ASTL Portfolio

ANDREW MCCARTNEY
GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY
2016

Contents
Part One: Introduction .................................................... 6
ASTL Learning Outcomes ............................................ 7
Professional Documentation ...................................... 9
Education ................................................................ 9
Certifications ........................................................... 9
Teaching Experience ............................................... 9
Related Experience ............................................... 10
Test Scores ............................................................ 10
The Author and the Setting....................................... 11
Part Two: Concentration Courses ................................. 12
EDSE 503: Language Development and Reading ...... 13
EDSE 540: Characteristics of Students with Disabilities
who Access the General Curriculum ......................... 25
EDSE 540: Adapted Instructional Methods and
Transition for Secondary Learners ............................ 44
EDSE 597: Social and Emotional Characteristics of
Students with Disabilities.......................................... 48
EDSE 627: Assessment .............................................. 69
EDSE 628: Elementary Reading, Curriculum, and
Strategies for Students who Access the General
Education Curriculum ............................................... 78
EDSE 629: Secondary Curriculum and Strategies for
Students with Disabilities who Access the General
Curriculum................................................................. 90
2

EDSE 662: Consultation and Collaboration ............... 93

Additional Coursework: .......................................... 100
EDIS 5000: The Exceptional Learner (UVA) ......... 101
EDIS 5041: Behavior Management (UVA) ........... 102
EDIS 5100: Emotional and Behavioral Disorders
(UVA) ................................................................... 103
EDRS 621: Qualitative Inquiry in Education (GMU)
............................................................................ 104
EDD 557: Theories of Growing and Learning (UP)
............................................................................ 112
EDD 546: Foundations of Education (UP) ........... 117
Part Three: Core Courses ............................................ 118
Inquiry into Practice ................................................ 119
Autobiographical Study ....................................... 119
Teacher Beliefs Statement .................................. 139
How Students Learn ................................................ 152
Critical Article Review ......................................... 155
Case Study of a Learner ...................................... 160
Student Learning: ................................................ 167
Designing and Assessing Teaching and Learning .... 191
Education and Culture ............................................ 205
Educational Change ................................................ 247
Part Four: Synthesis .................................................... 268

Conclusion ........................ Error! Bookmark not defined.

References .................................................................. 279
Appendices and Miscellaneous................................... 279
Appendix A .......................................................... 298
Appendix B .......................................................... 305
Appendix C .......................................................... 306
Appendix D .......................................................... 308
Appendix E .......................................................... 309
Appendix F .......................................................... 310
Appendix G .......................................................... 311
Appendix H .......................................................... 312
Appendix I ........................................................... 313
Appendix J ........................................................... 314
Appendix K .......................................................... 336
Appendix L........................................................... 359
Appendix M ......................................................... 361
Appendix N .......................................................... 363
Appendix O.......................................................... 365
Appendix P .......................................................... 368
Appendix Q.......................................................... 369
Appendix R .......................................................... 370

Part One: Introduction

ASTL Learning Outcomes

1. Student Learning
Teachers are committed to student learning
2. Content Knowledge and Effective Pedagogy
Teachers know the subjects they teach and how to
teach those subjects to students.
3. Monitoring Student Learning
Teachers are responsible for managing and
monitoring student learning.
4. Systemic Inquiry of Practice
Teachers think systematically about their practice
and learn from experience.
5. Learning Community
Teachers are members of learning communities.
6. Diversity
Teachers attend to the needs of culturally,
linguistically, and cognitively diverse learners.
7. Change Agent
Teachers are change agents, teacher leaders, and
partners with colleagues.

8. Technology
Teachers use technology effectively to facilitate
student learning and their own professional
development.

Professional Documentation
Education
M.Ed. Curriculum and Instruction (2016 Expected)
Concentration: Advanced Studies in Teaching and
Learning -- Special Education
George Mason University, Fairfax, VA
B. A. Psychology (2010)
College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA
Additional Coursework
University of Virginia (2011-2012)
University of Phoenix (2014)
Certifications
Virginia Collegiate Professional License
Endorsements:
Special Ed. - General Curriculum K-12
English
History & Social Sciences
Mathematics
Medication Administration Training for Youth
Crisis Prevention and Intervention
Teaching Experience
The Kellar School of INOVA Kellar Center
Special Education Teacher

Related Experience
Rita Welsh Adult Literacy Center
Student Volunteer (Tutor)
Wediko Childrens Services
Direct Care Staff
The Kellar School of INOVA Kellar Center
Milieu Specialist
Test Scores
Praxis Series
Praxis II: Mathematics Content Knowledge
170 (E)
Praxis II: Social Studies Content Knowledge
190 (E)
Praxis II: English Language Arts Content Knowledge
198
Praxis II: Reading for Virginia Educators (Elementary and
Special Education)
194
Virginia Communications and Literacy Assessment
580
GRE General Revised Test
Verbal Reasoning
167
(97th)
Quantitative Reasoning
160
(78th)
Analytical Writing
5.5
(98th)

10

The Author and the Setting

11

Part Two: Concentration Courses

12

EDSE 503: Language Development and

Reading
This course was an in depth investigation into
reading instruction with particular emphasis on
students with special education needs. Language and
literacy development, phonemic awareness, decoding,
reading comprehension, and technological tools for the
study of reading were all covered.
The major coursework for this class was an
informal reading report--a case study of a student in my
classes, with attention to reading skills, fluency, and
emerging literacy. The entirety of this case study has
been included in the following pages.

13

INFORMAL READING REPORT

Student Name: ntonia
Grade: 11
Disability: Emotional Disability
Tester: Andrew McCartney

Age: 17

Date: 11/07/2013
11/21/2013

*FOR EDSE 503 PRACTICE ASSIGNMENT ONLY. NOT AN

OFFICIAL REPORT.
STUDENT BACKGROUND INFORMATION
ntonia is a 17 year old student with a complicated
history with respect to language and reading. During
the crucial developmental period for language
acquisition in her early childhood, ntonia went
through a series of traumatic events, including the
death of her biological parents, placement in an
orphanage, adoption, and subsequent emigration to the
United States. At that time, she was enrolled in a local
ESOL program to facilitate English language proficiency.
Currently, she is placed in private day school for
concerns related to her classification of Emotional
Disability.
In informal surveys, ntonia reports that she had a
positive relationship with reading as a child and that she
continues to read for pleasure. However, in response to
one question, she reported that there were not many
14

opportunities for her to read as a child. Additionally, her

survey responses indicate that vocabulary is an issue,
with answers reporting that she skips words of which
she doesnt know the meaning and that she does not
attempt to figure meanings out. She also reported that
she reads more slowly in her head than she does out
loud.
Oral Language Development
ntonia is fluent in both English and Hungarian.
However, her oral English contains occasional misuse
and malapropism, and her written English evidences
issues related to spelling and vocabulary. Teachers
further note that she is prone to mispronunciation
when reading aloud. ntonia spent several months as a
teenager living with Spanish-speaking street gangs. She
sometimes appears to have difficulty recognizing that
code switching is necessary between the variety of
English spoken by that group and the variety required at
school and in public life.
ASSESSMENT INFORMATION
IRI Description
ntonia was administered two informal reading
inventories: The Jennings Informal Reading Inventory
and the Qualitative Reading Inventory. The Jennings IRI
covers levels from pre-primer through 8th grade. The
15

Qualitative Reading Inventory (QRI) selections given

were intended for high school level students and it was
intended that the two IRIs would give a complete
picture of ntonias development with respect to
reading. As ntonia displays many lacunae,
characteristic of students with an Emotional Disability,
the assessment was started at the 7th grade level in
order to fully assess her skills across that range.
The Jennings IRI covers a students ability to correctly
read listed words without context, decoding of words
within a body of text, and reading comprehension in a
body of text. Results are categorized such that each
grade level passage is characterized as independent
(meaning the student can access this level of difficulty
without guidance), instructional (meaning the student
can access this level of text with some help and may
gain skills from the experience) and frustrational
(meaning that the student cannot access this level of
text and is not gaining anything from its study).
The QRI covers a students ability to read fiction and
non-fiction texts for comprehension and also assesses a
students reading strategies. The text consists of prequestions regarding word meanings, summarization,
and comprehension questions. Each of these pieces is
delivered in three stages. Stage one consists of a
narrative piece with pre-test questions about word
meanings and post-questions assessing comprehension.
In stage two, an additional task is added as the student
16

is asked to provide think-aloud statements with teacher

modeling. In stage three, the student is asked to do the
same but without teacher modeling. As in the Jennings
IRI, the QRI categorizes student responses as indicating
that a passage is at the independent, instructional, or
frustrational level.
Spelling Assessment Description
ntonia was also administered the Developmental
Spelling Inventory (DSI) in order to assess her
production. The DSI is an initial screening which allows
the examiner to pinpoint specific areas of weakness in
spelling through multiple levels of inquiry. For the
purposes of this assessment, ntonia was given the
screening which pointed to issues assessed by the
Derivational Constancy subtest, which she was
subsequently administered.
Supplemental Assessment Description
Finally, ntonia was asked to provide a writing sample
which was analyzed for the Six Traits of Writing as
produced by Education Northwest. These traits are:
ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence
fluency, conventions, and presentation. Each one of
these traits has a rubric which is used to analyze the
students writing for that particular quality, which is
then scored on a scale of 1-6, with scores below 4
indicating that the student is not proficient in that
17

quality. In this particular instance, ntonia wrote on the

topic of What is an event you will want to remember
when you are older?, a prompt pulled from Education
Northwests websites suggested prompts for this
evaluation. It is important to note that the assessment
of writing samples is inherently subjective. The rubrics
for the six traits of writing are intended to quantify
these in order to reduce subjectivity, but there may
exist room for error in these assessments.
READING ASSESSMENT RESULTS
Jennings IRI
Independent

Word Lists
Decoding
Comprehension

Instructional

Frustrational

7, 8
7, 8
7

Decoding
ntonias results for decoding indicated that she is on
the instructional level for the reading of words from the
word lists for the 7th and 8th grade. Frustrational level
was not reached because the Jennings IRI does not go
beyond the 8th grade. For decoding of words in context,
ntonia showed independent level skills for the two
passages, making few mistake and self-correcting many
of those made. ntonias most frequent mistake

18

seemed to be misplacement of emphasis or vowel

sounds on word with which she is unfamiliar.
Fluency
ntonias results on the Jennings IRI fluency subtests
indicate that she was near the 50th percentile for the
grade 7 selection, with a score of 127 correctly read
words per minute. Her scores for the grade 8 selection
fell between the 25th and 50th percentile, at 118
correctly read words per minute. It is important to note
here that ntonia made few errors in the reading of
these passages and the scoring of correct words per
minute reflects rate more than accuracy.
Comprehension
ntonias comprehension scores on the Jennings IRI
indicate that she was on the independent level for the
7th grade reading passage and instructional level for the
8th grade reading passage.
Her reading comprehension was further tested by the
QRI, on which test she showed frustrational level at all
subsections administered. Because ntonia had shown
this level for the fiction piece, testing was discontinued
as it was not indicated that she would perform better
on the non-fiction reading passage (recall that ntonia
frequently reads fiction for pleasure and that expository
writing is usually more challenging for struggling
19

readers). ntonia did show some improvement in stage

three of the non-fiction story, when she was tasked
with generating Im thinking about statements
without teacher prompting, but this score was still on
the frustrational side of the lower threshold.
WRITTEN LANGUAGE ASSESSMENT RESULTS
Spelling
As noted above, ntonias scores on the screening sheet
of this assessment indicated problems with derivational
constancy. As such, this subtest was administered.
Across the whole subtest, ntonia had seven correct
spellings out of 25 total words. Error analysis indicates
that she had no correct answers in words related to
silent/sound consonants and that her best subtest,
vowel changes, had three correct answers out of five
possible words. The other three subtests were
consonant changes (one out of five), Latin-derived
suffixes (2 out of 5) and assimilated prefixes (one out of
five).
Written Expression
As noted above, ntonia produced a writing sample
that was analyzed for the six traits of writing, the results
of which are listed below. ntonias writing
demonstrated inconsistency in organization and voice,
while presentation was an area of strength. It is worth
20

noting that while ntonia showed difficulty with

spelling on the previous assessment, she misspelled few
words in her writing sample, indicating that she is
capable of spelling words with which she is familiar. Key
elements that seem to require additional practice are
organization and voice, as her writing sample was
repetitive, poorly organized, and did not engage the
reader at a level expected of a high school junior.
Six traits of writing results
Ideas

organization

voice

word choice

sentence fluency

conventions

presentation

ASSESSMENT SUMMARY
ntonia was assessed due to teacher concerns related
to reading comprehension and oral language
production. She is a 17 year old bilingual student
classified with an Emotional Disability. She presented as
eager and curious during testing, though did show some
frustration as the assessment progressed through a long
21

session. This assessment probably represents an

accurate portrayal of her strengths and weaknesses.
ntonia was first assessed with the Jennings IRI, and her
results showed that she was independent or on an
instructional level in Decoding, Word Lists, and
Comprehension. As such, the assessment progressed to
include the QRI, an assessment intended for secondary
students. This examination proved to be at the
frustrational level for all subtests for ntonia. As this
QRI does not list grade levels for the subtests, it is
difficult to place her reading comprehension abilities in
context of her grade. However, at the very minimum
she appears to be below grade level as a Junior who is
not on the instructional level for any part of the QRI.
Additionally, ntonia evidenced difficulty with spelling
on the DSI, particularly with respect to the Derivational
Constancy subtest. Her later writing sample for the Six
Traits of Writing informal assessment showed a much
lower degree of spelling difficulty. This suggests that
ntonias difficulty with spelling exists only for those
words with which she is unfamiliar. It does not bespeak
a student who lacks the ability to learn to spell well.
Rather, taken as a whole, her difficulty with
comprehension, spelling, and pronunciation of
unfamiliar words seem to be artifacts of her bilingual
status and relative unfamiliarity with the English
language. Furthermore, the educational disruptions
secondary by her ED classification (frequent placement
22

shifts, long gaps without instruction, etc) seem to have

exacerbated the difficulty with ELL until recently.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Instruction
ntonias results seem to indicate that her difficulty
with language stems mostly from her status as an
English Language Learner and student with ED. As such,
her team should consider goals and programs intended
to assist students with vocabulary building so that she
can increase her familiarity with the words and
concepts that underlie the curriculum she is intended to
be reading. Her team may consider if higher-level,
outside English as a Second Language programs exist
that she may use for mastery beyond what she received
when she was younger to improve vocabulary and
pronunciation.
One practice for spelling instruction that has been
demonstrated to be effective for students in the past is
Cover, Copy, Compare in which students can generate
immediate and private feedback on how they are
spelling each word. This may be considered for use
alongside other programs to improve ntonias written
production.
Additionally, her team may consider using programs
which teach vocabulary in context for English Language
23

Learners, as those have been shown to be more

effective for ELL students than programs that focus
solely on comprehension.
Recommendations for Parents
ntonia enjoys reading for pleasure, and she and her
family should consider incorporating vocabulary
practice into her regular reading in order to build upon
reading comprehension in the future. Additionally, she
has reported in the past that she enjoys journal writing
as an activity, and this should be encouraged to
generate additional practice for her writing production.
Andrew McCartney
12/3/2013

24

EDSE 540: Characteristics of Students

with Disabilities who Access the General
Curriculum
This course was an introduction to the
characteristics and needs of students who meet criteria
for Special Education services but who are not severely
disabled. Topics included the origins of their unique
needs, contributing factors, conditions that affect
learning, identification of students with disabilities, and
the needs and usage of accommodations.

The major coursework for this class was an in

depth case study of a student with mild disabilities,
which has been included in its entirety in the following
pages.

25

Introduction
Though their numbers are limited by the very
nature of their situation, there are many students who
exhibit both the qualities necessary to be identified as
students with disabilities under the Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act while simultaneously
exhibiting the qualities necessary for inclusion in gifted
and talented programs. In an exploratory article, FoleyNicpon, Assouline, and Colangelo (2013) found that
teachers in gifted programs are the most
knowledgeable about how to work with these twiceexceptional learners (but see their discussion for
limitations). This would imply that there is a growing
body of knowledge on how best to deal with the gifted
part of their education with less emphasis on their
needs from a special education standpoint.
To this end, the present study presents the case of a
student who is both highly intelligent and classified
under Emotional Disturbance. It was found that
Brummelman et als (2013) model for student praise, in
which a students self-perception could be impacted
significantly by the educational demands and adult
expectations, had interesting connections with
Jonathans case. Their model, which will be explored
below, provides a foundation for how best to engage
students with feedback on their work and to help them
manage their expectations for themselves.
Students Demographic Data
26

Jonathan Strange is a seventeen year old rising

junior at a small, private, therapeutic day school in
suburban Northern Virginia. His parents are welleducated individuals with doctoral degrees who work
high in Executive Branch departments in Washington,
D.C. He resides in a very well-to-do community just
south of the city, along with the families of many who
work in government, advocacy, and public policy fields
in the area. He has one older brother, Walter, who
attends university elsewhere in the state. Jonathan is a
tall and formidable student with long hair and a massive
beard, whose friends at Hurtfew Abbey School (HAS)
affectionately call Thor for his rather Viking
appearance.
Description of School and Neighborhood
Jonathan Stranges current school placement,
Hurtfew Abbey School, is located near the center of a
small city that is a suburb in the greater Washington,
D.C. area. The school has been operating for roughly 15
years and serves students with a variety of disabilities,
most notably students with Emotional Disability,
Learning Disabilities, Intellectual Disabilities, and Other
Health Impairments. During the Extended School Year
(ESY) program, the student body was 79% male and
21% female. Additionally, the racial and ethnic makeup
of the school was 63% Caucasian, 16% Hispanic, 16%
African American, 5% East Asian and 5% from
Southwest Asia. These demographic data do not
necessarily reflect the makeup of the school during the
27

remainder of the yearfor example, the gender ratio at

Hurtfew Abbey had been close to 50-50 during the
2012-2013 school year.
Students are placed at this private school via public
school districts who find that these students are unable
to be successful within their public special education
framework. This process can be lengthy, and as a result,
most students who attend Hurtfew Abbey have
attended a variety of school placements and programs.
Furthermore, as a result of the placement procedure
the students at HAS exhibit all the diversity of the D.C.
metropolitan area. For example, roughly 5% of the
students at the school are from within the District itself.
Others run the socioeconomic spectrum from less
affluent parts of the suburbs, rural regions to the south,
and very well-to-do neighborhoods as in the case of
Jonathan. Perhaps as a result of the nature of the
parents who are drawn to an area full of high-tech
headquarters, policy firms, and government jobs, there
is a wider academic culture of perfectionism. Students
in this region are some of the most advanced and high
achieving in the nationthis achievement is often
fostered through competition and high expectations set
by teachers and especially parents, who were often
high-achieving students themselves. It is within this
background that this study seeks to analyze Jonathan
Strange, for reasons related to academic performance,
achievement, and perfectionism.

