TEACHER INTERVIEW

Montevideo High School
April 22, 1992
 
Q.   Your principal said you taught psychology?
 
A.   Uh-huh.
 
Q.   And how long have you been teaching?
 
A.   This is my 13th year.
 
Q.   And how many of them here?
 
A.   All.  I have Intro to Psychology and Advanced Psychology,
     and I'm working with students in independent study and
     advanced placement, which might be a course offering in the
     future but it is not currently.  This is the first year
     they're offering the exam so I have some students who are
     interested in trying the exam even though we don't have a AP
     class yet.
 
Q.   Okay.  Can you tell me about an incident that happened to
     you or someone you know in which your work life was
     influenced or shaped by the principal?  For example, how you
     select curriculum materials, what you teach or how you
     teach, how you group students, how you deal with discipline,
     how classes are scheduled, how parent communications are
     handled, any  --
 
A.   Directly from the principal or just the system in general?
 
Q.   Well, from the principal.  We'll get to the system.
 
A.   Okay.  I can't really think of any specific instance where
     the principal himself is like you have to do this or --
     although this year my principal did ask me to preview a
     mini-series video on prejudice and he felt like it would be
     appropriate in my subject area and asked if I would show
     that and give him the student feedback on whether it was
     valuable or not.  That's the only thing that I can
     specifically think of that he himself has requested.
 
Q.   In terms of scheduling and things -- scheduling of classes.
 
A.   Like which classes would be offered?
 
Q.   Uh-huh.
 
A.   Basically the classes are offered if enough students sign up
     and that's what goes.
 
Q.   So students signing up determines somewhat your course
     offerings?
 
A.   Uh-huh, if you don't have any students sign up for a class,
     then -- but it's all the classes here are basically offered,
     when the students register, shortly thereafter we find out
     how many sections we'll have of certain classes.
 
Q.   Okay.  Incident -------- by the superintendent?
 
A.   Again, I can't think of anything specific.  We have been,
     over the last several years, having to come up with district
     exams mainly for required courses so that each school in the
     district has the same basic goals and objectives, and same
     basic -- you know, if a student transfers from Montevideo
     to Westwood or whatever, that they would be getting the same
     information, same basic goals and so on from school to
     school, so there has been those directives coming from the
     superintendency, to come up with those unified goals.
 
Q.   Okay.   Incident -- department chair.
 
A.   I'm pretty much of an individual _____ in my department
     because I'm the only one who teaches an elective in my
     department.  The others are required courses.
 
Q.   Would that be social studies?
 
A.   Yes, social studies, and I'm the only who teaches psychology
     so I pretty much get to do what I want.
 
Q.   Sounds good.
 
A.   And the department chair -- the only thing that's an
     influence maybe is getting supplies or whatever, you know,
     having to fight for my share of materials and the budget
     since I am the only one who teaches that course, as the only
     elective in our department.
 
Q.   What might you need funds for?
 
A.   Supplemental materials, videos, books, magazines, those
     kinds of things.
 
Q.   And you request that through your department chair?
 
A.   Yes.
 
Q.   Who has control of that budget?  Does each chair have their
     own budget?
 
A.   Yeah, each department has their own budget, and you have to,
     as an individual teacher, if there is something I want, I
     fill out a request and if it's a reasonable amount and
     something that I need for my classroom, the department chair
     signs and approves it and then it goes to the principal for
     approval, but it's usually -- if there's money in the budget
     and the department chair has approved it, it goes through.
 
Q.   Then it comes out of the department budget?
 
A.   Yes.   Now, for major purposes, things that would be capitol
     outlay, that goes kind of on a wish list to the department
     and then it gets prioritized and given to the principal and
     the principal makes the final decision for the whole school
     of what department truly needs what for that year.
 
Q.   Incident -- school board?
 
A.   I can't think of anything in particular as far as the
     classroom goes.  I think, obviously all of these people try
     to influence, but it's not directly one person or one entity
     thing.  It's just kind of part of the system and it is just
     kind of accepted, the way things are.  So it's hard to think
     of any specific thing that makes you say "they did that."
 
Q.   Or something influences decisions you make.
 
A.   (Sighs).
 
Q.   Like what you teach and the content of the curriculum or how
     you teach it; is there any influence on how you teach or
     what you choose to teach?
 
