As I continue to research the “No Child Left Behind” policy, I am beginning to find more and more instances of increased stress placed upon both students and teachers by the demands of standardized testing. Because the careers and salaries of teachers often rest upon the test results, educators have begun to “teach to test” rather than to “teach for learning”. Such stresses have pushed some teachers as far as erasing incorrect test answers and penciling in correct responses to improve student outcomes. The fact that teachers are willing to act in an unethical manner to improve test outcomes signifies that they are also likely to teach in any manner that they believe will result in better scores. Often times; however, teaching to improve test scores is not teaching in manner that causes effective learning. Instead, the teaching method is reminiscent of Freire’s “banking concept”, which we have already discussed as a rather ineffective method. The findings of my research led me to further examine my field notes and interviews with Tina Sugar, the teacher of the 3rd grade class I’ve been observing. Through further examination, I noticed much stress in Tina’s actions, interview responses and student interactions while WKCE testing was occurring. Not only did I notice Tina’s elevated stress level, but I also noticed how she dedicated much of her classroom teaching time to math, reading and writing rather than subjects such as art, history or science. Coincidentally, the material that third graders are tested on include only math and reading (which includes writing responses). Because of my realizations, I’ve decided I want to focus on teacher stress related to testing and how it impacts the way students are taught as well as their learning outcomes.
Question:
I’m still struggling with how I’m going to bring everything together and I’m worried that I will have more outside research than classroom observations within my ethnography. Do you think this will pose a problem or do you think I can still write an effective ethnography using a more research-based approached than a more observational approach?
I don't think this will pose a problem for writing an effective ethnography, and I'm actually starting to see the same pattern with my work as well. Remember, the goal of an ethnography is to understand why people act the way they do, what influences their behaviors, etc... I think having a significant amount of research gives the writer an even keener eye while observing. Now that I'n done doing the majority of my secondary research I would like to do a fourth observation to see how my view may have changed after reading other experts'opinions on the matter. Maybe your observations would benefit from doing the same? All in all, I don't think research can be harmful to your project and in fact I think it strengthens your observations and ability to interpret those observations.
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