28

Educational History
Jonathan Strange is an extremely capable
student, who scores in the Above Average to Very
Superior range in nearly all measures of intellectual and
cognitive capabilities. His Full Scale IQ score is 138,
which is in the 99th percentile of his age range and
which under normal circumstances would be part of a
determination to classify him as academically gifted.
Jonathans chart shows that he first started
having difficulties in the third grade, when he took on a
perfectionist attitude toward school work and began to
miss school. This pattern continued through elementary
school and middle school, but reached an apex in the 8th
grade when Jonathan was unable to be promoted to the
9th grade due to absences. Jonathan has reported that
he experiences severe anxiety around school
assignments, particularly longer written assignments,
and that this anxiety causes him to shut down. Over
time, the anxiety and absences build upon one another
in a feedback loop until one small assignment could
result in several weeks of absences, as he feels that
attending school without having completed a
homework assignment opens him up to the negative
scrutiny of others.
In the spring of 2010, a 504 plan was developed to
accommodate Jonathans needs in school. However, he
was re-evaluated in October for special education
services and found eligible under the Individuals with
29

Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) for Emotional Disability

as a result of his history of anxiety and depression.
During this time, Jonathan was briefly hospitalized for
depression and suicidal ideation and participated in a
partial hospitalization program (PHP). Since his
attendance at PHP, Jonathan has reported no more
suicidal ideation.
After his evaluation, he enrolled at The Career
Center, an alternative public school placement within
his jurisdiction which teaches core academic subjects
but also allows students to take classes of interest in
various careers and trades. The intention was for him to
complete credits for his 8th and 9th grade year; however,
he was unable to accrue any credits at that placement
for reasons related to attendance. At this time,
Jonathan was able to begin taking online classes to gain
credits for various classes, enabling his promotion to
the tenth grade and was placed at a private school in
the area for the remainder of 9th grade. However, he
was only awarded 1.5 credits there as a result of his
ongoing attendance issues.
In the spring of his tenth grade year, his IEP
team determined that Jonathan required a small,
therapeutic day placement in order to demonstrate
academic success. He toured and subsequently enrolled
at Hurtfew Abbey School. Since his enrollment,
Jonathan has had no unexcused absences and earned
grades which more accurately reflected his abilities.
However, toward the end of the regular school year and
30

several times during the ESY program at Hurtfew Abbey,

Jonathan has had repeated absences. Officially, these
have been due to illnesses and his parents and
counselor have considered them to be excused, but
there is speculation among both that Jonathan may be
exaggerating claims of migraines or illnesses in order to
avoid school. According to his IEP, he requires a doctors
note to substantiate all claims of illness in order for his
absences to be officially considered excused, but it does
not appear to be the case that he is bringing in a note
for these absences.
IEP goals, Objectives, and classroom accommodations
For his annual IEP, Jonathan has three goals.
First, he will attend school 90% of the time with only
excused absences by a doctors note for illness as
evidenced in the school attendance log. Secondly, he
will develop coping skills to manage negative emotions
by utilizing individual counseling to identify at least four
triggers for unpleasant emotions he experiences.
Finally, he will utilize an academic checklist 80% of the
time to manage his time and deadlines effectively in
order to reduce anxiety and stress as evidenced by
weekly staff review of the checklist.
However, for the purposes of this study
Jonathan is being observed in an Extended School Year
setting, during which time he is working on three
separate goals. Firstly, he will, in a school setting,
maintain communication with all teachers to discuss
31

assignments (including class work, homework,

tests/quizzes, special projects) and their due
dates/timelines to aid in the completion of said
assignments and homework 90% of the time given
weekly opportunities. His second goal is that he will
work with his counselor at school to learn and utilize
appropriate coping skills when confronted with feelings
of frustration and/or anxiety (in his continued attempt
to complete a full school day) 60% of the time given
daily opportunities. Finally, he will begin to identify
areas of strength that he already possesses and come
up with plans to achieve goals that are a result of his
abilities at least once a month 99% of the time given
meetings with staff.
It is important to note that all six of these goals
were written in the context of his academic habits
shortly after his enrollment at HAS and so do not reflect
the enormous progress he has made in a short time at
Hurtfew Abbey. For example, while he exhibited
extremely frequent unexcused absences from fourth
grade until the present, Jonathan has not had a single
unexcused absence since his time at Hurtfew. (Although
there has been some speculation among staff that his
occasional absences due to illness may not be entirely
truthful)
To aid in his progress at Hurtfew Abbey School,
Jonathan was originally given the accommodation of
small group size in order to reduce the impact of his
social anxiety. During the IEP meeting itself, he
32

advocated to add two more accommodations, namely:

breaks during tests and multiple test sessions. These
were added to his IEP accommodations to reflect his
stated needs.
Observational Information
Jonathan was observed during two class periods
of his ESY class, Workplace Readiness. This class is being
taught for the second summer in a row and is part of a
developing program at Hurtfew Abbey meant to help
students acquire and maintain employment. Originally
geared toward helping students discover and apply for
new jobs in the community, the program has expanded
its focus to include work placements, mock interviews,
and other real life applications. Furthermore, the
program is intended to help students work toward the
Virginia Workplace Readiness Skills test. As of the
upcoming 2013-2014 school year, all incoming
freshmen who do not earn the Advanced Studies
Diploma will be required to earn one certification in
Career and Technical Education (CTE). The intention is
to build a program within Hurtfew Abbey that would
enable students to pass the requisite examination on
site if they are unable to transition out of HAS to take a
more specific class.
On the day of the observations, Jonathans
teacher had passed out an informational packet for the
students on rsum writing. During the first
observational period, the observer arrived in time to
33

see the teacher award points for the students

homeroom meeting. Like many similar schools, Hurtfew
Abbey operates on a behavior management system in
which students are awarded points based on their
behavior during different time slots and use these to
work toward more privileges within the school.
Students points are also a useful method of data
tracking for staff, and are frequently employed to
incorporate students IEP goals into every class period.
One of Jonathans goals for his points is Name ways to
challenge myself at work and in class. He listed work
harder and always be doing something as answers to
receive full points. At first this seems to be related to his
three IEP goals for ESY, but on further examination it
does not appear to be the case.
Through both observations, Jonathan was seated at his
desk, bouncing his knee and listening to the teacher go
over the salient points of the informational packet. He
also has a frequent habit of doodling all over
assignments and notes, which can be seen in Appendix
A; however, it is clear from the work sample that he was
in part mapping out thoughts for what to put on his
rsum. Additionally, when there were relevant pieces
of information to fill in on the assignment, Jonathan had
them completed even before the teacher had finished
introducing the concept. It seems that he sometimes
doodles or is off task because the concepts or
assignment themselves are not really on his level.

34

However, one interaction with the teacher stood out

and was referenced later in the interviews: his teacher
asked What kind of skills are you putting on your
rsum, Jonathan? Curious, observant,
dedicateduh, thats all I put so far. You want skills
those are traits. Yeah His teacher then began to
explain examples of what kind of specific skills should
go on a rsum.
Through the remainder of the two observations,
Jonathan was attentive and polite, and spent the break
in between classes speculating with peers as to what
the researcher was doing in their classroom. It does not
appear that during the observation, Jonathan was given
direct instruction related to two of his IEP goals related
to work completion and identification of coping skills.
For the latter, it makes sense that such a conversation
would be addressed in group or individual counseling.
However, for the former his teacher reported that there
has not been a significant amount of work for the class
so far, though she intends to assign Jonathan a more
substantial project related to his interest in
mathematics.
Although there was not significant involvement of his
first two IEP goals during the observation, the activity in
which he listed his strengths and skills for his rsum
fits neatly within his third goal of identifying areas of
strength that he already possesses and coming up with
plans to achieve goals that are a result of his abilities.
He has identified mathematician as his main career
35

goal, and it is clear from page two of the work sample

(Appendix B) that he spent some of that time plotting a
career trajectory based on that goal. This did not appear
to be a formalized process during todays lesson, but
the wider Workplace Readiness program seems to be
geared toward helping students build upon their
strengths in order to reach employment and career
goals, so it is likely that Jonathan is making sufficient
progress toward that goal.
Teacher Interviews
After classroom observation, Jonathans teacher
for ESY, Mr. Norrell, was interviewed (see Appendix A)
about gaps in his abilities resultant from his frequent
absences, emerging concerns about social skills deficits
in Jonathans peer interactions, the challenges of
working with twice exceptional children, how to
manage school avoidant behaviors, and the teachers
general philosophy about education.
Mr. Norrells main concern about Jonathan is
that because of his school avoidance dating back to
elementary school, Jonathan missed a lot of what could
be considered very basic concepts like how to organize
a binder or fill out a job application. He mentioned that
it is easy to be tricked into assuming that students like
him know more than they do because professionals
might believe that because he is so proficient in
advanced topics that he must have covered the basics.
Furthermore, he believes that there are major social
36

skills deficits, such that basic things like beginning

conversations, making eye contact, and maintaining
personal hygiene and care are lacking in ways that are
detrimental to his interactions with others.
Mr. Norrell also discussed issues related to
twice-exceptional students and students who exhibit
school avoidant behaviors. For the former, he noted
that the important detail of teaching such students is
similar to special education students, namely keeping
them engaged and challenged by their work (cf.
Vygotskys Zone of Proximal Development in Zaretskii
[2009]). He also described what he believes to be the
best method for dealing with school avoidant behaviors:
a proactive approach in which younger students who
might be exhibiting a trend toward school avoidance,
such as Jonathan did six years ago, could be identified
and helped. Mr. Norrell seemed to indicate that high
school students, such as the 17 year old Jonathan, are
too set in their ways to be influenced to change their
minds about school. Instead, he wants teachers to find
ways to make younger students who might feel
alienated at school to be included before the pattern
becomes rigid. As such, it seems that Mr. Norrell does
not have great faith in the schools ability to convince
Jonathan to maintain his IEP goal of 90% attendance
with no unexcused absences.
Additional recommendations

37

Notwithstanding a few absences that were

ultimately excused, Jonathan seems to be managing
quite well this summer. In an informal discussion,
however, Mr. Norrell speculated that this is because the
particular program he is attending is not very
assignment intensive, which has often been a trigger for
Jonathan in the past. Given that one of his IEP goals is to
maintain communication with his teachers on
assignments and deadlines, it seems clear that he must
be given regular assignments with deadlines to meet in
order to be instructed in that goal. Furthermore,
Jonathan must be given opportunities to build on
successful completions of assignments in order to
eliminate the negative thinking surrounding
assignments via contradictory and successful real life
experiences.
Jonathan not only seems to be doing well with
his current three academic accommodations, namely
small groups, extra time on and frequent breaks during
assessments. He does not generally require that extra
time for assessments, in fact the opposite may be true.
However, he does seem to have some concerns
regarding his social skills and anxiety surrounding such
situations, and likely benefits from the small groups
accommodation. To address concerns about his social
anxiety and skill set, it may be helpful for Jonathan to
be encouraged to socialize more with his peers outside
of school and be more active in the community. Failing
that, it may be necessary for him to receive direct
38

instruction in social skills before he will feel comfortable

enough for such interactions.
As noted in the introduction and expanded
upon below, Brummelman et al. (2013) provided a
model for student interactions regarding feedback. In
the case of a student with emotional struggles and
significant giftedness, it seems clear that those who
interact with that student must never use person
praise. No matter how gifted the student, a teacher
should be very reluctant to use words like smart,
intelligent, brilliant, etc lest the student infer that
adults regard for them is based on factors beyond their
control. Instead, teachers should focus on praising and
rewarding the students for things within their control:
hard work, perseverance, intrinsic motivation, and
dedication.
Summary
Students such as Jonathan provide a challenge
to educators in a variety of ways. He brings to school a
very powerful intellect and a range of abilities beyond
99% of his peers, but faces equal if opposite challenges
in school fundamentals, such as organizational skills,
social skills, and attendance. As noted previously, his
teacher believes that the development of organizational
and social skills was hindered by the school attendance
itself. Whence, then, the school avoidance?

39

Jonathan himself described the school

avoidance as a sort of feedback loop, where his
admitted perfectionism causes him to agonize over a
school assignment. As a result, the assignment is never
completed, at least to his satisfaction. Then comes the
school avoidance, in order to avoid negative feedback
about his missing work. Finally, the avoidant pattern
becomes solidified as every missed day provides
another reason to be too ashamed to attend school in
the future. Thus his socioemotional difficulties
overpower his significant intellectual abilities and cause
him to be unsuccessful in school.
Brummelman et al (2013) provided a model
which may be helpful here. They describe common
theme among adults dealing with children, particularly
those with low self-esteem. As an adult, it is natural to
want to praise a child with low self-esteem in order to
see that child improve emotionally. Brummelman
(2013) and his team found that adults tend to vary the
types of praise they give: sometimes that praise is
person praise (youre so smart!) and other times it is
process praise (you worked so hard!). They discovered
that adults tend to give more person praise to children
with low self-esteem, apparently in an effort to help
such children value themselves more highly.
However, this may backfire spectacularly if one is not
careful in so doing. Assor et al. (2004) noted that
individuals with low self-esteem believe that the
positive regard of others is conditional on their
40

achievements or actions. That team investigated further

(Roth et al. 2009) and concluded that when children
perceive that their parents regard for them is
conditional, that leads to difficulties in emotional
regulation and academic disengagement. Roths
research (2009) described Parental Conditional
Regard (PCR) and they noted that if children perceive
that a parents regard for them is conditional (perhaps
based on academic success?) that such a child is more
likely to experience guilt after failure, short lived
satisfaction after success, and resentment toward his or
her parents.
Furthermore, Henderlong and Lepper (2002) noted that
praise for actions, particularly what Brummelman calls
person praise, creates excessive pressure, reduces
perceived autonomy, and, significantly, discourages risk
taking. Imagine a student who successfully completes
some task. If the praise they receive is wow, you are so
talented! that student is incentivized not to take any
further risks, for if they fail in the future they may
perceive that as an assault on their personal identity.
Now imagine a student who is exceptionally
intelligent and who grew up with apparent emotional
difficulties. A student like Jonathan might have elicited
many such remarks that fit the model of person praise.
In fact, adults may have felt the need to phrase the
praise in contrast with his deficits, e.g., why arent you
more successful in school, after all, youre so smart! As
Henderlong and Lepper (2002) noted, such remarks
41

increase the pressure for a student and decrease that

students feelings of autonomy. Jonathan may have
inferred that the regard of the adults in his life is
conditional on his academic success, creating an
exorbitant amount of pressure for each individual
assignment: after all, if he by chance fails, then the
identity that he has grown up with is in jeopardy. As
such, Jonathan may have been placed in a no-win
situation: if he attempts an assignment, he risks failure,
but if he chooses to stay home and avoid the
assignment, he experiences a similar shame.
Jonathan has characterized his struggle with attendance
and school as a feedback loop, wherein one missed
assignment causes him to miss more and more school
as he fears the negative judgments of adults in his life.
The research on student praise seems to indicate that
even positive judgments lead to a second feedback loop
between a students disability and talent, wherein an
emotionally vulnerable but gifted child becomes
convinced they only have value as long as they are
smart, and then concludes that they must not risk losing
that attribute by inviting failure by means of
participating in school.
Perhaps, then, it is not only wise to be more vigilant
about the kind of feedback we are giving to students,
but to heed the implied warning of Alfie Kohn (1993)
who wrote, the most notable aspect of a positive
judgment is not that it is positive but that it is a
judgment.
42

43

EDSE 544: Adapted Instructional Methods

and Transition for Secondary Learners
This course focused on the sometimes difficult
process of transitioning from secondary education for
students with disabilities. The course focused on the
practical aspects of transition plan writing and the
alternative assessments that are sometimes required to
meet this transition.
The major coursework for this class included a
working transition plan for a hypothetical student and a
presentation on one of the alternative assessments
available in Virginia, where the course was taught. A
very short excerpt from that presentation1 has been
included herein.

https://prezi.com/lwiwjy8themv/vsep-version-1/

44

Virginia Substitute Evaluation Program: An Introduction

What is VSEP? How does it work?