A.   There's a lot of -- this doesn't come directly from the
     school board -- but there's a lot of pressure in (city name) to
     take various in-service classes on the latest educational
     cure-all, like mastery learning or clustered learning, you
     know, all the latest little things, and there are a lot of
     courses like that that you are kind of expected to at least
     know about -- when evaluations come up, they like to see
     evidence of those kinds of things.
 
Q.   So that kind of pressure is felt each year at your
     evaluation?
 
A.   Not directly, but if you are showing that you are doing
     cooperating learning or that you're implementing mastery
     learning strategies, or EEI, Essential Elements of
     Instruction, it goes over better in your evaluation.  So I'm
     not sure where all of that is coming from, except it's just
     the system in general as to what is emphasized.
 
Q.   Have you changed any of what you teach because of that or
     strategy?
 
A.   Yeah, I have in some cases, some cases with good results and
     some cases with very frustrating results.  As far as the
     content of what I'm teaching, I haven't really changed that.
     But sometimes the activities of the presentation changes.
 
Q.   What's something that you changed that you've kept?
 
A.   Probably some of the little things,  I did take an EEI class
     and there are a lot of little things that were helpful,
     activities, ideas to use, that I have kept.
 
Q.   Can you think of any examples of things that you decided not
     to use?
 
A.   That I'm in the process of talking about to use -- or at
     least modify mastery learning, it's very frustrating at the
     high school level.  Mainly because students perceive it as a
     chance not to study the first time, thinking I can come back
     and take this over and over and over again, so the self-
     motivation is not always there for students.
 
Q.   Do you think you could have a good evaluation without
     showing evidence of EEI cooperative learning/mastery
     learning?
 
A.   Constantly, without showing evidence of mastery learning or
     cooperative learning, I think you could still have a good
     evaluation; I think they  are really focusing on EEI right
     now.
 
Q.   How do you know that that's the focus?
 
A.   Because of some of the jargon and some of the comments from
     the principals that did the evaluating, what they're looking
     for, and the school district offers a lot of in-service
     classes in EEI, really pushes that, which I don't think is
     bad.  I felt I learned a lot of valuable things and I've
     used them.
 
Q.   Okay.  Incident -- state or federal programs, regulations or
     mandates?
 
A.   I can't think of anything specific.
 
Q.   Does something from the state department or federal
     government affect what you teach?
 
A.   Not really, I think, because I'm in an elective course, it's
     not -- I don't feel the pressure to, like in math or
     whatever, to have them at a certain level, have them pass
     the state reading test or the state math test, there is
     nothing --
 
 
Q.   And there are no federal or state funds that support your
     program?
 
A.   No, not a specialized program like that.
 
Q.   Influence -- legal or judicial judgments?
 
A.   Probably the only thing I can think of, you have to be
     careful of what you say in terms of your opinion, political
     and religious, and someone in the classroom -- the kids are
     very aware of that, too, even if something comes up that is
     appropriate, they'll say separation of church and state, you
     can't talk about that, or something about political camps or
     whatever.  That's kind of an odd feeling, you know, in that
     respect and not being able to give your own opinion.
 
Q.   How would a political candidate fit in there?  Because of
     some issues?
 
A.   Oh, issues, or just whether Republican, Democrat,
     independent --
 
Q.   You can't ask about that?
 
A.   Oh, you can -- well, I wouldn't.  It would be -- you can,
     but you have to be careful about, I guess saying your own
     opinion.  Like when Ev Mecham was -- you know, it was very
     difficult, you have to always walk a fine line and not give
     your opinion on whether he is good or bad or whatever.
 
Q.   Is that more because of the influence of the community?
 
A.   I don't know, possibly.
 
Q.   If you taught in North Scottsdale, do you think it would be
     different?
 
A.   I really don't know because I have only taught in (city name) and
     only in this school, it might be very different at other
     schools, too.
 
Q.   Incident -- parents?
 
A.   I used to be the pom sponsor which is a totally different
     setting several years, that was always a trial when it came
     to tryouts or how things were handled and so on, and who got
     to try out.  At that time there was a grade point average
     that was required in order to be eligible to try out.  Now
     they're part of the athletic group and so it's no pass, no
     play, which actually makes it easier on the kids, believe it
     or not, than before.
 
