Maybe it was innocent. Perhaps it was naive. All I know now is that asking future teachers to speak about diversity can be an intense experience. The conversations were only an hour in duration. Further, the event was bracketed by several formalities. With all of this, there was no expectation of my exhilaration and awe. I suppose I’m waiting for potency to fade before going back to the data. For now, I feel I ought to confess that whatever hint of remote and objective research is gone. The sterile glass container has shattered and I’m shocked by all that has poured forth. Even as it spills over me, it is still too sudden to decide whether the contents are scaldingly hot or bracingly cold. There is a much longer story to be told. But for now, I wanted to report that I had not expected all that emerged.
I made use of the recommended Seidman interview protocol. First, I asked them to describe their experiences with diverse populations, in school and work, prior to entering the program. I then shared with them their responses to the surveys and we looked to see where their views had changed the most. I also invited them to describe any “critical incidents” (what they renamed as “whoa” or “wow” moments). I had expected and hoped that they would describe a pivotal course reading, classroom debate, or even a confrontation during their field experiences that shook them and shaped their views. While some of that did emerge, there were other revelations and disclosures that caught me off-guard.
I made use of the recommended Seidman interview protocol. First, I asked them to describe their experiences with diverse populations, in school and work, prior to entering the program. I then shared with them their responses to the surveys and we looked to see where their views had changed the most. I also invited them to describe any “critical incidents” (what they renamed as “whoa” or “wow” moments). I had expected and hoped that they would describe a pivotal course reading, classroom debate, or even a confrontation during their field experiences that shook them and shaped their views. While some of that did emerge, there were other revelations and disclosures that caught me off-guard.
One physics student told me that he graduated from the smallest high school in our state and experienced almost no diversity at that time. He recalled, as he was at a private New England school, how he would occasionally see the one black student (a woman) on campus and being struck by her presence. In contrast, his student teaching experience was in the largest high school in the state. He spoke with such respect and admiration for his students that it was hard not to be moved. He was reverential but also quite clear that his direct interactions with individual students shattered any stereotypes he might have had about urban youth. Not everything was ideal and he reported his revlusion when another teacher spoke disparagingly of "those Spic students." Despite that individual, this novice teacher could not have been more complimentary about the students.
Another graduate described growing up in the rural south. She met her future spouse over the web and during a courting phone call, he revealed that he was Jewish. She had no sense about the potential significance beyond this being a religious background. A third revealed that he student taught in his former high school and that he was witnessing a substantial demographic shift, a shift to which not all faculty were responding an in admirable fashion. Another (also physics) was deeply influenced by the notion of hegemony and found Paulo Freire to give him intellectual tools that he desperately needed to make sense of his chosen profession.
Two interviewees were especially striking. Both persons were unknown to me before the interview and yet were sufficiently willing to share their views that we exceeded their one-hour scheduled times with me. The first tearfully described a conflict in a multicultural course where her classmates expressed dismay by her racist comments about Middle Eastern Muslims. They were troubled by her claims that members of that population operate within a culture where human life is undervalued and where violence is an almost expected trait. Truly, her comments sound harsh. My understanding is that the course instructor struggled to manage the explosion of words on that day. But she was tearful during my interview, I believe because she felt so strongly and was not being fully understood. She also explained that she lived in Israel for over two years (as an adult), has gained Israeli citizenship, maintains close contact with folks there, and returns as often as she can. All of this to say that her "racist" comments arose from direct experience. She knows people who have died from attacks. Her views of diversity, while not uniformly accepting, are so much better informed than mine.
The other striking interview was a student who also was raised in a homogenous and privileged setting but was placed in another tough urban high school setting. As with the first student, she developed immense admiration for her students and came to understand why they behaved as they did. But this was accompanied by an ever-growing horror about how adults in the school interacted with the students. The worst offender was her host teacher for reasons I'll reveal some other time. She spoke so glowingly about her students and was so sincere in her efforts to accommodate their language difference and home backgrounds that I asked if those factors were influencing her job search strategies. I was knocked speechless when she said she had decided to not be a teacher but was pursuing a receptionist position in NYC. Her passion for her subject matter (esp. poetry) and her delight with passing that appreciation along to urban students failed to alert me to just how awful the things were that she witnessed. It came down to her host teacher who was devious and manipulative -- yet powerful and well-regarded within her school. That person drove this ambitious and dedicated individual away from the profession.
Beyond their willingness to share, there was a startling intimacy that thrilled and frightened me. The stories they told were incredibly evocative and stirring.
I became lost in what they were sharing and stopped being a researcher and instead became a witness. I am by how vividly they could relate their experiences and emotions. In addition, they felt free to do so. In turn, i believe I had a physiological response, a combination of the empathy I felt for them in their uncomfortable circumstances as well as a drive to use what influence I have to make things right. But when the stories ended, I came back to the realization that it was just the two of us, separated from everyone else but now simply in a small meeting room. The incident was over despite how powerful it had all been just moments before. And then the interview reached its end. I thanked them for sharing, invited them to select a water bottle, and they shook my hand as they left. I appreciated what they had to say and was pleased that I had been able to create a space for them to feel comfortable talking about their views. But still, the intensity of this encounter startled me and I wonder what to do with the confusion of sensations. I have since discovered that others have written about similar feelings but with much more difficult topics (e.g., survivors of violence or responding to death of someone close). I knew there was something valuable regarding diversity that could emerge from individual interviews. I just had no warning of the immense intensity that would accompany the story-telling.