The Virginia Substitute Evaluation Program

(VSEP) is an alternative method of assessing
students who by the nature of their disabilities
are unable to participate in the Standards of
Learning (SOL) assessments even with testing
accommodations.
The difference between the SOL tests and the
VSEP is the method of assessment.
Students are required to produce evidence of
achievement through Course Work Compilation
(CWC) based on the same standards as students
taking the SOL tests.
The VSEP provides eligible students with the
opportunity to earn credits that count towards
a Standard or Advanced Studies Diploma or to
meet the requirements of a Modified Standard
Diploma
Available for students with disabilities enrolled
in end-of-course SOL assessment classes and
students who need Grade 8 numeracy and
literacy certification to earn a Modified
Standard Diploma

45

Who qualifies for VSEP?

The student must have a current IEP or 504 plan

(or one being developed)
The student must be enrolled in a course that
has an SOL EOC test and/or the 9-12th grade
student must need the literacy and numeracy
certification to earn a Modified Standard
Diploma
The students disability must prevent access to
the multiple choice format of the SOL tests,
even with accommodations
Those in grades 3-8 may request special
permission to use the VSEP procedure instead
of SOL testing:
Typically students in grades 3-8 who are eligible
to submit CWCs have experienced a new
disability, rapid deterioration of sensory
functions, or a unique disability that prevents
the student from accessing the SOL assessment
even with allowed testing accommodations.

46

Background

VSEP has been in existence since the 2004 2005 school year.
In 2006, a peer review of Virginias
Standards and Assessment System, resulted
in a request by the US Department of
Education (USED) for additional information
about the reliability, validity, comparability,
alignment, and achievement standards of
the VSEP.
However, the number of students
participating in the VSEP was too small to
prepare the technical reports necessary to
respond to USEDs concerns.
Therefore, Virginia removed VSEP scores
from the calculation of AYP until such time
as there are sufficient numbers of students
participating in this program to prepare the
required documentation.
Students participating in the VSEP are
counted as non-participants in the
calculation of Adequate Yearly Progress
(AYP).

47

EDSE 597: Social and Emotional

Characteristics of Students with
Disabilities
This was an independent study course taken to
fill gaps in the authors transcript in order to meet the
full requirements of teacher licensure. The culminating
project of this course was a paper on the identification,
needs, and best strategies for gifted students with
disabilities.

48

The identification, needs, and programming

endorsements of Twice-Exceptional Students
Since their formal definitions in the 1970s, the
concepts of gifted students and students with
disabilities have often been considered mutually
exclusive (Assouline and Whiteman, 2011). However,
teachers and school psychologists have increasingly
focused on the population of students who are at the
intersection of those two exceptionalities. These
students, often called twice-exceptional (2e) have met
one or more of the requirements for identification as
gifted/talented while simultaneously belonging to one
of the 13 disability categories outlined by the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)
revision of 2004. This paper is intended to be an
overview of issues related to identification, prevalence,
characteristics, and interventions for twice exceptional
students. Estimates of identification error will be
offered along with analysis of interventions from
various researchers and their relationship to the
teaching methods preferred by students.
Identification
IDEA outlines these 13 disability categories,
including higher incidence disabilities such as Specific
Learning Disability (SLD), Emotional Disability (ED),
Other Health Impairment (OHI, which includes
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD), and
Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) among others.
Students who meet the identification criteria for one or
more of these disabilities are entitled to special

49

education services in order to access the general

education curriculum to the maximum extent possible.
In contrast to the federally-defined and funded
special education services for students with disabilities,
there exists no consistent process for the identification
of gifted and talented (g/t) students (Assouline, FoleyNicpon, & Huber 2006). Most states use the definition
established by the Marland Report in 1972 (as cited by
Assouline, et al 2006), which is the first federal
exploration of giftedness. This report defined gifted
students as those who demonstrated achievement or
potential in the following areas: general intellectual
ability, specific academic aptitude, creative or
productive thinking, leadership ability, or visual and
performing arts. Because these criteria are federally
defined but not federally mandated, as in the case of
IDEA, implementation of these criteria has varied from
state to state.
For much of the history of Specific Learning
Disabilities (SLD) from the passage of PL 94-192, the
accepted model for identification of students with
Learning Disabilities has been the discrepancy model.
(McKenzie 2010) This model was developed in order to
distinguish between those students for whom low
performance was expected (meaning students with
cognitive limitations) and those students whose
cognitive abilities appeared to be in the normal range
but who nevertheless failed to achieve on a
commensurate level. (Mastropieri & Scruggs, 2005 as
50

cited by McKenzie, 2010) Two main problems have

been cited with the discrepancy model. Firstly, it is
believed that the dramatic increase in prevalence since
the introduction of this model indicates a high rate of
false-positives, or students without disabilities who are
identified as having SLD (Berkeley, Bender, Peaster, and
Saunders 2009). Additionally, in order for a discrepancy
significant enough for identification to be noted,
students must often progress as far as fifth grade or
beyond, leading to delayed identification and delayed
implementation of services or accommodations for
those students (Fuchs & Fuchs, 2007), which has led to
discrepancy being referred to as the wait-to-fail
paradigm (Crepeau-Hobson and Bianco, 2011;
Assouline, Foley-Nicpon, and Huber 2006).
To address these concerns, the re-authorization
of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act in 2004
allowed for greater flexibility in how states screen for
Learning Disabilities. As such, a model developed by
Heller, Holtzman, and Messick (1982, as cited by
Crepeau-Hobson and Bianco, 2011), Response-toIntervention (RTI) has been increasingly used by states
in addition to or in lieu of the discrepancy model
(McKenzie 2010; Yssel, Adams, Clarke, & Jones 2014).
RTI is a tiered system wherein additional resources or
accommodations are able to be provided for students
who are not adequately served by the first tier of
general education classes and environments. Increasing
levels of support and identification allow for a reduction
51

in false positives and for the collection of valuable data

as to the efficacy of school programs (McKenzie, 2010).
Concerns remain, however, that RTI will in fact
lead to outcomes similar to the situations it was
designed to prevent. Specifically, Kavale & Spaulding
(2008) wrote that removing discrepancy as a factor for
consideration in the identification of SLD would prevent
those on the eligibility teams from distinguishing
between Learning Disabilities and low achievement
resulting from other factors. As such, low achieving
students and students with learning disabilities alike
would be identified for services, which would in theory
lead to a significant increase in false positives for SLD.
Additionally, McKenzie (2010) wrote that RTI
also presents a risk for false-negatives, students with
SLD who are not identified for various reasons. One
body of students who are at-risk for missed diagnosis
are twice-exceptional children, those who
simultaneously meet criteria for gifted/talented and
disabilities. McKenzie (2010) provides an example
situation in which a students disability sufficiently
masks a FSIQ high enough to qualify for a gifted
program. Such a student would potentially count as
responsive to the RTI protocol if she is sufficiently
using her talents and would thus never be referred for
evaluation for special education services. In short, they
write that using an absolute standard to designate low
achievement within RTI will fail to identify the

52

underachievement of G/LD students (McKenzie 2010 p.

165).
To address these concerns, Crepeau-Hobson
and Bianco (2011) proposed a blended model for the
identification of students with learning disabilities. In
principle, they believe that multiple types of
assessment data will increase diagnostic accuracy and
help direct intervention efforts. (Crepeau-Hobson and
Bianco, 2011 p.105)
While there are many different structural
models of RTI with specific protocols at each level
(McKenzie 2010), the model proposed by CrepeauHobson and Bianco (2011) should be noted for the ways
in which it incorporates screening for giftedness into
the standard RTI structure. In their model, the first tier
of RTI remains the instruction which takes place in the
general education classroom. They write that this
classroom instruction should incorporate materials and
instruments from a range of grade levels above and
below the current level of the students, so that these
may be used as a screening tool for students with all
types of exceptionalities. The second tier would include
more formalized screenings and assessments for
students that may suggest targeted interventions.
Additionally, they recommend record reviews to search
for patterns of declining achievement which may
indicate twice-exceptionality as, over time, giftedness
would do less to mask a learning disability and a pattern
of academic decline would emerge. Finally, as in many
53

other models, the third tier would include a

multidisciplinary, psychoeducational evaluation to
determine the specifics of any kind of exceptionalities
present in the student, what particular patterns emerge
from them, and to suggest any particular interventions
or special services that they may require.
Through the early history of both of these
exceptionalities, a pervasive attitude among school
officials was that the two groups are at opposite ends of
some kind of academic spectrum and that the two
groups were mutually exclusive. For example, Bianco
(2005) found that general education and special
education teachers were both less likely to refer
students with ED or LD to gifted programs as compared
to identically-described students who had not be
identified with those disability labels.
The belief of mutual-exclusivity in some ways
even persists among researchers of twice-exceptional
children. For example, Assouline and Whiteman (2011)
identify that there are only 12 categories of twice
exceptional children, indicating that children with
Intellectual Disability (ID) are excluded from fitting the
criteria for giftedness. However, Karnes, Shaunessy and
Bisland (2004) reported on a student with ID who was
also in a gifted program due to his artistic talents.
This pervasive belief that gifted students and
those with disabilities are mutually exclusive groups is
merely the first of many diagnostic issues related to the
identification of twice-exceptional students. In these
54

cases, a student may be referred to a gifted/talented

program due to his or her abilities but miss out on
special education services under IDEA.
Likewise, a student may be referred for special
education services due to an obvious disability and
never referred to services for gifted students, which,
according to Assouline, Foley-Nicpon, and Huber, (2006,
p.15) would place them at risk for psychological
damage. Indeed, mere identification for gifted services
seems to have a positive impact on students selfperception (Vantassel-Baska, Feng, Swanson, Quek,
Chandler, 2009). This outcome seems perhaps more
likely. For example, Gilger, Tavalage, and Olumide
(2013) found that the fMRI profiles of gifted individuals
with reading disabilities most closely resembled those
of other individuals with reading disabilities, as opposed
to gifted individuals or the control group. Teachers may
be more vigilant about evidence of disabilities than they
are about evidence of giftedness (see Bianco, 2005).
Additionally, traits of both exceptionalities may
in some cases be confused, muddying the diagnostic
waters. For example, Amend (2009) noted that gifted
children tend to be over-excitable, which may in some
situations be confused for ADHD or emotional disability.
Additionally, gifted and talented students are known to
demonstrate depression, anger, poor impulse control,
family conflict, intense emotions, polarized and
hierarchical value systems, and isolation from their
peers (Morrison, 2001). The similarity of these traits to
55

those exhibited by students with an

emotional/behavioral disability adds further difficulty to
the process of correctly identifying students as having
one or both exceptionalities. Morrison (2001) went on
to note that the degree to which any of these
characteristics is exhibited by an individual needs to be
seen as unique in each case and the presence of any
one characteristic or group of characteristics does not
readily mean the student is EB/D, G/T, or twice
exceptional. (p. 428)
Perhaps the most intriguing diagnostic issue
related to g/d students is the phenomenon of
masking, wherein a students two exceptionalities
hide evidence of one another in the classroom
(McKenzie, 2010; Assouline, Foley-Nicpon, and Huber
2006). Twice exceptional students are often not
referred for evaluation because their disability is
obscured by the fact that they remain on grade-level
(McKenzie, 2010). Such students are likely to be
missed by both the discrepancy model, wherein their
intellectual abilities are obscured (Brody and Mills
1997), and the RTI model, wherein their disabilities are
obscured.
As noted previously, the discrepancy model
often requires the passage of time until a disability
becomes apparent in the distance between ability and
achievement. This represents one final diagnostic issue
in identifying gifted students with learning disabilities as
the learning disability may not be apparent until after
56

gifted and talented testing is complete and the student

is identified accordingly. Ferri, Gregg, and Heggoy
(1997) found that 41% of the gifted/learning disabled
students in their study were not identified until after
secondary education, as compared to 34% of their
nongifted peers with learning disabilities. That seven
percent difference could be the result of a combination
of masking and the weaknesses of the discrepancy
model.
It is difficult to accurately estimate the number
of students who fit the description of gifted with
disabilities, given the issues surrounding their proper
identification. Estimates of the number of students
who fit this description in the United States have ranged
from 120,000 to 540,000 (Davis & Rimm, 1994; Minner,
1990; both as cited in Karnes, Shaunessy and Bisland,
2004). Baum and Owen (2004, as cited by FoleyNicpon, Rickels, Assouline, and Richards, 2012) reported
an estimate of 300,000. Ralabate (2006) suggested that
an effective method of estimation would be to find the
proportions of students who are gifted and those who
have disabilities and combine those two figures. He
suggested that perhaps six percent of students being
served by IDEA were academically gifted. In the year of
his study, that would indicate just over 400,000
students when using figures provided by the US
Department of Educations National Center for
Education Statistics (2013).

57

Furthermore, it is unclear which students are

being considered in descriptions of gifted students with
disabilities. Due perhaps to the fact that gifted students
with learning disabilities are the larger proportion of
this subset (Minner 1990), most of the research has
been on the overlap of these two exceptionalities.
However, Karnes, Shaunessy and Bisland (2004) noted a
paucity of research into gifted students with lowerincidence disabilities such as gifted/deaf/blind,
gifted/hearing impaired, gifted/intellectually disabled,
gifted/traumatic brain injured, or gifted/visually
impaired.
Given the many difficulties related to the
identification of these students, it is worth estimating
the number of false negatives, sometimes called type II
error. In order to estimate the magnitude of this error,
one must compare rates of identification with proposed
estimates of prevalence in the population. For the
purposes of this paper, the low and high figures cited by
Karnes, Shaunessy and Bisland (2004) will be used to
estimate the range of students not being identified,
though Ralabates (2006) estimate is arguably closest to
the truth.
Karnes, Shaunessy and Bisland (2004)
conducted a study in which they surveyed teachers and
schools in Mississippi. They found that 1.7% of gifted
students had disabilities, and that 0.8% of the students
with disabilities were identified as gifted. These
students represented 0.1% of the entire population of
58

school-aged children in Mississippi. Extrapolating

mathematically from their findings with reference to
enrollment figures from the National Center for
Education Statistics (2013) yields roughly 55,000 gifted
students with disabilities in the United States in the
year of that study (2004). Taken with low and high
figures for prevalence, this indicates that between
65,000 and 485,000 students were not identified, or
roughly 54% to 90% of twice exceptional students.
When considering only students with
emotional/behavioral disabilities, one study estimated
that as many as 8% of students in alternative school
settings due to E/BD also fit the profile for
gifted/talented, though they were not identified
(Osborne & Byrnes, 1990, as cited by Morrison, 2001).
This number is ten times the rate of disabled students
who were already identified as gifted/talented in
Karnes, Shaunessy and Bislands study (2004), lending
further support that the false-negative rate for
identification of twice exceptional students could be as
high as 90%.
Socio-emotional needs
Prior research has indicated that twiceexceptional students are prone to a host of socioemotional difficulties in addition to their disabilities.
The first comprehensive text on this issue was Vespi &
Yewchuck (1992). They found, for example, that such
students report that they do not fit in with their peers
59

and that they have difficulty with social skills. This may
be expected, as the dual nature of their exceptionalities
might make it difficult for them to fully fit in among
homogenous groups of gifted students or students with
disabilities.
Tong and Yewchuk (1996) found that gifted
students reported higher levels of anxiety and lower
levels of life satisfaction and happiness than their peers
did. Morrison (2001) noted depression and anger in
gifted students, along with frustration and mood
swings. Rizza and Morrison (2002) explored the
perceptions of pre-service teachers in graduate and
undergraduate programs as they related to gifted
students and students with emotional/behavioral
disabilities. They found that, particularly among
graduate students, the pre-service teachers saw gifted
and E/BD students as largely similar in their feelings and
attitudes, especially such traits as Uncertain about
social role, Insecure, Anxious, Intense, and
Different.
Foley-Nicpon, Rickels, Assouline, and Richards
(2012) conducted a study of students with ADHD who
were identified as gifted. They found that gifted
students with a diagnosis of ADHD were significantly
more likely than their peers in gifted programsin fact,
these students were twice as likely to report low selfesteem as their peers. Gardynik and McDonald (2005)
write that students who are gifted with learning
disabilities are more likely to develop low self-esteem
60

and have feeling of rejection. They cite Waldron,

Saphire, and Rosenblum (1987), who wrote that such
students are likely to hide their learning problems from
others, resulting in internalized anxiety as well.
Vespi & Yewchuck (1992) further reported that
gifted students tend to have unrealistically high
expectations for themselves. As such, gifted students
with learning disabilities might find themselves failing at
academic tasks with greater frequency than they
expect. King (2005) indicated that this may lead such
students feel more anxious or frustrated with these
tasks as they become more away of the differences
between their abilities and performance. These
students might avoid or rush through academic tasks in
which they feel failure, often because completing the
task seems more important than the quality of their
work (King 2005, p 17).
In order to address these socio-emotional issues
in gifted students with disabilities, King (2005) made
several suggestions for school personnel: foster
understanding with the student (and his or her parents)
of both exceptionalities, continually encourage them to
succeed, teach them coping skills to use when they
become frustrated, encourage counseling when
necessary, remind school staff to consider the unique
needs of these students, provide support in the
establishing and maintenance of social relationships,
support them in career and transition planning, and

