Chapter 3 Interview and Reflection

I choose to interview a middle school girl for Reflection 3.11.  I wanted to get a perspective as far from my own as I could.  I'll admit to putting this assignment off to the last minute and, with the discussion about the differences between adolescent boys and girls in Ed Psych today this idea felt even better to me.  I really wanted to get a female adolescent perspective on the influence of teachers.  Just to preface her answers, I did NOT expect the answers that I got.

For this reflection, these were "complete the sentence" interview questions:

If I were repeatedly ignored, I would... go up to the teacher after class and talk to him/her.

If I often received praised for mediocre work, I would... feel okay about it still.

If I were constantly reprimanded, although I did nothing wrong, I would... go up to the teacher after class and talk to him/her.

Before I talk about what I learned from this, I have to say.  The way the questions were asked they had to be rephrased for the student.  She didn't understand when explained and read the statement to her. 

So, I was very surprised by the maturity of the responses for the first and last statements.  I expected much more internalization and less problem solving.  I expected her to express some kind of feelings about how the teacher was treating her and, even with some leading, I couldn't get any more out of her.

I was less surprised about her accepting the praise for mediocre work.  She was very hesitant about this response but again, when asked, did not elaborate.  I think that, because it was positive feedback, that was better than negative feedback so she didn't really want to mess with what was a better situation than being told she wasn't doing well.  Now, I realize that is reading a lot into how she answered and I may be stretching her tone and hesitancy further than I should.

Achievement

a·chieve·ment

 /əˈtʃivmənt/ Show Spelled[uh-cheev-muhnt] Show IPA

–noun

1.

something accomplished, esp. by superior ability, special effort, great courage, etc.; a great or heroic deed: his remarkable achievements in art.

2.

act of achieving; attainment or accomplishment: the achievement of one's object.

While that is the dictionary.com definition, I have never thought of achievement as implying great things.  I've always viewed it much more as the secondary definition of attaining one's object.  If you've ever seen the movie "What about Bob?" with Bill Murray, I like "baby steps".  This leads into my three "favorite" characteristics of achievements.  

First, achievement is personal.  It is not an achievement if the person doing it doesn't view it as such.  For me, getting my homework done in time for class is not an achievement.  Remembering everyone's name in class is much more so because for me, it was a challenge.  Not to say that the homework is not a challenge but, for me, because it is a requirement of the course it is not personal.

Second, achievement does not come easily.  Again, I am poor at names, so remembering everyone's name is an achievement for me.  It is also personal.  The difficulty is personal to me but that challenge may not be recognized by someone else.

Finally, achievement is about bettering yourself.  To keep with the remembering of names, I recognize that I need to get better at learning people's names.  I need to practice doing so.  Next time, learning 32 names won't really be much of an achievement for me.  Working to remember more and more peoples names will be.  I think you have to raise the bar on your own achievements.