First of all, thank you. Thanks to all the teachers who’ve answered my call to join this project, to all the friends and family who’ve sent their support, and to everyone who has said , “Hey, I would totally buy that book.” Your enthusiasm breathes new life into this project and makes me feel like I’m not just chopping down trees in an empty forest – I appreciate it immensely and am eager to share it with you all. From the initial response, after 332 views, I have compiled a list of volunteers who have agreed to be interviewed to discuss their impressions and memories of teaching early grades in this country and other countries. Now that I’ve secured subjects (Phase One complete!), we turn to Phase Two -- the questionnaire and interview phase – and the dilemmas of asking the perfect question.
In the same way that every science lesson with kindergarteners is a lesson in mortality, every research project I’ve done has been a lesson in methodology. In other words, I’ve made a lot of mistakes and asked a lot of stupid questions. (I’ve also killed a lot of mealworms and shriveled a lot of plants, and subsequently had a lot of discussions with young children about death – but we’ll save those stories for another blog.) My greatest fear in this next phase of my research is that I will squander the generosity of my subjects with stupid questions, like I’ve done before.
Now don’t start that whole “the only foolish question is the one not asked” thing. That rule only applies to math-related questions during a math lesson. There are many, many stupid questions:
Last year I conducted research at an international school in Brooklyn, observing two teachers – one from France and one from Peru—teaching the same first grade curriculum. I was thrilled at the opportunity to interview them, to have a full dialogue about how their cultural background impacted their pedagogy... so I asked, “How does your cultural background impact your pedagogy?” And it failed. The teachers couldn’t answer my direct questions, downplayed the significance of their cultural background, insisted that their teaching was purely a “best practices” approach. My questions were too general because I didn’t want to “lead the witness”, too direct because I was trying to be clear, too boring.
Why did my direct questions fail? What kinds of questions allow people to truly and openly consider their answers? How can I construct a questionnaire that triggers a conversation?
Counter-intuitively, direct questions may actually impede the clarity of my subjects’ answers. If the human mind was like a computer – able to accurately index data and retrieve it in logical pathways – direct questions would be ideal. I could write a chapter about setting up classroom furniture by asking my subjects, “Tell me some interesting and unusual ways in which you’ve seen classroom furniture organized.” I could ask my friends targeted questions: “Stephanie, what did your first grade classroom in Zimbabwe look like?” and she would describe it, and I would record it. Easy peasy. Sadly, the human mind doesn’t work like that and the process of recalling experiences is much messier than simple retrieval.
As Antoinette Errante (2000) writes in “But Sometimes You’re Not Part of the Story: Oral Histories and Ways of Remembering and Telling”: “the remembering and telling are themselves events, not only descriptions of events”. The act of remembering triggers a complex series of alternate reactions – an internal pinball machine of omitting, editing, adjusting, considering our memories as we talk about them.
In order to ask people to remember specific things – if I want to get to the good stuff, the meaty parts – I have to find ways to access the memories that are further below the surface. I have to consider what forms people remember in: narrative, sensory, emotional. My goal is to ask a question that makes my subjects say, “That reminds me of a story”.
I am open to your thoughts and suggestions. I have a week. :)
The Difficulty of Asking the Right Question
or
Dear Terry Gross, Please Write my Questionnaire
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| "I'm Terry Gross and this is Revital's questionnaire..." |
Now don’t start that whole “the only foolish question is the one not asked” thing. That rule only applies to math-related questions during a math lesson. There are many, many stupid questions:
“Wow, you’ve just come back from living in Tokyo for four years! How was it?”
“Honey, what did you learn in school today?”
“How does your cultural background impact your pedagogy?”
Last year I conducted research at an international school in Brooklyn, observing two teachers – one from France and one from Peru—teaching the same first grade curriculum. I was thrilled at the opportunity to interview them, to have a full dialogue about how their cultural background impacted their pedagogy... so I asked, “How does your cultural background impact your pedagogy?” And it failed. The teachers couldn’t answer my direct questions, downplayed the significance of their cultural background, insisted that their teaching was purely a “best practices” approach. My questions were too general because I didn’t want to “lead the witness”, too direct because I was trying to be clear, too boring.
Why did my direct questions fail? What kinds of questions allow people to truly and openly consider their answers? How can I construct a questionnaire that triggers a conversation?
Counter-intuitively, direct questions may actually impede the clarity of my subjects’ answers. If the human mind was like a computer – able to accurately index data and retrieve it in logical pathways – direct questions would be ideal. I could write a chapter about setting up classroom furniture by asking my subjects, “Tell me some interesting and unusual ways in which you’ve seen classroom furniture organized.” I could ask my friends targeted questions: “Stephanie, what did your first grade classroom in Zimbabwe look like?” and she would describe it, and I would record it. Easy peasy. Sadly, the human mind doesn’t work like that and the process of recalling experiences is much messier than simple retrieval.
As Antoinette Errante (2000) writes in “But Sometimes You’re Not Part of the Story: Oral Histories and Ways of Remembering and Telling”: “the remembering and telling are themselves events, not only descriptions of events”. The act of remembering triggers a complex series of alternate reactions – an internal pinball machine of omitting, editing, adjusting, considering our memories as we talk about them.
In order to ask people to remember specific things – if I want to get to the good stuff, the meaty parts – I have to find ways to access the memories that are further below the surface. I have to consider what forms people remember in: narrative, sensory, emotional. My goal is to ask a question that makes my subjects say, “That reminds me of a story”.
I am open to your thoughts and suggestions. I have a week. :)
It becomes easier for people to relate a story or access a memory of their own if you can create a space of trust. Ease and comfort allow for the floodgates of recollection to open freely. Start with making people feel safe, perhaps with your own anecdote to give the feeling that you genuinely want to hear their story, not for your thesis, but for you, because it is important and because it matters.
ReplyDeleteAlso people remember funny and people remember sad--start with the funny.
Side note: I beg to differ that, "what did you learn at school today?" is a stupid question! (we will obviously debate this later... :)
that is all
you rock.