61

provide a mentor who is also gifted/LD whenever

possible.
Programming
As noted above, placement in gifted programs is
often enough to significantly improve a students selfperception (Vantassel-Baska et al., 2009). Conversely,
Nielsen and Mortorff-Albert (1989) found that
gifted/learning disabled elementary school students
had lower self-concepts when their programming solely
focused on their disabilities, but that this effect was
mitigated for those students whose programs included
gifted portions that focused on their strengths. These
findings seem to support Assouline, Foley-Nicpon, and
Hubers (2006) assertion that twice-exceptional children
kept out of gifted programs face the risk of
psychological damage. As such, it is crucial that school
personnel appropriately identify these students so that
their placement decisions can include the seemingly
paradoxical needs of these students.
There have been several studies produced in
recent years that have compiled information about
twice exceptional students and recommended
classroom interventions. Likewise, Willard-Holt, Weber,
Morrison, & Horgan (2013) collected and analyzed
survey data from twice exception students on their
perceptions of effective and ineffective teaching
practices. The recommendations of researchers for the
teaching of gifted students with disabilities will be
62

compared to the teaching methods actually endorsed

by these students. As all three studies of the below
studies seem to have remarked upon the importance of
allowing these students to at least partially direct their
own learning, it seems prudent to take them at their
word and allow them to have a say in which
interventions are most effective.
Nielsen (2002) listed extensive ideas for the
programming of gifted students: first, these students
cases should be handled by collaborative teams with
backgrounds both in special education and
gifted/talented education. She wrote that students
should be given the opportunity to learn with other
twice-exceptional peers and that they should have
access to the gifted curriculum and learning technology.
She also wrote that counseling should be provided
when necessary, as these students are at risk for socioemotional concerns after years of accumulated
frustration and confusion over their dual exceptionality
(p. 105).
Nielsen (2002) continued by listing an extensive
number of recommended classroom interventions for
working with twice-exceptional youth. These were
categorized as: strategies to enhance giftedness,
social and emotional strategies, compensation
strategies for academic problem areas, and behavior
management strategies. There are fifty total
endorsements in Nielsens article; as such, not all will be
listed herein (see Appendix B for the full list of all
63

recommendations under consideration). Those that

have been endorsed by twice-exceptional learners will
be listed below.
Foley-Nicpon, Allmon, Sieck, and Stinson (2011)
performed an analysis of twice exceptionality, looking
specifically at gifted students who had SLD, ADHD, or
Autism. They reviewed the literature surrounding these
exceptionalities and summarized the findings for each
subset of students. Their main findings with respect to
appropriate interventions include: a caring
environment, strengths oriented accommodations,
student centered learning activities (Mann 2006 as cited
by Foley-Nicpon et al. 2011); Talents Unlimited
counseling (Olenchak, 2009 as cited by Foley-Nicpon et
al. 2011); enrichment activities (Olenchak, 1995 as cited
by Foley-Nicpon et al. 2011); compensation support,
study/performance strategies, learning strategies,
parental support, self-perceived strengths, and
participation in a university SLD program (Reis, McGuire
& Neu, 1995, 1997, 2000 as cited by Foley-Nicpon et al.
2011).
Baum, Cooper, and Neu (2001) drafted a
teaching approach, dual differentiation specific to
twice exceptional children that is intended to provide
differentiated instruction for both types of
exceptionalities, building on student strengths and
helping to compensate for or ameliorate student
weaknesses. Their approach recommends the following
teaching practices: alternate means to access
64

information alternate ways to express ideas and create

products, visual and kinesthetic experiences to convey
abstract ideas concretely, visual organization schemes
(time lines, flow charts, and webs), interest-based
authentic curriculum, group identity based on talent or
ability, and recognition for accomplishment.
Willard-Holt, Weber, Morrison, & Horgan (2013)
collected and analyzed survey data from twice
exception students on their perceptions of effective and
ineffective teaching practices. These students positively
endorsed quite a few teaching practices. The first set of
positively viewed practices fall under the category of
Having control of ones learning, and include items
such as: knowing how you will be marked prior to an
assignment and how much time you will be given,
pursuing topics of ones own interest, having time to
think and process information, using the internet to
research topics of interest, discussing grades with a
teacher, having choice in the way you learn,
conferencing with a teacher individually, and asking for
extra help. A second cluster of teaching practices fell
under the category of complex ideas and ways of
thinking about them, such as: understanding the ways
that ideas are connected to each other, understanding
how and why things happen, understanding
complicated ideas and problems, analyzing big
problems or ideas, getting concrete examples to explain
abstract ideas. Finally, several endorsed practices in this
study fit into no larger category. These were: learning
65

with words, explaining your thinking to other students,

even when you get a good grade, hearing about ways it
could be improved, and listening to experts talk.
As both Nielsens (2002) and Willard-Holt et
al.s (2013) research includes a large body of
interventions, it is worth investigating which practices
appear are endorsed both by researchers and by twiceexceptional students themselves (see Appendix B).
In a comparison of the results of both studies,
many matches were discovered. In Nielsens (2002)
article, student responses seemed to endorse her
recommendations of: emphasize critical and creative
thinking; allow students to self-select projects; allow
students opportunities to conduct in-depth exploration
within interest areas; develop students collaboration
skills (result of a noted endorsement from the students
for explaining your thinking to other students); allow
students more time to complete test; allow students
more time to complete reading and paper-and-pencil
assignments; arrange a regular time to talk privately
with students regarding their behavior (added due to
student endorsement for conferencing with the
teacher individually).
Of the recommendations in Baum, Cooper, and
Neus (2001) article, students endorsed alternate means
to assess information, alternate ways to express ideas
and create products, visual and kinesthetic experiences
to convey abstract ideas concretely, visual organization
66

schemes, interest-based authentic curriculum, and

recognition for accomplishment.
Finally, students endorsed student centered
learning from Foley-Nicpon et al.s (2011) research.
Conclusion
It is clear that twice exceptional students are a
unique group who are at risk for misidentification,
which in turn could lead to poorer academic and socioemotional outcomes. It is difficult to estimate the
number of such students in the United States, though
estimates seem to converge on 300,000 to 400,000
students (Assouline & Whiteman, 2011; Rabalate 2006).
It is clear from the literature that many of these
students are under-identified due to a host of issues
related to identification. Based on extrapolations of
experimental results through student data, it appears
that roughly 54% to 90% of these students are not fully
identified, representing perhaps a quarter of a million
students. Future research into the prevalence of these
students should focus on the amount of false negatives
in a variety of smaller localities so that a broader picture
of type II error can be used to track misidentification.
Gifted students and students with disabilities
both have important psychosocial features that require
the attention of teachers and often counselors
(Assouline et al 2006; Foley-Nicpon et al. 2012). To date,
much of the work on these psychosocial factors has
67

been qualitative of based on individual case studies

(Foley-Nicpon et al, 2011; Cooper 2012, e.g.). FoleyNicpon, Doobay, and Assouline (2010) published a
quantitative study that found that parents rated their
twice exceptional students as more at risk than the
students self-reported. More quantitative analysis
might provide a more accurate picture of these
students and how their socio-emotional lives interact
with their education, disabilities, and giftedness.
Finally, this paper investigated which classroom
interventions recommended by researchers were also
endorsed by students. It found that students endorsed
interventions related to student-centered learning, that
they wished to be allowed to complete in-depth
investigations of topics of interest, and that students
wished for more flexibility in their learning environment
and emphasis on creative and critical thinking, time to
confer with their teachers and recognition for their
accomplishments. This narrower list of interventions
provides a clear way forward into research on the
comparative effectiveness of these interventions in
populations of twice exceptional students.

68

EDSE 627: Assessment

This course was intended to introduce students
to the assessment of students with mild disabilities,
including statistical and psychometric considerations of
assessment techniques.
The major coursework for this class was a
Curriculum Based Measure report based on a
measurement from my own courses, describing and
analyzing the progress of one particular student. This
assignment has been reproduced in its entirety in the
following pages.

69

Curriculum-Based Measure: Latin Class

Student Information
The student chosen for this report, pseudonym
Horatius, is a 17 year old high school junior who is
placed at a dedicated school for students with
emotional disabilities. Horatius is classified as such and
has a history of hospitalizations related to mental
health crises. He is also prone to occasional auditory
and recently, visual hallucinations which make it
extremely difficult to access the curriculum until they
subside. Finally, he has issues related to anxiety,
particularly in social situations, and so was found to
benefit from small class sizes and the therapeutic
supports of a dedicated school.
Like many students with his mental health
challenges, Horatius has a history of missed school and
frequent changes in school placement. He is a very
bright student, however, and at two of his prior
placements he participated in Latin I and II. He has not
studied the language in the intervening two years due
to changes in placement, and so is being given an
option to finish the requirement for an Advanced
Studies Diploma by completing his third year of Latin
despite having a large gap in his instruction.
Content Description and Reason for Selection
Because of this gap, certain key features of the
language are no longer contained within his memory
70

and these are required to be automatic in order for the

language to be mastered to any serious degree.
Latin is an inflected language, meaning that
syntactic information, more than just semantics, is
encoded into each word. This syntactic information
takes the form of suffixes which are attached to nouns,
verbs, and adjectives2 in order to show their positioning
in sentences, relation to one another, and other crucial
pieces of information necessary for understanding. For
example, the sentence Petit Gemellus nuptias
Maronillae would translate to Gemellus seeks a
marriage to Maronilla. The endings of each of the
three nouns indicate their positioning within the logic of
the sentence. If the words in the sentence were kept in
the same order, but their suffixes changed, the meaning
of the sentence could change dramatically: Petit
Gemelli nuptias Maronilla would instead mean
Maronilla seeks a marriage to Gemellus.
Because of this syntactic structure within the
language, it is essential that all of these possible endings
are memorized and automatic, so that when a
translating student reads a sentence, they are
immediately aware of what each word is doing. These
endings are organized into five families (henceforth,
2

It is important to note that these endings memorized for this

problem are only one small subset of the required list of things
that must be memorized for the language, which also include
verbal endings, adjectival endings, and a slew of pronouns and
irregular verb forms.

71

declensions) of ten endings each, for a total of fifty

pieces of information. However, many of them are
similar (there are 3 -ae endings, four -is endings and
four -ibus endings, e.g.) and this does make the task
of memorization somewhat easier, even as it makes
decoding more difficult.
Upon his resumption of Latin, Horatius was
vaguely able to recall having learned the first two
declensions as a Latin II student but could not reliably
produce them. As such, his teacher felt that it would be
a productive use of their time to drill these endings for
memorization in order to make his translation and
production skills in Latin more fluid. A typical course
would have a student complete all 50 by the end of his
or her second year, and so the goal was set that
Horatius would memorize the entire set. Horatius
teacher had previously noted his abilities for
memorization of difficult vocabulary in a philosophy
course the year prior and was confident that he would
rise to the challenge.
Behavioral Objective
In this series of assessments, Horatius was
required to correctly produce all 50 endings on a blank
sheet of paper with boxes for each one based on its
grammatical use. As the teacher found that this task
could be completed in one minute, Horatius was given
two full minutes to fill in all 50 blank spaces, for roughly
2.4 seconds per unit.
72

As many of these endings resemble one another

quite closely (c.f. plural dative 5th declension -ebus
and plural dative 3rd declension, -ibus) it was crucial
that only precisely correct answers were allowed in data
collection in the initial preparations. However, a
minimal pair exists in the first declension nominative
and ablative singular cases (-a and -) that is often
difficult for non-native speakers to remember. During
the course of the probes, his teacher needed to
determine if an answer without the macron above the
letter a would count as correct. Because Horatius was
able to correctly place the macron in class, it seemed
that he was omitting it for reasons of expedience and
therefore it was not counted against him for the
purposes of the assessment. This point became
somewhat moot, however, because in the final probe
Horatius correctly placed the macron.
Description of the Probes
For the purposes of these assessments, Horatius was
given a single sheet of paper broken up into five
boxesone for each declensionof ten sub-boxes,
representing five cases (nominative, genitive, dative,
accusative, ablative)3 in the singular and plural.

For the curious, these cases represent uses of nouns within a

language and are, respectively: (1) subjects, (2) possession, (3)
indirect objects, (4) direct objects, and (5) with prepositions,
though this omits their additional, less common uses.

73

Initially, a question arose regarding whether a practice

effect would exist in which the student would overlearn
the locations of the endings within the context of this
probe and forego memorizing the deeper meanings of
each morpheme. However, because they were arranged
according to their meanings, this geographic
memorization was partially the goal of the whole
exercise. As long as the student could remember the
order of the cases (see above), then asking the student
to name the ending on the bottom left of the fifth box
is equivalent to asking what is the ablative singular in
the fifth declension?
Description of the Instructional Methods
Traditionally, these endings are memorized with
a variety of mnemonic devices, such as chants, songs,
and poems. The most common one, and the one
employed by Horatius instructor when he was first a
student, is to practice them as a chant: a, ae, ae, am, ,
ae, arum, is, as, is, verbally repeated ad infinitum.
Sometimes this chant is used with a specific word as a
placeholder on which the endings are changed.4
Horatius had moderate success with this method but
seemed to need something more for the third, fourth,
and fifth declensions.
Noticing this, Horatius teacher began to search
for a more meaningful way of memorization and found
4

For thing,: res, rei, rei, rem, re, res, rerum, rebus, res,
rebus.

74

a song on the internet which appeared to be written by

a nun hoping to teach Latin students in a parochial
school (Appendix C). This did not appear to benefit him
and was later dropped. Likewise, a poem which exists to
help students memorize a particular irregular form of
these endings was also excluded after it was not found
to be helpful.
While searching for an effective direct method
of instruction for these endings, Horatius continued to
indirectly study them via the practice of translation
itself. For several hours a week, he and his classmates
worked through the poetry of Catullus5, and for each
noun used within these poems practiced matching the
ending in context to its ending on the chart. This had
the added benefit of reinforcing the practical necessity
and use of this exercise.
What finally seemed to work for him was an
extremely simple study method: Horatius teacher
handed him a sheet of paper and together they made
two manipulatives which allowed the student to cover
each ending with its name (e.g. nominative singular)
and then uncover it to make something like a collective
flashcard. Horatius could be found studying this
manipulative in between classes and at lunch. Its
production seemed to coincide with a transition from

A Roman lyric poet who wrote and lived contemporaneously

with Caesar and Cicero, known mostly for his often prurient
love poemsperfect for teenage boys.

75

learning the majority of the endings with regular errors

to being able to precisely secure each ending in place.
Performance Graph
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
B1

B2

P1

P2

P3

P4

P5

P6

Discussion of results
It is worth noting that during the time of
Baseline testing, Horatius had only been introduced to
the first three declensions. As such, much of the growth
between the probes 1 and 3 represents his introduction
into what each family should look like (For example,
fourth declension endings nearly all begin with the
letter u, and likewise fifth declension with the letter e).
After this instruction, he was able to get to a point of
fairly good accuracy within the first three probes (up to
roughly 80%) and then seemed to level off: at this point,
guessing was no longer helpful and he needed to focus
on getting each ending exactly right.

76

Horatius did seem to benefit from guessing

occasionally: in fact, before having officially learned
certain endings, he placed presumed endings in their
places and was able to gain a few points from a
combination of pattern recognition and clever guessing.
With many students, it is strictly necessary for
the teacher to provide direct instruction and drills in
order that any learning should occur. However, many
students are able to self-study. In the case of Horatius,
he did not seem to benefit from the chants, songs,
poems, etc. that have benefitted other students
historically. As such, his teacher worked with him to
develop a method that seemed to work for him
individually and then got out of the way. The jump
between P1 and P3 represents direct instruction on the
part of the teacher, but the jump between P4 and P5
that got him closer to mastery was truly a result of
individual study. This constructivist approach to
learning, in which a teacher helps a student learn to
effectively self-teach and create meaning for him- or
herself, seemed to work well with Horatius and is worth
exploring in future learning contexts.

77

EDSE 628: Elementary Reading,

Curriculum, and Strategies for Students
who Access the General Education
Curriculum
This course covered the best practices for
teaching students with mild disabilities within the
Elementary School population, with additional focus on
reading and language instruction.
The major coursework for this class was a
single-subject experimental treatment on a student of
one of the practices considered within the context of
this course. The entirety of that study has been
reproduced in the following pages. Appendixes D
through I represent the data, tables, and materials for
this study.

