Joel Manfredi

Mid-Term Responses

 

Question #2.  We have talked a lot about subjectivity during the last few weeks.  Focusing on the problems of subjectivity, use the readings to develop an approach to dealing with subjectivity in your classroom observations.

 

This is a good question because it reminds us that subjectivity is always going to be an issue when it comes to ethnographic research.  By answering this question, I can look at what I am too subjective about and take steps to diminish that aspect of my research so my findings will be more objective.  

Dealing with subjectivity is a delicate issue because when someone reports their research, there is always a hint of subjectivity in their writing.  This is an inevitable aspect of writing. It is inherently impossible to exclude all of a researcher’s personality from the writing, and some would even argue immoral.  Bonnie Sunstein quoted Barbara Meyeroff who said, “what was being written was from my eyes, with my personality, biases, history, and sensibility, and it seemed dishonest to exclude that”(182).  At the same time, it is exactly the “personality, biases, history, and sensibility” that are the problems with subjectivity.  Subjectivity is literally, according to the dictionary, “having to do with the perception or conception of a thing by the mind as opposed to its reality independent of the mind.”  Does this mean that in order to report the actual truth we need to research as if we were a robot devoid of any thought or feeling?  Some may argue that that is the only true way to get the facts, but who would want to read that report? 

In saying that, the problems of subjectivity are an issue that every researcher must deal with.  By reading what Sunstein wrote about Meyeroff, I found that a little bit of subjectivity is inevitable in anybody’s observations.  This realization put me at ease and allowed me to conduct my research in a more relaxed tone.  But I still had to be aware of the “biases, personality, history, and sensibility” that I was bringing into the classroom.  Brenda Jo Brueggemann dealt with this problem during her ethnographic research at Gallaudet College.

Brueggemann, who is partially deaf herself, thought she would be accepted for her disability at the deaf school, Gallaudet.  In fact, Brueggemann had many preconceived notions of what life would be like for her at Gallaudet.  She says, “before I even entered the field and set foot on Gallaudet’s campus, I had decided upon several distinct roles I might occupy or play in an attempt to carve out a space for myself as the well-balanced participant-observer.  I found instead that I could be neither participant nor observer–or even participant-observer–with any consistency or self-agency; I felt, in short, carved up and imbalanced most of the time”(23).  By entering into the situation with her subjective expectations, Brueggemann found herself even more ostracized than she thought.  

Similarly, I had to remind myself to not have preconceived expectations of what I “should” find upon entering these classes.  This turned out to be much harder than I expected as I constantly found myself “assuming” certain elements of the class as I prepared for my research.  If it was a morning class, I expected the students to be tired.  In the afternoon class, I expected them to be energetic.  I expected the students to be nervous that I was in the room and not speak to me.  None of these were true and it wasn’t until I read Brueggemann’s article that I was even aware that I had such preconceived notions or that these notions were effecting my research.  In every case, I found that if I had expectations, they were quickly eliminated by the uncertainty of the reality that exists inside of the classroom culture.  I had to remind myself to be more objective from the moment I woke up in the morning if I wanted to quell the subjectivity in my mind with that days research.

Another aspect of my research that I found subjective was the attitude that I had inside of the classroom.  It never occurred to me that my attitude could effect the research that I was doing, but it did.  If I went into the class happy, and smiling, I found that I would chuckle during the class occasionally.  In the note making portion of my notes on that day, I’d find words like “funny,” or “happy,” or “fun.”  Similarly, if I entered a class on the notion that I needed to be more serious, I found words like “boring,” or “tired,” or “stern.”  Not only did my attitude reverberate through the classroom, but it translated to my research as well.  Erving Goffman opened my eyes to this when we read his article, “The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life.”  Goffman says, “the participant observer may not only wear an accepting look while listening to an informant, but may also be careful to wear the same look when observing the informant talking to others”(8).  The part of this sentence that stuck with me the most, and the one that I began to implement in my observations was “be careful to wear the same look.”  I started to go into the classrooms with a steady face that spoke of neither judgement, or acceptance, or even feigned participation.  I wasn’t removed from the class, or the research, but remaining on an even keel to keep my research less subjective.  Reading Goffman’s article made me more aware of myself and how my own subjectivity could play a part in the classroom.  

Being aware of my own biases, limiting my expectations, and keeping my expressions in balance, have all been new ways that I have approached the problem of my own subjectivity.  It has been a learning process for me, and having these readings as a guide has been an immense help in that process.

