Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Blog #3. Contribution to Group Presentation

I had some time to ruminate about our last session in class. I always enjoy listening to the perspectives of my colleagues about race and ethnicity. Everybody brings a different experience and perspective to the table. Please continue to share your experience and/or questions.

I am part of Race and Ethnicity in the Classroom. We spent last class brainstorming about how to go about our theme. It is wonderful to listen to the contributions from everyone in the group. We are going to use reading from books, journal articles and clips from relevant movies etcetera to introduce and buttress our class presentation.

My own contribution to the group presentation is examining the issue of race in the classroom as it affects immigrant parents and their children (students who may be immigrants or first generation Americans). I will be doing face to face interviews with these immigrant parents/guardians about their experiences - positive or otherwise while interacting with teachers and administrators in the educational system. I do not want to limit myself to just one ethnicity when interviewing immigrants so I am presently looking for other ethnic groups other than Africans and Latinos just to enrich the interview experience and be able to compare the experience of these interviewees.

The tools Intend to use include a voice recorder. when the interviews are all done. I will download them as mp3 files onto my computer. The mp3 files would then be uploaded to SoundCloud where they can be accessed by members of our class. I would also use SoundCloud image uploads to show the picture of the interviewee or the setting of the interview. Since I am going to upload to SoundCloud, this will allow me to embed the interviews on the class digital omnibus when the project is completed.

I have opted to use a voice recorder mainly because I foresee a reticence in my interviewees about video interviews (I intend to video recordings as much as possible). One of the parents I was talking to about the project was enthusiastic until the issue of when to do the video recording came up and his "enthusiasm" evaporated. I then offered the voice recording alternative and that was acceptable to him. I have to remind myself that a number of immigrant communities are quite reticent about their personal lives and do not just open up to anybody.In some ways I am also like that. I do not mind talking to people face to face but I have been finding it challenging to "bare my soul" as it were on the internet. Who exactly am I talking to out there? I can't see nor hear you so I cannot assess your reception of what I am talking about unless you write a response.

I am still working on the questions I want to ask the parents/guardians as well as the students. I want the questions to encourage them to speak frankly but at the same time I do not want to "put words in their mouths" as we say in my corner of the globe.

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