78

Self-monitoring for self-efficacy: an intervention for

students with ADHD
Introduction
It has been claimed that incorporating students
into their own treatment is beneficial for reasons both
practical and ethical. To this end, Ardoin and Martens
(2004) created a protocol which encourages students to
see themselves and their behaviors as other see them
with the hope of reducing problematic behaviors and
instilling a greater sense of self-efficacy with respect to
treatment and school.
Ardoin and Martens (2004) list three potential
benefits of involving student subjects in the monitoring
and evaluation of their behaviors: the purported
improvements resulting from monitoring (see below),
the ability of such self-monitoring to improve the selfefficacy and locus of control beliefs of students with
behavioral disabilities (cf. Hayes, Brownstein, Haas &
Greenway, 1987), and finally that data collection from
student-self monitoring can be, if deemed to be
accurate, much less difficult to obtain than teacherreported ratings.
To bolster the first purported benefit, Ardoin
and Martens (2004) cite Rhode, Morgan, and Young
(1983) who used such a self-monitoring program on six
students who were asked to monitor and evaluate their
own behaviors in a special education and general
79

education setting. These students were reported to

have decreased problematic behaviors in both settings
(though to varying degrees) and indicated that students
could accurately rate their own behavior about 93% of
the time. It is important to note that accuracy in this
and following studies will be defined in relation to the
behavior ratings of the special education teachers or
other adult monitors collecting classroom data.
Having established that reasons one and three,
namely the intervention benefit and accuracy of
reporting, have some empirical support and given that
reason two is a partially ethically derived principle,
Ardoin and Martens (2004) continue on to describe
what criteria should be considered for ratings of the
quality of such self-evaluations. Hayes, Nelson, and
Jarrett (1986) define the quality evaluation as one
which has treatment utility, accuracy, and sensitivity.
Treatment utility is defined in relation to an
interventions contribution to treatment effectiveness
(Ardoin and Martens 2004, p. 3). Accuracy is a measure
of the ecological validity of the evaluations and
sensitivity refers, as always, to the ability of the
measure to change due to relevant variables. Having
defined the goals of such treatments, they developed
an intervention for use with children with Attention
Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in a school
setting.
Ardoin and Martens (2004) gathered six
participants, six boys diagnosed with ADHD from ages 980

11 who were selected on the basis of teacher ratings in

behavior scales associated with ADHD. They sought to
measure four problematic behaviors: looking around,
playing with objects, peer interaction, and out of seat.
They reached an inter-rater reliability 97%-99% for the
four behaviors. At the end of each self-evaluation
session, students were given a four-point Likert style
scale describing the amount of time each spent doing
each of the problematic behaviors. Adult observers
were given the same form, and instructed to assign 1-4
based on the percent of time each students was
exhibiting each behavior (where x<25% is 1 and
25%<x<50% is 2 and so on). Students were also
provided with Accuracy training to help them
determine which behaviors count for each of the four
criteria. From this system, the researchers were able to
determine that for some students, the self-evaluation
procedure was sufficient to decrease problematic
behaviors, but that a more broad decrease was
demonstrated when students were provided with both
self-evaluation measures and accuracy training.
Furthermore, behavior returned to baseline after the
cessation of the experimental condition, indicating that
it was a causal factor in the decreasing of problematic
behaviors. From this, Ardoin and Martens (2004)
concluded that self-evaluation procedures when
combined with regular accuracy training were beneficial
for students of this age range who are diagnosed with
ADHD.

81

Methods
Participants
This paradigm will be applied, with
modifications explained below, in a small, private
therapeutic day school in a suburban location in
Virginia. Students served at this school are placed there
because they have been found to not be successful at a
more traditional school setting and require the
intensive supports offered by a private placement.
Students at this school fit one of four disability criteria:
Emotional Disability (ED), Learning Disability (LD), Other
Health Impairment (OHI), and Multiple Disabilities (MD).
Most of the students served in the school qualify under
ED, though many have additional classifications. The
school serves roughly 35 children of ages ranging from
11 to 19, with most of the students clustered in the
middle-to-late teens. In terms of socioeconomic status,
students range from wealthy suburban families to
poorer populations of the nearby city.
The participant, who for the purposes of this
study will be called Adam, is an 11 year old student in
the sixth grade, classified under Other Health
Impairment for his diagnoses of Attention Deficit
Hyperactivity Disorder and Bipolar Disorder. He
represents the higher portion of the socio-economic
statuses of students at his school and ranges from on
grade level to above grade level in academic testing
(specifically Basic Academic Skills Assessment [BASI]
results taken in September of 2013). The student has a
82

history of disruptive and off-task behaviors in school

which include destruction of school property (namely,
kicking holes in walls) and calls to local police agencies.
(As a hands-off facility, his school calls police when they
feel a situation is going to compromise student safety)
These events typically occur during the later hours of
school and have not been evidenced in recent weeks,
likely due to a change in medication that occurred
shortly before baseline data for this report were
collected. Due to the timing of his disruptive behaviors,
his observations and intervention took place during his
last class of the school day, which has historically seen
the most pronounced behaviors. For the purposes of
this study, the student will be compensated with some
kind of food or snack item, per his choice.
Intervention and Procedure
Due to the childs diagnosis of ADHD, literature
was reviewed for behavioral interventions that have
been demonstrated to be successful for children in his
age range with similar diagnoses. Due to his familiarity
with Check-In-Check-Out procedures (see Swoszowski,
Jolivette, Fredrick, & Heflin [2012]) due to the behavior
management system extant in his school setting, Ardoin
and Martens (2004) procedure was chosen.
Modifications to this protocol were necessary in order
for it to be practicable in the circumstances of his school
setting and time budget.

83

In the initial phase, baseline data were

collected. This consisted of interval sampling of a period
of 40 minutes in which codes were taken describing the
students behaviors at intervals of one minute. This was
chosen under the assumption that with enough total
observations (in this case, 234 total for baseline and
test observations) these data would provide a relatively
accurate depiction of the average time spent exhibiting
each behavior in this class period.
The targeted behaviors were: on task (T), off
task-physical (P), off task-verbal (V), out of seat (S), and
singing/dancing (D). These behaviors were selected due
to their similarity to those in Ardoin and Martens
(2004) original study but modified to meet the specific
off-task behaviors particular to the student (e.g. Singing
/ Dancing). On Task behavior was coded as any time
the student was engaged in a class activity, planned
conversation with the teacher, or not exhibiting any off
task behaviors. Off Task Verbal was coded as any time
the student was making comments that were not an
intended part of the lesson plan or were disruptive
(e.g., I gotta pee!) Verbal disruptions that qualified as
Singing/Dancing were excluded from this category.
Out of Seat was coded as any time the student was
not sitting in his designated chair excluding those times
when he had permission. This included times in which
he initially had permission to be out of his seat but,
after completing the purpose of that permission, used
the opportunity as an excuse to wander the classroom.
84

Finally, Singing/Dancing was coded as any time the

student exhibited either of those behaviors and these
took precedence over off task verbal and off task
physical respectively.
After the initial data were collected, the student
was instructed on what the meaning of the data
collection device was and what each category meant.
He was given a sheet (Appendix I) with a Likert-style
scale of 1-4 where 1 represented not very much and 4
represented all the time. The scale was written in
such a way as to be easily intelligible by the student, per
Ardoin and Martens (2004) finding that training was
beneficial for students in behavioral outcomes. The
targeted behaviors listed for the student were, On
Task, off task by talking or making noise, off task by
fidgeting or playing with things, out of my seat,
singing or dancing. At the beginning of each
observational period, the student was provided with a
copy of this data collection sheet in order to serve as a
visual reminder of the expected behaviors. At the end
of 40 minutes, the student was invited to fill out the
sheet so that comparisons could be made between his
self-evaluation and teacher observations. Due to time
constraints in the range of the intervention and on a
daily basis, accuracy training was not provided for the
student beyond what the student received initially and
in the course of regular interventions at his school
setting.

85

Results
Following Ardoin and Martens (2004) model,
the main method of data analysis was a visual analysis
of the time-series data. Appendix F shows the amount
of time spent on task during the baseline and
procedural observations. Though the total number of
observations does not necessarily allow sophisticated
statistical analysis, it is clear that no obvious benefit was
derived from the intervention and that, if any result is
shown, the students on task behavior declined over the
course of the intervention. Likewise, the amount of
time indicated as off task verbal (see Appendix G)
appeared to double during the course of the
intervention.
Again following Ardoin and Martens (2004), a
Pearson correlation coefficient was analyzed between
the students reported self-evaluations and those of the
adult observer. The observers raw data were converted
into percent of total time for each observation. These
percent were divided into quartiles for analysis against
those of the student. The students results were found
to correlate with the observers results at r = 0.75.
Discussion
As noted above, there are two purported
benefits to having students and patients learn to selfmonitor their behavior. The first is that, when selfmonitoring, students will be able to increase the
regulation of their behaviors and thereby improve
86

them. Secondly, it is believed that students who are

self-monitoring their behaviors will increase their
perception of an internal locus of control and thereby
take a more active role in all areas of their treatment.
The first of these purported benefits did not
manifest in this intervention, as the students on task
behavior stayed roughly consistent and the students off
task behavior in one category increased dramatically.
One possible explanation for this trend is that the study
took place over the course of three weeks and that the
student required more time and more observation to
derive benefit. Another possibility is related to the
students own perception of his behavior. Namely,
during the observational period was, according to
school staff, his behavior was better than it had been
prior to his medication change shortly before the
baseline data were collected. It may be the case that
this disruption from the norm in his behavior patterns
impacted his ability to derive benefit from additional
interventions.
The second purported benefit relates to the
congruence of perception of behaviors between
students or patients and their teachers or clinicians.
Namely, if the students see themselves as their teachers
see them, they will better appreciate the ways in which
they must improve their behaviors in addition to feeling
empowered to do so. His ratings correlated at r = 0.75,
normally considered a high correlation but lower than
those obtained in the original study. Given that, from
87

his own historical perspective, his behavior during class

must have appeared abnormally good, his ability to
reach that correlation with staff members may in fact
represent positive results.
Whether he derived some benefit in terms of
his perspective on self-efficacy in treatment and locus
of control was not directly studied in this intervention
and merits additional research. Furthermore, it is worth
investigating if additional accuracy training would have
had a positive impact on his on task behaviors in the
classroom. Finally, future research should investigate
whether strong incorporation of self-regulation
protocols into Check-In-Check-Out procedures
strengthens either approach.
On the whole, the procedure did not appear to
be very effective. One possibility is that the intervention
lacked an external motivating factor for the student.
Many older students appear to be ready and willing to
make the kind of changes necessary to confirm to
school-environment expectations; however, the student
in question did not appear in observations to be
concerned with the mismatch between his behavior and
expectations. Nor did he appear to be aware that such a
mismatch really existed. As such, the ethical basis of
having the student see the necessary changes and feel
empowered to make them is undermined. For students
at Adams level of progress, it may be necessary to
further modify the procedure such that correct
perceptions (i.e., those which conform to adult
88

observations) are in some way rewarded and

incorrect perceptions are not. In this way, the student
might be more motivated to honestly examine his own
behavior or others perceptions in order to provide the
necessary benefit.

89

EDSE 629: Secondary Curriculum and

Strategies for Students with Disabilities
who Access the General Curriculum
This course was intended to complement the
previous course on instructional strategies for
Elementary aged children. In this course, the focus was
on strategies that are effective for children and
adolescents in middle- and high school across the
curriculum.
Major coursework for this class included unit
plans, video lessons on secondary curriculum topics,
and a presentation on a well-known but ineffective
practice for helping students with mild disabilities. Due
to constraints based on media, only screenshots from
the video presentations can be shown here. In this
case, two screen-shots are included from the
assignment on popular but ineffective practicesmy
presentation focused on TFT/EFT, also known as
tapping, which is a popular but not empirically
supported therapeutic device often used with children
with Emotional Disabilities, including within my own
teaching setting.

90

91

92

EDSE 662: Consultation and Collaboration

A unique offering within the Masters in
Education programs at GMU, this course was a
requirement for all special education students but an
elective for students from other disciplines. Its structure
was intended to mimic the co-teaching relationships
that special and general educators often form in order
to teach in inclusive and diverse settings. The course
focused on the process and aspects of collaboration
within teams and in broader education as well as
covering the requirement for special education students
to learn to construct Individual Education Plans (IEPs).
The major coursework for this class included
group research projects including lesson plans, an IEP
for a hypothetical student, teacher interviews, and a
short position paper on co-teaching practice6, which has
been included in the following pages.

This paper was written as a collaborative project with

a learning group, including classmates: Raquel E.
Aguirre, Harmony J. Tahy, Kristen E. Wildbergh.

93

PLC Position Paper

Numerous studies have shown that
collaborative teaching teams can have significant
positive impacts on student learning outcomes
(Letterman & Dugan, 2004; Qi & Rabren, 2009; etc.). As
such, co-teaching has become more common in schools,
and so have the associated issues. This paper examines
some potential problems that may arise in these
situations, and then proposes the possibility that
optimal co-teaching teams may be created in order to
minimize the impact of some of these issues. Our
review found that minimal research exists on the
formation of better teams, but instead that the majority
of the extant research focused on how to improve the
functionality of teams after their formation. As such, we
propose a two part research paradigm to further
examine team creation, particularly to address the
creation of optimal teams.
Entering into a co-teaching environment is
ideally done voluntarily; however, in practice it is most
often mandated by school administration. Teachers
who are forced into these situations may develop a
negative perspective that not only hinders the
collaborative environment, but can also become
detrimental to student learning. Musanti and Pence
(2010) found that teachers resistance to collaborating
as co-teachers developed from a perceived threat of
evaluation. Co-teachers in this study felt that to
critique their partners was to identify deficits in their
94

teaching and promoted an environment of

negativity. During our discussions, we grappled with
the issue of accountability within co-teachers because
of the added stress to the potentially delicate
relationship between collaborators. Similarly,
researchers found that hierarchical leadership roles
negatively impacted teacher efficacy in the
collaborative environment (Letterman & Dugan,
2004). This study argued that conflict is more likely to
occur in a team teaching environment if group roles are
not clearly defined and understood by all group
members. Co-teaching and its efficacy, therefore, are
subject to the negative attitudes of the participants and
administrators should consider how to address this
negativity in order to experience success.
In addition to the attitudes of teachers, time
constraints impact the efficacy of co-teaching in a
collaboration environment. Co-teaching can be more
time consuming for the individual teachers involved,
and this additional stress hinders co-teachers abilities
to effectively collaborate in a manner that impacts
student learning. Gajaoa & Koliba (2008) argue that
making time for planning is not enough to rectify this
situation. This study outlines optimal outcomes for
teacher collaboration, and sites that administrators
need to enable teachers to use their time together
wisely. This issue is further complicated by differences
in teaching styles of the co-teachers and differences in
their approach to organization and preparation for
95

lessons. Consequently, it becomes imperative for

administrators to pair teachers in co-teaching
environments who have compatible styles, personalities
and philosophies in order to equip them to effectively
work together.
In order for administrators to prevent scenarios
such as those listed above, it is worth considering how
to cultivate optimal co-teaching teams. Heretofore, a
substantial amount of the literature, particularly in
journals intended for mass consumption among
teachers, has focused on how to manage and maintain
relationships within co-teaching pairs (Barth, 2006;
Friend, 2007; Dyck, Sundbye, & Pemberton, 1997;
Murawski & Dieker, 2004; Vaughn, Schumm, &
Arguelles 1997). Consistent themes among the
literature involve partnered course planning, effective
communication, full administrative support, and
complementary teaching philosophies (Dieker, 2001).
Yet, these common suggestions still failed to address
many of our groups concerns; for instance, we
discussed whether students could actually view two
teachers as equals or whether students would always
see the content teacher as the primary or superior
educator. Furthermore, all of this analysis is considering
what ought to be done after the formation of such
teams. Searching the literature for prescriptive analysis
on the formation of such teams yielded minimal results.
In order to delve into what factors are relevant for the
creation of optimal co-teaching teams, this proposal will
96

review what literature was found on team formation,

consider relevant factors from outside the context of
education and co-teaching pairs, and then suggest
avenues of research that might provide a more
thorough view of the formation of such pairs.
One article was found which did advise
administrators on how best to prepare and cultivate
effective co-teaching teams. Friend (2007) advised that
an administrator should minimize expectations among
teachers who may be paired together: Principals can
eliminate some of these recruitment problems by
gradually but firmly establishing the expectation that
any teacher in the school might be asked to partner
with a specialist (p. 48). While that may reduce
problems for administrators in the short-term by
reducing complaints about placement into co-teaching
teams, this does not seem to add much to discussion on
how to form optimal teams.
Barth (2006) wrote more broadly on the kinds
of relationships that can exist between teachers and
staff within schools. He perceived four kinds of
relationships: parallel, adversarial, congenial, and
collegial. Barth argued that optimal teams are those
which have a congenial relationship, wherein educators
share ideas about teaching practice, craft knowledge,
observe one another while teaching and root for mutual
success. While this does not prima facie suggest an
algorithm for co-teacher pairings, it may serve as a

97

broader criterion: perhaps the best teacher pairings are

ones in which a collegial relationship is easy to cultivate.
As mentioned previously, suggestions for how
an administrator might pair up co-teachers were
minimal in the literature. Instead, research journals
were searched in the broader contexts of social
psychology, organizational psychology, and human
factors psychology. Themes that emerged from this
research were the importance of trust between
colleagues (Andrei, Ooiu, Isail, & Bban, 2010; Spector
& Jones, 2004), personality factors (Feinberg, Kim, &
Greenburg, 2008; Mollerman & Slomp, 2006),
communication (Cole & Crichton, 2006), leadership
(Cole & Crichton, 2006), environment (Cole & Crichton,
2006), and member continuity (De La Hera & Rodriguez,
1999). Of these themes, the most pertinent to the
research question of co-teaching team optimizations
are personality factors. Specifically, Feinberg, Kim, and
Greenburg (2008) found that conscientiousness was
positively correlated with team functioning, whereas
openness to experience was negatively correlated with
it.
To address these questions within the context
of schools and co-teaching teams more narrowly, we
propose a two part research program. The first part of
the program would be descriptive, wherein a survey
would be produced to gather qualitative information on
what factors principals feel that they use to create coteaching teams (e.g. professional development,
98

personality, teaching philosophy, etc). This would have

the added benefit of suggesting avenues of research for
the second part of the program, which is more empirical
and, if it finds significant results, more likely to be
prescriptive. Specifically, it is proposed that researchers
collect data on the personality features of members of
teams formed at the beginning of a school
year. Additional qualitative data could be collected
here on teaching philosophy per Dieker (2001) in
addition to any factors identified by principals in part
one. Upon the completion of an academic year, this
team could be assessed through multiple methods
(student pre- and post-testing, outcomes data, selfreport) to determine if certain personality features,
matched philosophies, or other factors identified in part
one correlate with success in any of these proposed
measures. If the sample is of sufficient size, such data
could provide some statistical power to the testing of
notions held by teachers and administrators based on
anecdotal accounts and personal experiences as listed
in much of the prior research.

