply to almost all students at one time or another.
That said, I do think that people tend to interact with each other in a sort of role playing fashion. Moreover, I think that teachers, who often deal with over a hundred different students every day, are almost forced to use broad categorization of student behavior to determine how to deal with each of them at any given moment. For instance, if a student is seeking attention, is somewhat off task, but is not completely tuned out to what is going on ("The Performer"), a teacher is likely to treat that student differently than if the teacher believes the student is drawing attention but is also completely tuned out from what is going on ("The Screwup.") If the teacher doesn't actually carry these categories consciously in his mind, they are likely to still be there subconsciously along with a procedure for dealing with each of them.
In fact, it can be argued that behavior categorization, determined by a fair and objective set of rules and handled consistently - can be an effective tool for bringing discipline to a classroom. For instance, if there is a standard punishment for acting like the class screwup, and that punishment is to sit in the corner where you won't get any attention, then this forms a structured basis for classroom management, and all the students know what to expect.
The danger comes in categorizing students unfairly, or miscategorizing them based on inappropriate norms. Unfair categorization could be the result of prejudice - racial, sexual, or maybe just because that student reminds you of someone else you didn't like. Miscategorization could be the result of not understanding a particular students personality or even their culture. For instance, doodling in class may be a sign that the student is tuned out, or it might be that the student is grasping the material easily and doesn't need their full attention to keep up with what is going on.
I think it is important for
teachers to be aware that they probably
do categorize their students in one form or another, and to be aware of
the pitfalls of doing so. As a future teacher myself, I don't
know that this study has given me all the answers in this area, but it
has certainly given me something to think about. Perhaps as I
analyze my own classes in the future I will come up with different
conclusions that will continue to broaden my way of thinking about my
students and my own behavior. I certainly hope this is the
case.