Michelle McCandlish

November 11, 2014

Inquiry Project

Introduction

I interviewed Cindy McLelland, a white 52 year old stay at home mother who grew up
and went to school in Chicago Illinois. Cindy never continued her education to college. Instead,
she moved to Colorado with her husband, got an office administration job at a payroll company,
and had a son. Her views on education were rather surprising. The overall theme of her answers
was that our educational system is completely fine. After looking at her background, I was able
to see why she thought the way she did. She lived in a middle to upper class neighbor hood, went
to a mostly white school and continues to send her son to a mostly white school. She never really
traveled outside of her white picket fence to see that the world outside was different.
I also interviewed Mike Perez, a Hispanic mid thirties music teacher at Kinard Middle
School who earned his teaching degree from the University of Colorado Boulder. Mr. Perez also
had a theme throughout his interview. He believed that schools in the US do not perform as well
as they should or think they do. Because of Mr. Perezs background, he was able to see more of
the traditional public school and what works and what fails in the school system.
The two people that I interviewed had had many contrasting ideas about our educational
system here in the US. Because of the cultural differences between Cindy and Mr. Perez, their
contrasting thoughts can be assumed. As schools in the US progress, think about where we have
been, where we are, and where we are going. To Cindy, our schools are doing just fine and have
always been fine. To Mr. Perez, we are actually struggling. What is it that Mr. Perez sees in
schools for him to think that they are not up to par? Our educational system is slacking, but
where? As said in Dalai Lama, From my rough impression of the Western Educational
System.. seems to be lacking in the dimension of enhancing and developing the heart. (p.87)

The Purpose of Schooling

When speaking about schooling, Cindy thought that the purpose of schools was to
educate the young minds of America and to teach them to question. This is a basic understanding
of our educational system but the roots reach much further. When growing up, Cindys only goal
was to graduate high school. There was never any thought as to what lied further ahead. To
Cindy, a school was successful if their students graduated. This can be a way to see whether a
school performs well or not. However, there are many things that go along with school
performance such as GPA, college acceptance, scholarships given, and place in the graduating
class. This is best said by Miller (2010). The focus of most schools and universities is on the
development of marketable skills. (p.261)
Mr. Perez on the other hand was more thorough in his answer. He stated that the purpose
of schooling is to create a safe environment for students to feel comfortable to participate,
question, and learn. This is a more advanced analysis of our educational system and what goes in
to the education of a child. Being involved in education obviously helps you have a better
understanding of how things work and what needs improvement.
Experience in Schooling
Cindy went to Forestville High School in Chicago Illinois. Cindy relays that the majority
of the population was white with the exception of a few African American students that passed
through. She stated, If you graduated, you were successful and so was the school. If the
graduation rates of the high school were high, that was a good school. Didnt matter what
happened before or after that. Graduation was the only goal. Mr. Perez had a similar view on
this point. He stated that schools do not meet the needs of every student. He said that students

such as ESL, Special Needs, and students who did not perform well were segregated from the
rest of the population. This was mainly to give the students extra help but also to make sure that
students who performed well, performed at their highest potential allowed by the rest of the
class. Mr. Perez stated, It is the job of the educator to meet the needs of every student in their
class whether they had trouble or not. Every student learns differently, it is the educators job to
accommodate all learning styles. This is best said in Fernandez and Marshall (1994), This
system of education is characterized by a monological and unilateral form of pedagogy in which
the teacher imparts knowledge and students supposedly learn it. (p.24)
Are schools Meeting the Needs of All Diverse Learners
Cindy believes that schools in the US meet the needs of all learners. Cindy spoke about
everyones goal being the same, graduation, and that every student in the school had the same
views, religious beliefs, race, and language. With that in mind, since everyone was looking to
achieve the ultimate goal of graduation, and the graduation rates at her high school were high,
then the needs of all students were met. This was based off of what she saw and experienced.
Because the majority of the school that Cindy attended was white, that was the social norm and
her perceptions were based off of what she experienced. This echoed in DiAngelo and Seonsoy
when they wrote, critical multicultural teaching requires the ability to consider multiple and
constantly shifting factors You need basic understanding of how power relations work in
society, and your own position in the matrix of these relations. (p.2)

Observations

My observation experience was very unique in the fact that I was able to observe at a
middle school at the center of a middle to upper class community that had some diversity. The
classes that I observed were mainly white but there were some kids that added to the diversity of
the class. The classes that I observed, there were children that were Hispanic, Asian, and African
American. Along with race, there were a few students that had special needs or a learning
disability that Mr. Perez needed to accommodate. I feel like Mr. Perez did very well in meeting
the needs of every student in his class. He applied various methods of learning to his teaching so
that students could understand the lesson in various ways.
Functions of Teaching
In teaching, if you are able to identify one certain use of Management, Instruction, or
Relationship Building at a time then the teacher is not successful. Using all three or at least two
of the Functions of Teaching allows for an ideal learning environment that includes being
respectful and non-disruptive, learning, and building a relationship with the teacher. The
following graph demonstrates that amount of time spent involving each of the Functions of
Teaching.

