For this interview, I reached out to my daughter’s therapist. I chose her for this topic because she mentioned in our conversations before that she “hates teachers.” She was expressing her frustration about a certain incident, of course, but I sensed she formed some strong opinions about education, or at least, our local school district. Moreover, I knew it would be a good conversation because J is articulate and skilled in delivering points and yet gentle in argument.
We met in my living room, and I videotaped our interview via Zoom software for a chance to review and reflect on it at a later date. The interview lasted 1 hr 2 minutes, and could have gone further had I not stopped it out of respect for my participant’s time.
The topic of our interview was “Education” and more specifically, “Special Education.” I started by quoting her earlier comment about teachers to elicit strong emotional response and to set the tone for our conversation.
I learned quite a bit about her dispositions on the topic. It seems to me, however, that her opinions are weighted heavily by her professional experiences of working with troubled teenagers and their families, as well as her personal childhood experiences and experiences as a single mother raising children in Hernando county. This was the only time I openly challenged her.
I also pointed out an incosistency in her logic when in the beginning she explained that many problems in education today are due to litigation-happy culture, but later she praised a local magnet school for modeling our culture through its micro-society program complete with banks, law enforcement, and even a judicial system and court. I brought attention to this point of view by recalling the former statement imediately after the latter and asked for a clarification.
I think there were some points in my interview with J where I could have collected more rich information had I formed a more clear research question before hand. This is where I think I have done poorly, and it was probably because I felt overly confident about my topic. I wanted to know what curriculum ideology or educational philosophy she supports because this is something I have been pondering for a while as a parent and as an educator. So I wanted her to tell me what the purpose of education is in her opinion. Why do we put children in school? I left the question intentionally vague to provoke some questions, but it did, but not to the degree I expected. I think I should have been more assertive.
I knew I was going to have a semi-structured interview, but I should have done some reflexive writing prior to the interview to give my thoughts a better direction and to add conviction. Maybe I also should have read some literature about social workers’ or therapists’ dispositions in education context.
What went well
Well, I was not nervous. This was my first interview with a person who is not a family member or a very close friend. Last time I attempted this task as an undergraduate, I could barely put two words together.
I think my questions elicited some good responses, and I made some discoveries on the topic of social inequality and parental involvement in education. Did OK overall, but definitely need improvement.