TIPPR 6

Refined research question:

How does participating in service learning projects in local schools effect BYU student’s perceptions of the community and does the process effect student’s perceptions of their own roles within the community?

TIPPR 6

When I was cleaning out all of my old BYU stuff this summer I came across a notecard with the following quote on it:

While no one liberates themselves by their own efforts alone, neither are they liberated by others. The leaders must realize that their own conviction of the need for struggle was not given to them by anyone else--if it is authentic. This conviction cannot be packaged and sold; it is reached by means of totality of reflection and action. Paulo Freire Pedagogy of the Oppressed 

On the other side of the notecard, I wrote "Development should be a two part process, I learn from others as I help them to learn to develop their own skills". I created this notecard at the beginning of a participatory development class in my last year at BYU. At the time I envisioned an exotic future for myself working in Africa or Asia, but reading back over it now I think it applies to teaching and what I'm doing now. 

As part of that class, we went into local elementary schools to meet with principals, teachers and parents of ELL students to try and understand what challenges their children were facing in starting school and how we could work together to find solutions to those challenges. Reflecting on that experience now, I can see that it was very much an example of empowerment action research, although at the time I never thought of it as conducting research at all. Our goal was to facilitate a dialogue between the various stakeholders in that community, but I can see how the information that we collected during that process could have easily become a case study about the difficulties ELL students face at Farrer Elementary School.

For the last two years, Julia Ashworth has worked with my students on devising a theater piece and the more I think about it, the more I think it is a great example of the action research process. The process begins with the students choosing a topic to address and then all of the activities that follow help the students to examine that topic and refine their ideas about it and help them to express their concerns and opinions. It's an extremely powerful thing to see students using theater games to explore their concerns about their lives and communities. This year we are changing the format a little bit and exploring a topic that Scott and I chose. Although we haven't narrowed down a specific research question, we have decided that we want the students to explore the idea of education and their views on why it is or is not necessary and what does it mean to be educated? I think our selection of a research focus may actually make the process more like an actual action research project with the stakeholders (students) addressing a topic that is very important in their lives. Hopefully it will help students to feel empowered about their educational futures.

I do believe that my role as an teacher should be as an advocate for social change and helping students to find their own convictions, I really like the idea of using action research to do so.

Also, although it doesn't really relate to the other things I've been talking about here, I wanted to mention how much I loved the idea of photovoice action research. When I was teaching in Mississippi I always wanted to do an assignment where I sent the kids home with disposable cameras and asked them to take a picture of what they considered home, then I would develop the pictures and we would talk about why they chose to take the picture that they took. For one reason or another I never actually did the project but reading the section on photovoice has convinced me that I definitely want to do this assignment in the future.