Veteran Teacher Observation

Participants Low-income Parent. African American female, single-parent of three while working two low-income jobs. She works two jobs to meet family’s basic needs while juggling personal struggles like debt, and other challenges. She dropped out of high school at the age of 16 due to an unexpected pregnancy. I selected this parent because, although her many circumstances and adversities, her child is a top student with one of the highest averages in all content areas in a class of 20 students. Students in second-grade. All twenty (100%) students I observed for my field notes are African American, thirteen were girls (65%) and seven were boys (35%). I specifically selected two problematic students to participated in the interview,

An experienced second-grade teacher and African American female who has taught in Title 1 schoolings for 18 years. Title I school provides financial assistance to schools with high numbers or high percentages of children from low-income families to help ensure that all children meet challenging state academic standards. I selected this teacher for many reasons as a subject. One reason is because I felt her insight on teaching children in poverty would be extremely intuitive due to her years of experienced. Another reason I selected this subject is because, I wanted to be informed of the many strategies she has she found to be most effective when teaching students in poverty to reach their full potential, in addition to the ineffective strategies. School Police Officer. A Caucasian female who has worked in the juvenile criminal justice department for over 10 years. Working in this field she has witnessed many impoverished troubled youths be detained, abused, and much more. I selected her as a subject to gain a perception and tips on counseling troubled youth. I also selected the officer to gain a better understanding of what many students are facing when they leave the school

The in-person interviews consisted of a series of 5 questions for students (See Appendix C) and 5 to 6 individualized questions for my adult participants. The first interview question for students asked if they ever went to bed without eating or came to school without eating breakfast. The second question asks for them to tell me how it made them feel. The third question asked who is home when they get home from school. The fourth question asked students how they feel when coming to school. The fifth and final question required students to rate 3 scenarios about their livelihood for how frequently they experience a matter from all the time to never. The next set of interviews were personalized to gain the most effective and resourceful information from each individual role: a teacher (See Appendix D), parent (See Appendix E), and school officer (See Appendix F). The moment I received all of the consent forms, I began my interviews. I interviewed one student a day for about 10 minutes. The following next two weeks, I interviewed the veteran teacher, parent, and school officer. These interviews lasted approximately 25 minutes. Each participant interviewed one at a time, and as they answered each question, using a recorder I recorded their answer and wrote key points of their answers down on their In-Person Interview form. The protocol I used consisted of a file folder containing a cover letter, explaining my action research project, and signed consent