99

Additional Coursework:
As noted in the introductory chapter, I was
required by circumstances to complete additional
courses beyond the ASTL requirements in order to
obtain my teaching license. Some of these (via UVA)
were done prior to beginning the M.Ed program at
GMU. Others (University of Phoenix) were taken on an
emergency basis to fulfill licensure requirements that
were past due in order to maintain compliance in my
work site.

100

EDIS 5000: The Exceptional Learner (UVA)

This course and the next were both taken at

UVA, outside of any particular graduate program, in
order to begin the process of provisional licensure. This
course focused on the basic features of special and
gifted education, including the Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act, section 504 of the Americans
with Disabilities Act, and various other features of the
educational of exceptional children.

101

EDIS 5041: Behavior Management (UVA)

This course was also taken at UVA and focused

on basics of Behavior Management, including
Functional Behavioral Analysis, but crucially, not
Applied Behavioral Analysis. The major coursework for
this class included a behavior management tool and a
presentation on grade retention, both of which were
lost due to circumstances of fate7.

To wit, a destroyed hard drive.

102

EDIS 5100: Emotional and Behavioral Disorders

(UVA)

This course was a 1 credit offering to satisfy the

characteristics of students with disabilities
requirements for licensure. Due in part to a
misunderstanding of the nature of the course, I was
present for only two weeks of the class and did not
glean much from the instruction, most of which focused
on the behavior problems of Bart Simpson during the
two weeks that I was present.

103

EDRS 621: Qualitative Inquiry in Education (GMU)

Due to the aforementioned inability to take

ASTL courses for nine months, I elected to take a
research course for fun during the fall of 2014. I had
intended to do one in the spring semester as well, but
dropped the idea for reasons that will soon be clear.
This course was a general overview of
qualitative research including theories, data collection,
and data analysis. The culminating project, reproduced
herein, was an interview based project. For mine, I
chose to focus on issues related to teacher burnout and
retention. The original interview transcripts are in
Appendices J (Karl) and K (Priscilla).

104

Teacher Burnout and Retention in a Small, Therapeutic

Day School
In this study, I wished to explore in-depth a
pattern that had been often commented-upon in the
school in which I teach, namely that the staff members,
teachers in particular, were all experiencing a
simultaneous burnout and that this would likely lead to
significant staff member attrition within the next year.
Having looked through the existing literature, some
research had been done regarding causes (missing
administrative support [Cherniss, 1988], specific student
population [Kelly & Barnes-Holmes, 2013], school
climate [Lavian, 2012], and the development of burnout
over time [Frank & McKenzie, 1993]).
The present study was intended to explore
these connections further. The causes of burnout
remain a complicated issue, and the question of
whether burnt-out teachers leave the profession
remains open to debate (Metzke, 1988, as cited in Frank
& McKenzie, 1993). Furthermore, I intended to explore
whether burnout occurs in patterns or clusters within
work sites or social networks, as well as ask whether the
specific teaching environment being exploredvery
small, private, special education settingsare more
prone to burnout than other types of settings. In order
to address these questions, I interviewed two teachers,
one current and one former employee of Hurtfew
Abbey School. The latter (pseudonym Karl) had
recently left to work as a co-teacher at a public high
105

school; the former (Priscilla) stated during her

interview that she intended soon to leave the teaching
profession altogether.
The first significant research question was
related to the perceived causes of burnout. The
interviews generated several possible causes and
definitions of burnout. Both participants supported the
prior research that administrator support plays a
significant role in burnoutthat having such support
can delay or mitigate burnout, or that increased
pressure from administrators can alternately be an
important source of burnout. Though both participants
avoided or rejected the idea that there are specific
types of students that are more prone to lead teachers
to develop burnout, Karl did endorse the idea that
certain students, though not connected by type, can
have an impact on a teachers perceived self-efficacy,
which was a major theme for both participants in terms
of the development of burnout. Finally, both
participants frequently referenced their time budgets in
relation to burnout. For Karl, this meant that he was
required to do too many things during the day that his
time budget did not allow for, leading him to feel that
he was inadequately performing his job. For Priscilla,
time was almost a measurement of teacher enthusiasm:
when she loved her job, she utilized a sizeable amount
of her free time to support her work; in contrast, in her
current state she is only putting in the bare minimum
amount of time.
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As mentioned above, research remains divided

on whether burnt out teachers leave the profession or
stay. It is believed that a large portion of veteran
teachers remain in their roles despite burnout. Karl did
not categorically endorse this statement, though he did
describe a pattern of frustration and lacking efficacy in
the time period preceding his resignation from his
previous teaching position. Priscilla was more direct in
her response to this question, noting that her desire to
leave developed over time I was gonna leave this job
and go to another job. I think now Im looking at getting
out of teaching altogether. (Priscilla, 138-139)
Finally, questions related to whether there
exists a social nature to the burnout experienced at
Hurtfew Abbey School went largely unaddressed. Karl
did not speak to this issue at all, and while Priscilla did
relate that it seems other coworkers do feel burnt out,
for her it was more of a question of if anything could be
done to prevent this ongoing burnout at her school,
which she concluded was not possible under current
administration.
It is worth exploring in this study the ways in
which the relationships and environment may have
impacted the responses and interviewer rapport of the
participants involved. Both participants, for example,
have had professional relationships with the interviewer
since early 2011, and had all struggled through difficult
years of teaching in the same environment.
Significantly, this has led the staff members of this
107

organization to periodically discuss burnout, self-care,

and attrition as several staff members have experienced
those issues in that time. Because of these
conversations and history, the participants may have
been primed to discuss teacher burnout in ways that
are impacted by the perspective and voice of the
researcher in conversations throughout that time. Also,
and importantly with respect to the current study, the
researcher is known to be very close with the
administrator of the school, Hannah Ames, which may
have impacted the ways in which the participants,
particularly Karl, may have reported on administratorrelated problems within the interviews.
Interview setting may also have some impact on
the types of responses seen by researchers. It is worth
noting that Karl was interviewed at a sports themed
restaurant he had suggested, whereas Priscilla was
interviewed within the researchers own classroom.
While one might suggest that this may have relaxed Karl
in comparison to Priscilla, given that he was in a less
formal setting; however, this interviewer noted that on
the contrary, Priscilla seemed more at ease throughout
the interview.
The most significant theme to emerge from the
study is one of Professional Frustration, in the sense
that the teachers wished to do the work of teaching,
particularly the parts of teaching they valued most
(creativity, autonomy, connecting with the kids,
touching lives) but constantly felt that they were
108

prevented from doing their jobs in varied ways, leading

to frustration. The main thing preventing good teaching
for Karl was administrative tasks like meetings,
scheduling, and so on: Karl: Because you start doing
administrative duties, or what might be perceived as
administrative duties and not something thats going to
enhance your teaching. (Karl, 58-59)
For example, Karl related that before I felt
likeI couldnt effectively teach, I couldnt, even the last
[year], the fourth quarter I couldnt even properly grade
their papers, cause there just wasnt enough time to do
it. I mean, thats where I got a little frustrated, cause I
felt the service I was providing wasnt as good as it
should be. (Karl, 188-190) Priscilla spoke directly to this
frustration as well, saying: we have such a possibility
to make a stand and do so many wonderful things and
set the mark for special education private day schools,
and theyre falling so far behind the mark, it frustrates
the crap out of me. (Priscilla, 179-181)
Karl spoke to the development of burnout over
time in relation to this frustration, noting that for
teachers to get started [as a teacher] it takes a lot of
energy but youre passionate about it.quite possible
as they continue in the profession their passion
becomes circumvented by the paperwork, the
meetings, the parents, the legislature, you know some
of those necessary, sometimes evils that are required to
do the job. (Karl, 40-44) Again, Karl was making a
distinction between the passion-driven parts of
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teaching and the day-to-day administrative-style tasks

that prevent teachers from fully realizing their
potential. For Priscilla, this development leads one to
eventually question why they were passionate about
teaching in the first place: thats what I think burnout
is, when you every ounce of energy you have goes
into it, and then, youre like, I have nothing left, and
you just reach the point when youre like, and what did
I do it all for? (Priscilla, 81-83)
This feeling of lacking self-efficacy extends
beyond the classroom and into school-wide, systemic
problems as well. When discussing a possible pattern of
burnout and attrition at her school, for example,
Priscilla related that administration itself stands in the
way of progress, noting I think you come in and youre
like, this is why [other teachers] left, we can make a
difference, we can pull together, and how many times
have we gotten together as teachers and like, and
what, many voices are stronger than one voice and it
all just kinda falls by the wayside. And I think you very
quickly realize, you know what. I cant do what I do
best here. (Priscilla, 345-350)
It seems that, for these teachers, burnout is the
result when new, idealistic teachers arrive in the
profession and find that they are unable to transform
the practice of teaching, their schools, the lives of their
students. Over time, they perceive that they lack selfefficacy and try harder and harder to effect positive
change, going above and beyond. Finally, they realize
110

that they have been unable to make the difference they

wanted, and begin to look at least for appreciation for
their contribution, which is also not forthcoming.
Priscilla, when attempting to sum up the entirety of her
thoughts on burnout, attrition, and the practice of
teaching, related: So I think that would, if I had to sum
up everything, I think, I think I just kind of hit on it, I
think we all work so hard going above and beyond that
becomes whats expected and not whats appreciated.
(Priscilla, 498-500)
For me, the biggest and most interesting
questions of this study remain un-addressed: For
Priscilla, burnout is leading to attrition, but would other
teachers endorse that idea? Karl did not speak directly
to this point, and so it would benefit from more voices
from the same population. As Priscilla noted in her
interview, there are only about 12 employees at her
school, many of whom could provide additional
perspectives on the current status at this school and
paint a much more detailed picture of the processes at
work in that environment.
Additionally, the questions related to the social
nature of burnoutwhether it spreads through the
social networks as other emotional issues have been
noted to do (Rosenquist, Fowler, & Christakis, 2010)
remain unanswered and would of course require a
much more substantial study, tracing the social
networks and assessing the burnout of these individuals
longitudinally.
111

EDD 557: Theories of Growing and Learning (UP)

As noted above, this and the next class were

taken online on an emergency basis to complete the
requirements for licensure. This course focused on
theoretical and empirical frameworks for understanding
human growth and development as it pertains to
education.
Coursework for this class included, among other
things, a paper on Intellectual Power. This had been
intended to be a group project, though my groupmates8
were unaware of this fact. In the end, this entire brief
summary was written by the author of this book.

Lindsay Clauer, Joy Harper, and Emily Vermillion,

112

Intellectual Power and IQ

Intelligence, and in particular intellectual
power, has been long-debated within the fields of
psychology and education. While there is no agreed
upon standard for what counts as intelligence, most
definitions center around a concept related to reason
abstractlyprofit from experience, and the ability to
adapt to varying environmental contexts. (Bee & Boyd,
2012, p. 167)
More specific theoretical frameworks to
describe intelligence have been proposed. For example,
Gardner (1989) proposed an expansive theoretical
framework wherein intelligence was actually the sum of
different intelligences that varied from individual to
individual. Within this framework, each different type of
intelligence could be thought of as a different mental
organ (cf. Chomsky, 1980), such as logicomathematical, linguistic, spatial, musical, kinesthetic,
interpersonal, and intrapersonal (Gardner & Hatch,
1989). Other frameworks also divide intelligence into
subcategories: consider, for example, Sternbergs
(1985) triarchic theory of intelligence, published nearly
simultaneously, which divides it into faculties of
analytic, creative, and practical intelligence. However,
though theories of multiple intelligences are popular in
contemporary psychology, Spearman (1904) analyzed
the different intelligence tests and types of tasks being
measured and found positive relations between all of
them. This has traditionally been interpreted to indicate
113

that some faculty underlies all of the different types of

intelligence that had been measured, referred to as g.
Far and away the most well studied and
understood measure of intelligence is IQ, originally
developed by Binet and Simon (Bee & Boyd 2012) as a
ratio of mental abilities as compared with average peers
with ones chronological age. This original method of
calculation has been abandoned, and the tests
themselves are periodically re-normed so that the
average IQ remains at 100 and the standard deviation
remains 15. This has been required in part because the
average IQ score has risen consistently since the
development of the test (Flynn, 1999), known as the
secular trend in IQ (Bee & Boyd 2012).
There exist several different tests that seek to
measure IQ with as much accuracy as is possible (Bee &
Boyd 2012). The traditional choice is the Stanford-Binet,
developed out of the original assessment. The Wechsler
Intelligence Scales for Children (WISC-IV) are currently
the most popular choice in schools, in part because they
break down IQ into different subtests, but still report on
a Full Scale Intelligence Quotient (FSIQ) (Bee & Boyd
2012).
Other tests have sought to measure intelligence
in less traditional ways. For example, the Peabody
Picture Vocabulary Test measures students ability to
choose an image which corresponds with a presented
word. This is not in and of itself a measure of IQ in the
114

traditional form, but is a useful initial measure as it

correlates well with the more involved tests (Bee &
Boyd 2012). Ravens Progressive Matrices were
developed in order to remove the verbal component
from IQ testing in order that linguistic differences or
language disabilities. This test consists of patterns with
missing pieces: participants are required to analyze the
pattern, then choose the best possible answer to fit the
pattern in the missing square. Children with autism
have been shown to do better on this test than on
traditional IQ tests that require more verbal skills
(Association for Psychological Science, 2007), and so it is
seen as a more accurate measure of their cognitive and
analytical skills. 9
IQ is relatively successful at predicting a
students academic and educational outcomes (Bee &
Boyd 2012). There exists a moderate correlation
between IQ and a students scores on other school tests
and IQ has been linked to success later on in a students
educational career, such as staying in school longer
(Brody, 1997, as cited in Bee & Boyd 2012). These
positive associations with IQ and success in school are

It is worth noting that the ability to verbalize items on the

RPM gives a test-taker an edge. For example, one item at the
end of the progression tests a students ability to correctly add
and subtract positive and negative integers. Participants who
are able to accurately reason from the nonverbal image to that
verbal intelligence skill are, arguably, better equipped to take
the test than completely nonverbal participants. (item is #60
on http://www.raventest.net/raven-test.html)

115

also consistent across ethnic, racial, and class

distinctions (Birney & Sternberg, 2011, as cited in Bee &
Boyd 2012). Though this correlation has been fairly
consistent, it is worth noting that the correlation itself is
not strong: between 0.45 and 0.6 (Brody, 1997, as cited
in Bee & Boyd 2012). This indicates, via an analysis of
the coefficient of determination (see Gravetter &
Wallnau, 2014), that the total amount of success these
students experienced on their non-IQ assessments was
only impacted by their IQ between 20% and 36%.
Though IQ and intellectual power are important, there
also clearly exist more factors worth investigating, as
well.

116

EDD 546: Foundations of Education (UP)

As noted above, this course was taken online on

an emergency basis to complete the requirements for
licensure. It is not an un-noticed irony that the final
course I was required to take for my license, and indeed
the final course I needed to take before the ASTL Core
courses was Foundations of Education. The course
focused on the broadest possible overview of the
history, philosophy, law, and structure of American
education.
The major coursework for this class included a
welcome packet for a hypothetical new hire at my
school. This packet included Appendix L, reproduced
herein, called Special Education Alphabet Soup, which
is an ongoing resource I have been updating for years
on all of the acronyms that frequently fly around the
special education setting.

117

Part Three: Core Courses

Autobio study here10

10

https://prezi.com/gxouii2wh6mr/edit/#1_30863873

118

Inquiry into Practice

Autobiographical Study

The Opening Move: Introduction

Chess is something I do to relax and construct
my thinking, a daily background noise on my phone,
with my students, or on youtube before bed. In fact, as I
complete this project, most of my time has been spent
waiting for my online opponents to make their moves.
Moreover, chess symbolizes a scientist / poet
dichotomy, one that has been an important and difficult
part of my personality and thinking for decades and
which underlies my thinking as a learner, teacher, and
researcher. A chess player memorizes facts, figures,
procedures, and diagrams, but what is important is that
they have the right creativity, passion, and inspiration
when it counts. This is also true in classroom activities,
teaching in the moment (or reflecting on one's feet
[Farrell, 2012]), and coming up with the right
combination of statistical and creative thinking to make
worthwhile research.
Finally, I will conclude in several places that I am
torn between opposing ideas and practices--chess
reflects that even mix of opposites both in its
checkerboard setting and in its aggressive, tension-ofopposites playing style.