Q.   Because they don't have to have the grade point average?
 
A.   They don't have to have the grade point average, they just
     have to have passed a certain number of classes, so their
     GPA could be quite low.  I've had parents, you know, I had
     to say to them that their daughter was not eligible for
     tryouts, and they would take it to the school board.
 
Q.   Have you felt any parental influence in your classroom and
     what you choose to teach?
 
A.   No, not really.  I've had maybe some positive influence on
     parents giving me feedback saying, "I appreciate this," or
     "it was good for my students to hear this," but nothing that
     has really changed what I would have taught anyway.
 
Q.   Incident -- professional organization or teacher's
     association?
 
A.   Not specifically in the classroom.  When you say work life,
     are you talking total or are you talking about what goes on
     in the classroom?  Because I was thinking specifically in
     the classroom.
 
Q.   All the things that affect what your work is, what courses
     you teach, what your work day is like -- I know the
     association has something to do with the _____________, how
     you discipline, how you communicate with parents, anything
     associated with your work in preparation for being in the
     classroom.
 
A.   I can't think of anything specific on that, either.
 
Q.   This one you might have already answered.  Influence -- in-
     service training or your own continued education.
 
A.   I've taken quite a few classes.  Since I started to work
     here, I've gotten a Masters degree and I've taken a lot of
     in-service classes.
 
Q.   What influenced you to get a master's degree?
 
A.   Salary.  Also, it was just kind of expected in my family,
     part of our upbringing, that you keep going in school
     forever.
 
Q.   I can identify with that.
 
A.   And I like taking courses.  In-service courses are mainly
     taken for salary credit.  Some of them have been very
     valuable, some of them have been fun but not necessarily all
     that valuable, and some of them weren't necessarily worth
     the time.
 
Q.   So that's one of the ways you can increase your salary here?
     Influence -- students?
 
A.   That probably more than any, at least on a day-to-day basis
     and year to year.  I'm always changing activities, get
     feedback from students on what works and what doesn't work,
     and occasionally I did questionnaires at the end of the
     semester to find out what was their favorite topic and why,
     and what would they leave out if they were teaching the
     course, and that kind of stuff.  I try to somewhat tailor it
     to their needs although still covering things that I think
     they need to know based on the type of kids I get.  I get
     kids ranging from people who are planning on going into
     psychiatry to kids that counselors have placed in the class
     because they think they need to be in a psychology class, so
     I've got all kinds of kids with all kinds of achievement
     levels and aspirations.  So I try to hit the basics of what
     kids that are going on into the field of psychology, what
     they're going to see again in college and so on, but at the
     same time, try to do those things that the kids who might
     not graduate might need to hear before they get out of
     school.
 
Q.   Interesting.  Incident -- influence by colleagues?
 
A.   I've taught biology before, I'm not currently teaching
     biology, but when I taught biology there were a lot of other
     teachers teaching that, too, so we worked closely together
     on what was the most important thing and what we should be
     covering and designing activities and labs and writing tests
     and etc., so there was a lot of close work on that.
     Sometimes in psychology, I'll ask colleagues for input on
     something, you know, what do you think?  how does this read?
     and I think this is valuable for the kids, but I'm pretty
     much a loner in terms of the final decision on what gets
     done in psychology.  A few years ago we had an instructional
     improvement specialist here; she was also one of the
     teachers, and she was really, really good.  And I would run
     by just about every writing assignment, she was an English
     teacher, every writing assignment and every activity I would
     say, what do you think about this? to get her feedback on
     it.  That was very helpful.
 
Q.   I'm not sure where this fits in, but you talked about AP,
     independent study right now, the content that you provide
     for those students who want to take the test is shaped by
     the test itself.  So you aware of what's in that test and
     you provide them --
 
A.   No, this -- yeah, hopefully in the future  I will be more
     aware of it, but this is the first year they're offering an
     exam and for other AP courses like biology or physics or
     English that they have been giving the exams for years and
     years, they have access to past tests to see what they're
     like, level of difficulty, that kind of stuff, but there's
     no past psychology test, so I really don't -- I have an
     outline of what they said will be the content of the test,
     provided by the College Board, but there's no telling
     whether it's going to be easy, difficult or real difficult
     for the students.  It's hard to know how to prepare them.
     So they're basically hoping that they have covered the
     things that are going to be on the test and they come in at
     lunch time and go over things that were done in classes and
     do extra things.
 