MIR Analysis
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
Management

Instruction

Relationship Building

The graph shows that Mr. Perez spent more time on relationship building than any of the other
functions. Note that some of the functions occurred at the same time as the others. Mr. Perez was
very good at involving at least two functions at a time.
Mr. Perez spent the least amount of time on class management. This was almost
detrimental to his lesson as some students were not focused 100% of the time and some students
were very talkative while Mr. Perez was speaking. However, when he was teaching he had a
microphone clipped to his lanyard that was linked to the sound system in his room. This was a
great way to manage the class and ensure that every student was able to hear him.
Gender Acknowledgement
"Sitting in the same classroom, reading the same textbook, listening to the same teacher,
boys and girls receive very different educations." (Sadker, 1994) Through this, while calling on
students to answer questions, teachers want to ensure that there is no gender bias and girls are
called on as much as boys. The following graph shows how many times females and males were
called on in class.

Gender Acknowledgement Female-Male

30
25
20
15
10
5
0

Female

Male

Gender Acknowledgement Female-Male

Mr. Perez was able to call on both genders equally throughout the class. There is a slight
difference between the number of times females were called on by only two students but not
enough of a difference to assume gender bias and inequality.
While in class, Mr. Perez made a point to call on both genders equally. When a male
student was acting up in class or being disruptive, Mr. Perez pointed out the students behavior
and demonstrated how the student could fix his attitude. After doing so, Mr. Perez sought to
highlight another student that was being successful. Whether it is female or male, his main
acknowledgements were to stress the success of a student.
Conclusion
When thinking about schools in America today, I would agree with Mr. Perez that they
arent quite performing as well as they could be. There are a lot of issues that exist in schools
that can only be explained by asking why what we consider to be the problem is the problem. Mr.

Perez states that we consider the problem to be the student when they dont perform well in their
classes. However, Mr. Perez explains a reversal in the role of the problem as the student is the
victim of bad teaching. He states, The student will learn to learn when the teacher learns to
teach. This is an interesting philosophy. When thinking about the role of the teacher, I think
about what my role is. Personally, I want to be the teacher that inspires the imaginations of the
students, the educator that challenges the thinking of past generations and encourage my students
to do the same. If I can learn to light the fire in the hearts of students, they will continue to keep
it lit as they explore the world and all of its wonders.
This experience was very unique. I was able to understand various techniques that I
observed in Mr. Perezs teaching and was able to note some useful activities for my future
classroom. I know what a good teacher looks like. I have seen what goes in to creating a safe
environment for students and how their learning is affected by the teacher.
Dalai Lama. (1999). Education and the Human Heart. New York: J.P. Tarcher/Putnam.
DiAngelo, R., & Sensoy, O. (2010). Why we can't just tell you how to do critical multicultural
education (Vol. 12, pp. 97-102). National Association for Multicultural Education.
Fernandez-Balboa, J., & Marshall, J. (1994). Dialogical Pedagogy in Teacher Education: Toward
an Education Democracy (Vol. 45). Journal of Teacher Education.
Sadker, D., Sadker, M. (1994) Failing at Fairness: How Our Schools Cheat Girls. Toronto, ON:
Simon & Schuster Inc
Miller, J. (2010). Spirituality, Religion, and Peace Education. Information Age.

Description of Activity
Playing Assessment
Mirror Activity
History Activity
Playing Piece Wrong
Microphone
Student Lead Performance
Student Read Announcement
Performed Different Parts on Different
Instruments
Demonstrate What The Teacher Expects from
Students
Physically Moves For Breaths
Ascending Scale to Tuning Note
Greet Students at Door Before Class
Hot Spot

Code/Learning Styles/Intelligences
Logical
Visual
Linguistic/Logical
Auditory
Management/Auditory
Kinesthetic/Intra Personal
Kinesthetic/Intra Personal
Auditory
Management/Relationship Building
Kinesthetic/Visual/Auditory
Auditory/Intra Personal
Relationship Building
Intra Personal/Linguistic