119

ELO Rating: Who I am as a Learner and an Individual

As a learner, I've always had an easy time
picking up new material, being intellectually engaged
with the ideas of my classes, and passing assessments
on the content of my courses. Where I did struggle was
in organization, time management, and anything that
required me to produce work, especially if it involved
some kind of forced creativity. In Elementary school, I
skated through without putting in any kind of extra
effort and I fully expected that school would always be
easy. In Middle School, things became more difficult as I
rarely did homework and procrastinated on every major
assignment. I was constantly vacillating between the
three possibilities outlined in Fecho (2004):
engagement, resistance, or compliance. This continued
until roughly my Junior year of high school, when a few
important lessons finally sunk in.
One of these lessons came from a story from
my freshman year. I had a teacher whom I initially truly
disliked on account of her frequent habit of assigning
journal entries related to our topics in class. I could not
see the connection between her writing assignments
and the history content I was supposed to be learning.
As Brookfield (1995) would note, these seemed like a
"Mandated Confessional" and I often did not have
answers for her questions that seemed adequate or
appropriate. For example, when learning about the an
important archaeological discovery, she asked us to
write about a time that we discovered something. I
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have never discovered anything--I sat, staring at a blank

Word document for hours, unable to think of how to
answer a question that didn't have an answer. Finally,
my mom proposed that I write about the time I
discovered that I was adopted (I'm not; my birth mother
suggested this. Are you listening, Dr. Freud?). I turned in
it, my teacher loved it, and I waited until the last day of
school to give up the hoax, thinking I'd never see her
again. I had her for two more classes. The incident
became an in-joke between me and that teacher, but it
taught me something way more important: instead of
being stuck by my own rigidity, I could break out of the
box of "correctness" and simply do an assignment for its
own sake, even if I didn't see the point, and especially if
I thought it was meaningless. I could make my own
meaning (Fecho, 2004) by using it as an opportunity to
get creative and have fun.
I wrote about this same kind of need for
flexibility in one of my journals--I had been assigned a
project to do original research in US History through
oral interviewing. I knew of no one who had been
through the kind of history I was interested in (they've
been dead for, oh, a while.) and struggled to start the
assignment. Eventually, my teacher let me choose to
take an exam instead--that is, I opted to choose the
educational values that were important to me (learning
content) and take a personal and active approach to my
education rather than struggle with the parts that
lacked personal meaning.
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I wrote:
Firstly, its a story about the importance of
flexibility and individualization in education.
From the teachers standpoint, what was the
true goal of this assignment? Could I accomplish
this goal well enough while doing an alternative
assignment...I think he took umbrage at that
assessment of his course, but I think it also
strikes at the heart of the other question at
work for me here. What is really the goal of our
secondary education system in the first place?
Many would seem to think that it is preparation
for future careers, in which case the
interviewing, original research, presentation,
and time management skills I might have honed
with the assignment might have been very
beneficial. I tend to fall on the side of content
knowledge being a more crucial aspect of our
current system, in which case a second final
exam is probably appropriate. And given that
my immediate career plans at the time included
academia, isnt the practice at essay writing
under time pressure and taking comprehensive
finals also a utilitarian pursuit for me as well?
I think for me, the process of learning is a
connection between me, the content, and my teacher.
As such, it has been crucial that I've had several
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teachers whom I had for multiple classes in High School

and in College that enabled me to get comfortable with
them and their expectations. I've also seemed to
gravitate toward the "grouchy old man" teacher
archetype--draw your own conclusions. While there
might be something lost in deliberately decreasing the
diversity of viewpoints I had from professors, as the
saying goes, Plato and Aristotle each only had one
teacher themselves.
Two of the most lasting influences bear further
discussion: The first was Governor's School in 2004 (see
below), and it opened my mind up to more
contemporary modes of thought, postmodernism,
abstraction, and so on. The second took perhaps an
opposite twist: My physics teacher in high school
required each of his students to write length papers (in
sum, mine were roughly 70 pages) on logical fallacies
and the principle of parsimony, respectively. Though I
had been in gifted programs through elementary and
middle school, this was the first formalized teaching in
logic and critical thinking I ever received and it blew my
mind--I've never thought about anything the same way
since.

People from this region of the country, in

addition to their other rural traditions, carry a strong
and unique dialect of American English that is
sometimes called Pittsburghese or a yinzer dialect.
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It is a blend of rural Appalachian English with elements

of Irish and Scottish Gaelic with some Polish thrown in,
reflecting the various waves of immigrant populations
which settled in the area as coal mining created an
economic boom in the mid-19th to mid-20th centuries
and rail lines provided access and transportation of raw
materials to various other Rust Belt localities, notably
Pittsburgh for steel production, hence the name of the
local football team. The dialect has strong influence on
vowel pronunciation (hence the pronunciation of the
aforementioned sports team as Stillers), along with
unique words and grammatical forms deriving from
Gaelic and Slavic roots and a distinctive and eponymous
version of the second-person-plural personal pronoun,
You ones shortened to yinz or yuns.
As a result of the closing down of the steel
industry, there has been a substantial economic
contraction and desolation in this part of Pennsylvania,
and this partly explains why there are Stillers fans at
every away game and throughout the country. My
parents are part of that diaspora, having moved out for
employment opportunities and a raised standard of
living shortly before I was born. I was the first child on
either side of my family born outside of the state of
Pennsylvania since 1750.
As a matter of pure accident, my parents got
jobs in Leesburg, Virginia, which at the time was a
stoplight on the way to Winchester but has since
grown and become part of the Northern Virginia
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megalopolis, with its highly educated work force,

knowledge culture, and general air of affluent
Caucasian-ness. Though there is of course incredible
diversity in Northern Virginia (hereafter, NOVA), that
has not fully extended out to Leesburg and was not a
significant part of my upbringing. Instead, I quickly
learned in elementary school that my parents were less
educated than my peers, that they talked differently
and that their tastes were considered less refined. I
dont remember learning these facts, but instead feel
like Ive always known them. No one elses parents
made them listen to country music, and certainly none
of my friends had a shotgun put in their hands at age 11
to go turkey hunting.
Since that time, I have felt that Im being pulled
between two very different worlds, in particular when
we make (less and less frequent) visits home to an
area that was never my home in the first place. Having
spent more time among my teachers and peers from a
young age and in the schooling environment, Ive been
pulled so strongly and assimilated so fully into the
affluent intelligentsia of NOVA with its international
tastes and liberal values. I dont really think that I could
effectively use the yinzer accent consciously, though I
know all the shibboleths (whats a whistlepig?) at this
point. My mother, who edits medical records for a
living, has a remarkable ability to code switch, but as
she has been working from home, her original accent
has become more and more pronounced. My brother
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and sister can both blend in well, but I have to make a

very conscious effort to become someone Im not in
order to fit in with my roots, and that discrepancy is
very uncomfortable. In recent years, it has become
more and more problematic for me as my extended
family as joined facebook and I now must decide before
I do anything things like, Do I post this leftist status
that will alienate my cousins, or do I think they probably
arent paying attention anyway?
Due to an interesting confluence of events, my
current principal went to high school not 10 miles from
where my mother grew up, and though her accent is
flat and slightly European (for similar reasons to mine),
she also feels at home with these roots. I am told that,
particularly during my stressful first year when we
shared a wall between my classroom and her office,
when I am particularly angry or indignant, the yinzer
comes out. Somehow, I remain a conglomeration of
both, though I can much more easily blend into my
adopted community and, as Nieto (1999) might point
out, benefit immensely from the cultural capital derived
from growing up in an area with world class schools,
tastes, values, and cultural institutions.
As a teacher
Male teachers often get a lot of attention from
students, and even more so if they're young. Add to
that the fact that I am the only male staff member in
our entire wing of the building and that I am as deep
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into geek culture as many of my students are, and it

sort of explains the celebrity status I have at my school.
Over the years, I have cultivated dual reputations as
both a teacher that is fun in class and talks about
interesting things AND as a teacher whose classes (and
quizzes!) are difficult, who follows the school handbook
to a very strict degree. As I gain confidence and gray
hair, I see myself backing off on both, but for now,
these are how I am perceived.
More about Ellie
Ellie had been my student for three and a half
years until she graduated last month. Though all of our
students are close with their counselors, from whom
they receive 30 minutes of individual therapy per week,
Ellie is one of a very small number of students who
would trade out their individual session with their
therapist to talk to me during my planning period or
when they were in crisis. She and I were particularly
close in tastes in music, books, movies, and, though she
never heard me say so, in political and social views. She
was a student whom I was able to push the hardest and
receive the best, sometimes most surprising results. For
one of my journals, I told the story of a time when her
emotional health led her to some problematic
behaviors (her words) and the lesson I learned from it:
namely, that I should work as best as I can within
established behavior management frameworks, but to
get as creative as possible with interventions for kids
who are able to rise above the regular system. I wrote:
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Graduation is on a Wednesday nightseniors

are not required to come to the next two days of
school, though they may do so if they choose.
Ellie came on the last day of school, bearing her
two-page response to the article and two boxes
of Lady Grey Tea (my favorite) for me. I wasnt
fully pleased with the content of her response
(she admitted culpability but deflected
responsibility in a few places) but felt successful
in navigating a tough situation and seeing it
through to the end.
I suspect that the biggest lesson for me here is
one which I had already learned and then forgotten. As
a young therapist-in-training in the early 2010
timeframe, I worked in a residential treatment facility
with a similar, if more acute, population as the one I
teach right now. That setting admitted more flexibility
in terms of behavior and therapeutic interventions, and
I learned over some months there that the best
intervention is the one that is most creative while being
tailored specifically to the adolescent in question. Being
involved in my current setting, with its fairly rigid
behavior management scheme and reliance on teaming
has been great, but it has taken the creativity and
individualization out of my academic interventions, and
I have been less thoughtful and reflective about how I
handle these situations as a result. Though it was surely
motivated by seeking to absolve herself of the guilt and
responsibility for her actions, Ellie gave me a chance to
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re-imagine my role as a teacher in behavior

management and therapeutic education, teaching both
content and socio-emotional skillssimultaneously
when possible.
International Grandmaster: Cultural Elements in my
Classroom
Apart from the white, middle class intellectual
linguistic and cultural background I bring to the class,
my students bring a wealth of diversity in economic,
cultural, racial, social, and linguistic backgrounds. In
particular, I am inclined to welcome our many
international students as an opportunity to get to know
new cultures and languages (as much as possible while
normalizing this, to reduce risk of appearance of
fetishization or appropriation).
From class journal:
A famous example of thiswhen the Hungarian
student first started, I met her as a result of
having to substitute her algebra class before she
became my student the next year. They were
doing adding and subtracting positive and
negative integers and I got bored with the
mathematics of their task. I started asking for
the names of numbers in Hungarian and started
testing my ability to do their math problems in a
completely new language. The enthusiasm
spread, and the Hungarian student in question
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got to the whiteboard to teach the lesson

herself, correcting both the pronunciation and
the mathematics of other students, who had
joined in the game. I love the crossover between
mathematical and linguistic thinking and the
exercise got me invested in the math as well as
the other students in the language. Over the
years, that student and I formed a close bond
and practiced languages whenever possible.
Being able to congratulate her in Hungarian
when I gave her a diploma last month was a
really special moment for me.
Since starting this class, I've tried to incorporate
Nieto's (1999) work on teaching students in multiple
languages and Fecho's (2004) ideas regarding home
codes and power codes. I've tried to incorporate as
much Spanish as is appropriate, in addition to
emphasizing that there is not a "correct" English so
much as a variety favored at school. My students don't
buy it, but perhaps they're just focused on what they
need to do to pass their standardized tests...
Content Knowledge
As I wrote in my reflection, Content Knowledge
for Special Education is both a collection of skills and
techniques for working with a specific population, in
addition to the entirety of the high school general
curriculum. My concentration courses focused on
Special Education as a whole, with courses on
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characteristics of students, collaboration (i.e., coteaching, which I do not do), transition planning and
IEPs. Only one course focused on teaching for high
school special education, and I've still struggled with the
basics in that curriculum.
Meanwhile, I've had to re-learn all the parts of
the general curriculum I've forgotten, in addition to the
specific elements of pedagogy that are necessary for
each one (my concentration does include a reading
course for elementary students, which may be helpful
someday).
For my journal on this topic, I wrote:
Because of the needs of my classroom, I tend
to struggle with basic teacher skills such as
staying on top of grading, lesson/unit planning,
and keeping track of student progress. Its
impractical to plan lessons for 11 different
courses on a daily basis, and the one day I tried
it saw me leaving the office at 11:50 pm. In my
defense, I had never been taught to lesson plan
prior to that experience, and the one class that
did cover that did so in a group projectas
lesson planning was not part of my role in that
group, Ive never truly been taught this key skill.
There is a very real opportunity cost in programs
for special education teacherswe are required
to be well-rounded, but also experts in special
education, yet we seem to have about the same
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amount of time in training programs as

teachers that have fewer skills to learn than we
do.
Another interesting aspect of Special
Education is that we are required to be
advocates and case managers as much as
classroom teachers. These skills are also a
mixture of formally and informally taught
lessons related to how the system works, from
where IDEA and CSA funding derive and flow,
the history and public policy related to Special
Education, the social justice factors as they
pertain to disabilities, and the type of case
management related to transition plans, IEPs,
and so on. In spite of being as active as possible
in the regulatory and legislative process as they
pertain to special education in Virginia and the
nation, I still feel very weak in these areas as
well. For example, a mentor assigned me to
read Cross ( 2014 ) work on the history of
education (though I only got to Nixon before
graduate courses pushed this from my
forefrontanother opportunity cost).
In all, my content knowledge is
required to span two different domains, but in a
sense, I have also worked on it through two
different means: formal education through UVA,
GMU, UP, and so on; additionally, I have had to
independently develop a lot of the knowledge to
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fill in gaps and needs in my expertise. I have a

long way to go in terms of basic teacher skills,
but I remain hopeful that later portions of the
ASTL program will bring them up to speed.
Pawn promotion: As a teacher-inquirer
Since I was an undergraduate psych student, I
have been very passionate about research. As will be
noted in the next sections, I have been searching for a
way on to our operation's research team for years and
finally landed a spot with them. I hope to use the
position to hone my own skills and to suggest proposals
for answering tough pedagogical questions in a small,
niche field of education.
Are in-home programs effective treatments for school
avoidant youth?
This is a research question that is currently
being taken up by our facility's research team, of which I
have recently become a member. The hope is that
having clinical staff in the form of in-home therapists
present during morning routines will enable students
with anxiety and histories of school avoidance to
improve their attendance over a set time period. The
subset of students with ED, school avoidance, and high
anxiety is a particular niche for our school and a
growing proportion of students in Northern Virginia; as
such, we are hoping to demonstrate substantial success
with our study.
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How do I improve attendance among chronically ill,

school avoidant youth with Emotional Disability?
In the past few years, I have had three students
who have had historic and ongoing chronic illnesses. In
all three cases, family life was disrupted, school
attendance was low, and there was a great deal of
enabling and manipulation between the student and
parents. Just today, one of our candidates for principal
next year indicated that he had recently seen four cases
of similar trends. I would like to delve more deeply into
the literature and see what kinds of trends and
interactions have been found so far between chronic
illness and emotional disability in adolescents.
Mastery vs Coverage Learning?
Special Education students frequently require,
and are often mandated to receive, additional time for
the completion of their assignments, yet time remains a
limited resource. For example, if a student is given 1.5
extra time on their assignments (a typical IEP
accommodation), doesnt that entail that, by the end of
the school year, they can at most have completed 66%
of the curriculum? The question of extra time has been
fully addressed. From a pragmatic standpoint, however,
no one seems to have addressed the following
question: is it better to focus on mastery of the
curriculum (i.e., cover 66% of the whole curriculum) or
is it better to opt for complete coverage, knowing that
the student will only cover it to a certain level of
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mastery (perhaps 66%? This may also reflect the

shortened assignments IEP accommodation). I have
inquired about this in the literature and found
nothingfurthermore, I took the question to one of my
professors, Dr. Brigham, who reported that he had
attempted to conduct this very question but was unable
to find a school willing to allow the research (perhaps
because it would be a tacit admission that the force of
federal law behind IEPs necessitates that the very
students intended to be helped by them are being left
behind as it were). I have offered him my school as a
setting and we are hoping to move forward when
circumstances allow.
Optimal Partnerships
At our school, students are grouped into
homerooms of no more than 8 students, each of which
is served by teacher and counselor team (though they
will of course rotate classes through the day). This is
their IEP team, but also does the majority of the heavy
lifting in terms of managing the student's case and
working with them on educational and clinical needs.
During my concentration course, Consultation and
Collaboration, I worked with a group to address this
question: what known about the formation of the
optimal team of educators?11 For example, should
teachers with similar strengths or philosophies be
paired, or is it better to pair educators with competing
11

See Part Two: EDSE 662: Consultation and Collaboration

135

strengths and weaknesses so that they might make up

for one another's needs? We searched through
databases and journals in both education and
organizational psychology, but to no avail. (Most
literature focused on how to be happy with the team
you're already in).
Stalemate: Conclusions
In digging through my academic history for this
assignment, Im surprised by the remarkable
consistency in my academic experiences. I found that in
my childhood and adolescence, I felt a lot of the things
that Brookfield (1995) describes in his chapter: I felt
frustrated by teachers who insisted on student
explorations (evidence of a teachers laziness or of
laissez-faire intellectual relativism [Brookfield, 1995,
p5]) and of group discussions that were unearned; I
disliked the false modesty of teachers who didnt exude
expertise and lacked confidence in their ability to teach
me new things; I resisted the mandated confessionals
of journal articles and was mystified by the emphasis on
my emotional reactions to content rather than my
understanding of content; and finally, I resisted project
based learning as a distraction from and lost
opportunity for learning of additional and more
advanced content. These factors combined with a
skepticism imparted to me by the grouchy, old (school),
positivist male teachers to whom I gravitated, I was very
suspicious of the teaching styles that I knew were
considered good teaching, but which I found to be a
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waste of time. (True story: I nearly got kicked out of a

psychology class in high school for complaining too
much during an activity where we made model human
brains out of candy and oranges. All my peers were
completely engaged.) Even now, I exhibit a lot of the
reactions that Brookfield describes, e.g., Professor
Holincheck noticed my obvious attention when trying to
observe our groups un-noticed, about which Brookfield
(1995, page 11) says, A teacher cannot be a fly on the
wall if that means being an unobtrusive
observer.Students will always be wondering what
your opinion is about when theyre doing.
This suspicion about popular or trendy teaching
styles is still evident in my practice today, though as I
noted in a recent journal, my journey is in part to
become the kind of teacher I hated, if only to benefit
the kinds of students who need that type. Sometimes, I
land on the side of the right: Ive always been suspicious
and irritated by the learning styles theorists and to this
day I still am unsuccessful in convincing my very
demanding students that the theory is not valid. On the
other hand, I am sure that I will probably reject many
valid practices out of pure skepticism. Either way, the
lesson I take from this is in flexibilityI try to give my
students who appreciate a more old school style
exactly that. Students who require more exploration
and hands on approach can get projects into which they
can sink their teeth, while other students gravitate
toward a more traditional academic path.
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I still see myself positioned somewhat in

conflict or in serving two masters. The above
differences in teaching styles are one, as is the conflict
between the clinical and educational needs of my
students, which often are opposed. I still feel pulled
between the epistemologies that underlie our teaching
practices, and I still waffle between wanting to teach
pure academic and metacognitive skills versus only
caring about the content and its perfect delivery. If
moderation in all things is the solution, then I think I can
continue down this middle path, wary of being pulled
into any one direction, but constantly searching for the
best of each.