Q.   And then the district exams, those are just for required
     courses or is there one for psychology?
 
A.   There's not one for psychology.  At one point we were
     supposed to write one but it never happened, and when I
     called the district office and said, "Are we going to get
     together and do this?"  they said, "We haven't heard
     anything more, so we'll call you if we're going to do this,"
     and that was several years ago, so I'm hoping there won't be
     one.  I don't think that there will be.  There are district
     goals and objectives for psychology, which is the first
     phase towards writing the test, and we were -- all the
     psychology teachers in the district did get together quite a
     few times to try to hash out the goals and objectives.  I do
     pretty much meet those but I have no idea whether the other
     schools are following those or not.
 
Q.   I wonder if it's difficult to meet the goals and objectives
     when you have the kinds of students that you told me about,
     that run a wide gamut of needs and expectations, I guess, of
     the course.
 
A.   Well, the goals and objectives are supposed to represent to
     the district 60 percent of your course content, that allows
     40 percent for the individual teacher to expand on certain
     things or to introduce new topics, depending upon their
     specialty or the needs of their students.  So there's only
     supposed to be 60 percent that we all have in common.
 
Q.   So the goals and objectives are the 60 percent?
 
A.   Yes.
 
Q.   And that was developed by --
 
A.   The psychology teachers.  Since then we have added a second
     semester course and I don't know if the other schools are
     offering a second semester psychology or not.  We started it
     here and I think maybe (city name) High was going to offer it, but
     there have not been goals and objectives written for that
     second semester course for the whole district.  I have
     written some but they haven't -- we haven't all gotten
     together and written them down.  Some of the -- I have a
     feeling that some of the things that other teachers are
     doing in the first semester, I have now put into the second
     semester course so that it's not truly comparable to go from
     one school to the next.
 
Q.   What about the textbooks?
 
A.   The textbooks have to be selected -- a course is offered in
     a district and it's offered at any of the schools, they have
     to use the same textbook, the same course is the same
     textbook, so that's something that does influence my work
     life.
 
Q.   And who selects the textbook?
 
A.   The teachers do, but it's a matter of trying to hash out
     which book gets chosen.  I ended up getting -- because I
     introduced the second semester course and no one else is
     going to offer it, I got to choose the book because no one
     else is going to offer it.  In the future, if other high
     schools offer that second semester course and it's time to
     adopt a new textbook, they'll have to be in on it.
 
Q.   So when you chose that textbook, who had to approve it?
 
A.   I had to review several books and do a critique on them and
     express which one I wanted to do and show why that was the
     appropriate one, and that was submitted to the school board,
     and the school board puts them on display for -- I'm not
     sure how long, probably two to four weeks, or some number of
     weeks for the public to come in and review them if they want
     to, and so the community can say "no" to a book if they find
     something objectionable in it.  But, in most cases, the
     book, after it has been on display for a while and no one
     vocalizes any specific objection, then the school board
     adopts that as the textbook.  So the school board does make
     the final decision.
 
Q.   Influence -- community?
     

Q.   Incident -- particular incident in which you felt the
     community influence?
 
A.   I think there's pressure there to offer more AP courses
     because more and more parents are allowing their students to
     take advanced placement and try to get college credit before
     they get out of high school.
 
Q.   Is that what stimulated your starting the independent study,
     AP?
 
A.   Kind of, yeah.  I went to the APA convention last  summer,
     the American Psychological Association, and that was focused
     on the AP exam.  And I didn't know that that was what it was
     going to be focusing on.  The seminars for the high school
     teachers were almost totally if you're AP courses is what --
     and that surprised me, because I was just looking for new
     ideas and information, so that got me to thinking about it,
     and then our principal is really big on AP courses, very
     big, and very proud of it, so I just mentioned to my classes
     that if anybody was interested in taking the exam, they were
     welcome to do that, and I had quite a few students who were
     interested.  In fact, a whole lot were interested in it but
     it came down to about ten students who were serious about
     it.  So I said, well, I'll give you the information that I
     can, even though we don't actually have the --
 
Q.   So they meet on their own time?
 
A.   They meet on their own time at lunch time and most of them
     are actually in the second semester class right now.
 