 

 

Question #5.  The readings in this class have focused the ways that ethnography is particularly suited to those researchers who are truly wondering, seeking, curious.  Share your experiences in your classroom observations, and connect these observations to the texts we have studied.

 

The reason I chose this question is because it directly relates to the fieldwork that we are doing in this class.  By answering this question I can correlate what I have done to what we have read, and make a connection between the two.  In this way, I will hopefully create a deeper understanding of ethnographic research.

In the first few classes that I observed, I found myself furiously writing notes during class.  I barely looked up to see what was going on before my head was buried back down again to my paper.  I came away from those first classes with plenty of information, but found that I didn’t have a sense of what happened during class.  How could this be?  I was there, I had all the information, but somehow felt I had missed something.  Then I began to realize that I was in that classroom as a researcher, and not as a teacher-researcher.  What this translated to was that I didn’t have any sort of questions to be answered by my being there.  Why was I there?  What was it that I was trying to find out by doing the research?

These were questions that I had never asked myself because I hadn’t thought of myself as a “teacher.”  I was thinking in the frame of mind that I was a student rather than gathering research to benefit my own teaching style when I become a teacher.  Ruth Ray spoke of this in her article, “Composition from the Teacher-Research Point of View.”  She said, “teacher research… results in new ownership–teachers’ own research into their own problems that results in modification of their own behaviors and theories”(174).  That was my problem; I wasn’t taking any ownership for my own behavior or theories.  Once I got a few good research questions down, it seemed that I had something to look for.  I made sure that these questions didn’t turn into expectations, but I did ask myself for specifics regarding an agenda for my own teaching style.  What was I good at, and what did I need improvement in?  What did this teacher do that I would like to implement in my class someday?  Why was it important?  

With these types of questions prepared beforehand, I found myself more relaxed in the classroom.  I wasn’t writing as furiously or as much, but what I wrote meant more.  My notes had deeper meaning and more impact on myself as a teacher than as a student.  Ray’s article opened my eyes to the fact that I needed to be doing the research for my future benefit as well as my current need.

Another important observation happened during a night class at Merced College.  I was observing Mr. Donald’s health class on a night when the students were proofreading each others essays.  The students were in pairs, and one male student kept raising his hand and asking questions.  This student even repeated some of the questions and said that he had forgotten the answer.  He seemed sincere in his forgetfulness, so after class I talked to Mr. Donald.

I asked him how he felt about the student who kept asking questions and he said that the kid was the worst student in his class.  Mr. Donald figured that the kid only asked questions to make it seem like he was interested, but that he probably hadn’t even written the paper.  I didn’t believe Mr. Donald, so he invited me back the next week and asked me to watch the student in class and see if I noticed anything different.

This happened to be the same week that we read Erving Goffman and “The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life.”  How fitting that this was our reading for the week, because I applied much of what Goffman spoke of when I went back to Mr. Donald’s class that next Wednesday.  Goffman speaks of expressiveness in people and that there are two kinds; “the expression that he gives, and the expression that he gives off”(2).  Goffman explains that the first one is more controllable than the second, and that if an observer really wants to find out about their subject, they must watch that person when the person doesn’t know they’re being watched.  

This is the tactic that I brought into class with me on that Wednesday night.  I observed the student when he asked questions, and also when it seemed nothing else was going on.  I caught him many times looking in my direction to see if I was watching him.  On more than one occasion I saw him, roll his eyes, hang his head, or sigh with his body.  He still asked enthusiastic questions as if he were a willing participant, but his body language said differently.

So, I found that by watching more during my observations, I could pick up true information that can’t be falsified by speech.  Observing during the inconspicuous moments gave me time to truly see what a student felt about the class they were taking.  Reading Goffman made me aware of the fact that everything I heard in a classroom wasn’t always the truth, and that some truth had to be seen with my eyes and not heard with my ears.

These are some of the experiences that I have had so far in my observations this semester.  Ruth Ray’s article reminded me that the research I was doing was for my future work in the field, and that realization helped me formulate some concrete questions to enter the classes with.  These questions helped me focus my research and my notes in a more productive way.  Goffman reminded me to observe when I am in the class to pick up on subtleties of the human brain, and that we have involuntary behavior patterns that will emerge no matter what comes out of our mouths.  These are some of the ways that the readings and my observations have merged so far this semester.