Q.   Can you describe out of your own experience or that of
     someone you know directly, a creative attempt made to
     improve the classroom, teaching methods, the curriculum, or
     student achievement that was thwarted or substantially
     altered by any of the sources?
 
A.   I can't think of anything in particular.  I think the
     general feeling is though that if nobody comes up with
     creative ideas because it's not worth the hassle, so it just
     doesn't even happen.  I can't think of anything specific.
 
Q.   What's the hassle?
 
A.   It's just different, you know.  If it requires scheduling
     changes or identifying particular students.  I don't think
     it -- it might not be that big of a hassle, but it's just
     the general feeling that "this is the way we do it, so let's
     just leave it that way."  I think it's just more a general
     attitude and not anything in particular.  There has been --
     the superintendent has started a program that would help
     where you challenge the district and you can say, "This is
     our proposal, this is what we would like to do, and this is
     the exact plan of what we would like to do," and supposedly
     if you have written it up well and it makes sense, then the
     superintendency has to back it for three years in a pilot
     program to see if it works.  So it's a matter of do you want
     to support the energy to write a proposal and try to get it
     accepted.
 
Q.   If someone were to introduce some creative or innovative
     teaching strategy or incorporate outside resources or maybe
     expand into a different content area in that way, would
     there be problems?
 
A.   No, not really, in terms of bringing in outside resources or
     bringing in speakers and things like that, we do have
     guidelines, if it's a controversial issue, you have to have
     somebody presenting both sides, so typically on guest
     speakers you run it by the principal and make sure it's
     appropriate for your classes and it's not controversial or,
     if it is, both sides are presented.  You can get in a lot of
     trouble if you bring in some radical or whatever and you
     don't bring in the other side.
 
Q.   Would you say that's more to fit in with community standards
     and expectations?
 
A.   I think that -- maybe that is, but I think that's district
     policy on the controversial issues.  I think there's
     actually a written policy on that.
 
Q.   Can you describe for me a failed attempt by any of these
     sources to influence you that you resisted?
 
A.   I can't think of anything.
 
Q.   Okay.  What does it mean to you when people talk about
     bureaucratic constraints on teachers?
 
A.   I think in terms of, I guess, more overall attitudes and not
     any particular piece of paper that you have to fill out or
     anything like that.  I think maybe just the unwillingness to
     try something really different, major overhauls, that's what
     I feel.  Things like bell scheduling, that's one of the
     things that drives teachers crazy, you might be in the
     middle of something really important and the bell rings, or
     you get done 20 minutes early and the bell doesn't ring and
     you have to keep them in class.  Those types of things are
     very frustrating and not being able to change schedules to
     meet the true needs.  For example, in lab classes where you
     really desperately need more time to do a lab and it's just
     not fair to have to try to do something in 52 minutes that
     really needs an hour and a half, and by the time you set
     something up and get it going and then have to stop and then
     start again the next day, you end up taking more days to do
     a lab than it would have taken if you had just done it all
     together, so those types of things, I guess, is what I think
     bureaucracy is.  It's the way we do it, the way it's always
     been, and that's that.  Can't try anything different.  My
     husband teaches in another school in (city name) and when they
     first opened, they tried some different types of scheduling
     and some of the teachers even complained about -- oh, this
     is not what we're used to, I can't deal with this -- and so
     it ended up going back to the same old thing.  Maybe because
     of the teachers as much as anything else.
 
Q.   The last question I have I'll have you look at while I ask
     you to refer to it, I would like you to rank the following
     activities according to the degree of control and discretion
     that you feel you are able to exercise -- 1, the activity
     over which you feel you have the most control, to 4, the
     least control.
 
A.   Probably most control would be selection of content.
     Grading practices would be 2, 3 would be selection of
     teaching techniques, and least control would be discipline
     of students.
Q.   Okay.  Then I have just two survey questions -- I'll give
     you this and a pen.  Just circle the ones that you feel --
     the response that most applies to your situation.