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Teacher Beliefs Statement

In writing this statement of my beliefs about
teaching, I wrestled with some deeply ingrained
thinking patterns. One of these says, if you cant
answer a question empirically with research, you
shouldnt answer the question at all. I started this by
going to my main source for best practices for teaching,
but what I found there left me and my empiricism a
little adrift in a qualitative sea. Im not sure that I can
summarize strong conclusions of where I stand on
important issues fundamental to teaching practice, but
the process itself has forced me to wrestle with my
approach to inquiry and analysis. I feel pulled between
two competing teaching philosophies, each with their
own systems of epistemology and pedagogy. For now, I
think I must try to honor the best parts of each and still
struggle to piece together whatever amalgam can be
made from the best ideas.
A teacher friend once quipped to me, The best
behavior management system is the one that youll do.
Her point was that there is not a perfect practice that
gets the best results; rather, the best practice for a
teacher is the one that is consistent with the teachers
values and can be done with consistency and
automaticity. This idea seems to remind me of Harris
(2011) moral landscape, where there are peaks and
valleys representing better and worse moral values.
Likewise, there might be a landscape of teaching, where
there may be some better practices (cf. Fecho, 2004)
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and the best ones are the ones that are consistent with
the teachers values and that can be practiced with
consistency.
The question of how students learn seems to
require some important distinctions in order to pull
apart all the complicated pieces. The first distinction I
would like to take into consideration is whether the
question of how students learn is being put in abstract
or concrete terms. Again, it can be taken on levels of
analysis that range from proximate to ultimate causes
but also can be a question of setting. Are we asking
about how students learn in the abstractif so, thats a
question of psychology and neurology and is somewhat
less immediate for teachers. Instead, I want to focus on
learning in the classroom, specifically.
I found here that breaking the question down
even further clarified my thinking immensely. Part of
the problem was the inherent is-ought distinction in
this questionshould I talk about how students seem
to be learning in a factual sense, or how they should be
learning in their classrooms? This also raised questions
for me related to what the specific content being taught
in classrooms was. As a result, this small chart opened
up the entire enterprise, and my attempt to fill it in led
to many more questions about the core of teaching.

140

Student Learning
What is happening?
What should be
happening?
How students
learn?
What
students
learn?

Addressing these somewhat out of order, Ill

begin on the bottom leftwhat are students currently
learning in classrooms? This is the four core classes of
mathematics, science, social studies, and
English/language arts. This seems to be mostly the
result of tradition and the requirements put forward by
state departments of education, who set content
standards, or of the Common Core standards which are
a more foundational set of guidelines. The common
core standards seem to put more emphasis on inquiry,
exploration, and critical thinking, but these are not
necessarily the case in the state standards that I teach. I
do, however, think that they are core to the question of
what should students be learning?
Information seems to be the currency of the
new century, and it has been repeatedly said that we
are preparing students for jobs that do not yet exist. We
cannot sufficiently teach students content knowledge
for their futures, which belies the (seemingly very
capitalist) often stated we are preparing students for
jobs canard in education. If that is what we are doing,
its accidental to a more important mission of teaching
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students how to research and produce knowledge via

the explicit instruction of epistemology, critical thinking
skills, rhetoric, logic, and the kinds of study skills that
are important in academic settingsmemorization, test
taking, task completion, writing and editing, and so on.
In my classroom, my hands are tied by the
aforementioned state standards and subsequent
assessments. My teaching is not evaluated in terms of
the critical thinking skills developed among my
students, but rather by the rate at which my students
pass their SOL examinations. This is a classic teacher
line, but it is also a cop-out. Particularly because I
frequently teach mathematics courses and have
recently taken on a few English coursesboth of these
require substantial critical thinking, problem solving,
and proof-making skills. To the maximum extent
possible, I find ways to slip these things about which I
am so passionate into the curriculum. In English last
year, I had students learn 10 new logical fallacies a
week until my list ran out. In Mathematics courses,
whenever we finish a particularly interesting or complex
problem as a class, I forbid my students to move on
until we have satisfactorily listed all the specific skills
and heuristics we used in that problem. Recently, Ive
been compiling resources and ideas into my ideal
critical thinking skills curriculumthe outline for this is
now 13 pages long and growing, and Im constantly
buying new books on logic and problem solving to
expand the list or check for items I may have forgotten.
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The next important set of questions relates to

how students learn, not what our classes are about, but
how they go about doing it. Ive seen a fairly broad
spectrum of teaching from my colleagues. Many of the
students who come to me do so from residential or
hospital settings, where teaching is often the placement
of a textbook in front of a student and telling them to
do the questions at the back of each chapterthese are
never checked, the student gets an A based on
participation, and then they come to me. In addition to
the content of my courses and the critical thinking skills
I think they need to master it, I am also obligated to
spend time teaching both of those things from the
previous courses the students have had. Though no
constructivist teacher would ever endorse that setup
(wheres the facilitation? The guidance?), it is part of
why I am suspicious of educational paradigms that are
entirely student-directed.
On the other end of the spectrum, there are
teachers whose activity, structure, organization, and
planning leave me in awe. I could never practically plan
for a school day that that contains eleven different units
of kids in different places (11 preps as the public
school teachers say), but even if I could plan one lesson
as well as Ive seen some of my colleagues do, I would
be thrilledlessons that lead from essential questions,
through real applications, that build upon themselves
and include multiple opportunities for assessments.

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When considering what I wanted to write about

the last boxhow students should be learning, I found
myself producing a list of values: diversity,
individualization, self-determination, and transparency.
Diversity here does not necessarily mean racial, ethnic,
class, gender/orientation, and religious grounds, though
exposure to those is crucial to learning as well. Rather,
the idea here is that each student is ultimately unable
to be grouped or categorized to an extent that allows
for prescriptive teaching methods. This idea has grown
out of my work in special education, where even
students with nearly identically-reading charts require
drastically different classroom experiences to learn. This
idea is slowly growing at a federal level as well
increasingly, the laws are being written with reference
to unique needs instead of special needs. There
isnt anything particularly special about my students,
other than the fact that they fall below a relatively
arbitrary line on a particular bell curve. All students
would benefit from individualized instruction, and I look
forward to a day when a special education model could
be applied across the board. In recognizing this idea, it
becomes paramount that all educational practices are
individualized to the particular student. My inability to
identify a one-size-fits-all approach to teaching in my
classroom is a feature, not a bug.
Self-determination is another important value,
and not just in the classroom. Teachers and schools
should be given leeway in establishing their programs,
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and crucially, students should be given the ability to

have some say in how their education is undertaken (it
is, after all, for their benefit). What should be allowed
to fall under this category and what is off-limits would
have to fall on the individual discretion of each school;
the substantial portion of students who see school as a
chore to be accomplished may or may not find comfort
in taking further control over it. My guess is, however,
that the overwhelming majority of students would find
that having more control over something would
increase their investment in it.
Finally, teachers must increase the sense of
trust, citizenship, and participation in their classrooms
by increasing their transparency with respect to their
teaching decisions. In part, this follows from the last
principle: students make best decisions when fully
informed. However, it also helps students put all the
pieces of their education together into a synthesized
whole. An example from my classroom: every year, a
student asks why we rationalize the denominator in my
Algebra 2 class. Every year, I pull out a slide-rule and
show them how it cant handle square roots in the
denominatortheyre learning a skill that was essential
for algebra students before the calculator was invented,
which is required only because the state standards say
so, and which they will quickly learn to ignore in higher
level mathematics. While this doesnt necessarily
inspire confidence in the state department of
education, it puts power in the hands of students and
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crucially sets up the teacher as being credible. Any

explanation of why that skill is actually important
becausewould come across as disingenuous and cut
out one of the most crucial elements in teaching (see
Hattie, 2013, below).
Being data oriented, my conception of best
practices in education is almost entirely influenced by
the amazingIm going to call it meta-meta-analysis
of John Hattie (2013). He combined several hundred
meta-analyses and tracked each into categories of study
to see what the most and least important factors are for
having an impact in the classroom. Near the top of his
list are things like, give feedback, teacher
relationships with students, metacognitive strategies,
and teacher credibility in the eyes of students. Near
the bottom are things traditionally or popularly seen as
important for improving outcomes: student control
over learning, field trips, teacher training, problem
based learning, co-teaching, and teaching for learning
styles. All of this has convinced me what I should have
already known: forget the fads. Dont sweat the specific
styles of teaching or techniques, but instead focus on
the fundamentals of the relationship between teacher
and students. Build strong ties, have integrity in their
eyes, teach them how to think and give solid feedback
about when they do well and what they can do better.
Our recent reading from Brookfield (1995) had a
section which focused on the ways in which teachers
allow the blame for poor outcomes to be focused on
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them rather than on the systemic problems that may

have greater impact. While Hattie (2013) might disagree
about this as it relates to practice, I took from the
reading a confirmation of some of my suspicions about
the factors of influence on education and its delivery;
namely, that they are often based on concerns related
to capitalism and economic constraints rather than on
the best outcomes of students. (Incidentally, this is a
recent finding in education research, according to an
article from Malin and Lubienski [2015]).
What does trouble me about this research is
that it means that some of the most important
elements of teaching are things that are nearly
unquantifiable. Why this bothers me is perhaps an
interesting question, containing parts related to the
validity of the original research itself upon which Hattie
did the meta-meta-analysis, the increased difficulty in
measuring the success of these elements in my own
classroom as compared to other factors, and my
uneasiness at being outside the familiar comfort zone of
numbers and data analysis. In part, however, it relates
to my discomfort with the entirety of the
epistemological spectrum from constructivism on one
side to positivism on the other. Furthermore, that each
seems to suggest a teaching practice and that I am
comfortable with neither means that this isnt just an
academic debate for me.
The constructivist approach (Murphy, 1997)
would say that each student creates their own
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knowledge by interacting with the world around them

and that teaching practice should facilitate that process,
rather than to consider education a process of
transmission of knowledge from a teacher to a blankminded student. My discomfort comes through the
idea that knowledge is an individual trait and its
purported relation to reality (a social construct?). The
thorough debate between those two epistemologies is
too lengthy for this work, but two quotes from Alan
Sokal capture my perspective on the matter:
The reason why we reject systematic
skepticism in everyday life is more or less
obvious and is similar to the reason we reject
solipsism. The best way to account for the
coherence of our experience is to suppose that
the outside world corresponds, at least
approximately, to the image of it provided by
our senses. (Sokal & Bricmont, 1999, p. 55)
Anyone who believes that the laws of physics
are mere social conventions is invited to try
transgressing those conventions from the
windows of my apartment. (I live on the twentyfirst floor.) (Sokal, 2000, p. 50
That a teaching practice that has been effective
since Socrates is now so closely tied with a problematic
epistemology leaves a bad taste in my mouth, especially
when considering my most enriching academic

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experiences and the kinds of programs I fantasize about

implementing in school for my own students.
One program, for example, is the Independent
Project (Levin, 2011), which was entirely developed by
students seeking more self-determination and selfdirection in their learning. The program was piloted and
repeated several times and seemed to be an enormous
success with both high- and low-achieving students. It
allows students to set their own questions, hold one
another accountable for finding answers, and provides
structure to prevent students from straying too far from
the requisite basic curriculum. I believe that part of the
success of this program is that, as Brookfield (1995)
might point out, the students have a thorough
grounding in the topics and methods used for the
program. The necessity of this grounding may account
for why such a seemingly beneficial practice gets such a
low effect size on Hatties (2013) scale. If its a good
practice, its being implemented poorly.
In a larger sense, perhaps my whole issue
comes down to thatstudents must be explicitly taught
how to and how not to think, reason, and argue. The
self-directed approach requires that students be
grounded and have a fixed starting location in a
subjectfor many of our high school classes, the class
itself is the fixed starting location and it makes little
sense to engage students in debates, discussions, and
explorations they have not yet fully mastered. As a
result, students require a mixture of direct instruction
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and self-directed learning, with a quickly-as-possible

push toward the abilities and practice of individual
research and inquiry to provide a firm basis for learning
being the lifelong responsibility of the individual.
The teachers can and should model this inquiry.
Good practice is rooted in solid research. When
applying for ASTL, we had to respond in essay form to
an article on craft knowledge within teaching. Part of
this article (Burney, 2004) was attempted to push
educators as a profession toward a model similar to
medicine, wherein practitioners are professionals who
constantly stay abreast of the literature and are
participating in case studies, research, trials, and
professional organizations to not only stay current but
to push the frontiers of practice. This, I think, is a crucial
and under-utilized piece of our jobs. Doctors see
themselves as clinicians and researchers, but teachers
as a group seem to only see the former.
However, taking my current stance as a starting
point, it remains difficult to see precisely how best to
implement this in my classroomthings like
credibility and relationship are difficult to quantify,
and teaching metacognitive skills is great, but how
exactly would one measure an increase in problem
solving? Instead, a qualitative approach is called for,
which is a completely new experience for me. My
professor for Qualitative Inquiry in Education, would
frequently tell me things to the effect of, This class will
be more meaningful for you when you find your
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qualitative question. Years of training to think in terms

of t-tests had prevented me from really seeing
qualitative questions as valuable, and here now I have
two big ones: am I credible in the eyes of my students?
Do I form good relationships?12
Critical reflection perhaps cant fully answer
these questionssome collaboration, inquiry, testing,
time in the literature, and observation may be needed
to nail down anything for certain. However, the role of
critical reflection is to open up the questions
themselves, to define the areas in need of exploration
and for the analysis and synthesis of all the little,
random data points that are collected throughout a
hectic, seemingly chaotic day of in the classroom.

12

Even now my thinking is still hilariously quantitative in

nature: at our graduation, seniors give roses to the
people they believe were most instrumental in getting
them to their graduation. My first instinct was still:
perhaps I could count the number of roses I receive year
to year to as an operational definition of student-teacher
relationships?

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Reflection Point One

When I first started working with youth, I
worked in an internship meant for therapists and
counselors in training underneath a licensed counselor.
This was with much the same kind of youth as I see
today: at our setting, 98% of the kids had IEPs. Our
team operated as a unit of a licensed therapist, a
Masters-level counselor, and six to eight psychology
majors or recent graduates. During a particularly
memorable discussion during group supervision, our
supervisor said something to the effect of, It seems
counterintuitive, but actually its usually not necessary
to figure out a solution to a problem; usually its just
enough for everyone to identify it and give it a name.
Then, it usually goes away on its own. Giving a set of
problems or principles a name and enabling a
conversation to happen around them was a powerful
step then and one which I have often tried to repeat in
the next half-decade. In the case of ASTL 612, it gave
names and provided a structure in which to discuss and
do the kinds of things I had be instinctively thinking
about but without any formalization or method.
This has been, I think, the biggest value of the
course so far. I see myself more frequently formalizing
my thinking about the classroom and pushing myself to
direct the flow of my questioningspecifically, when I
find myself wondering about an experience or system, I
find it helpful to conceptualize the problem and the
attendant questions by structuring them on Taggarts
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model (2005). Though I initially felt some push back

toward this (which may be attributable to points made
by Fecho [2004] regarding the fact that learning occurs
when someone is uncomfortable, or that being
discomfited by theory is a good sign that theres
something going on there). However, ultimately I think
that after removing the hierarchical nature of Taggarts
thinking, the categorization of types of reflection really
works for me.
While I had always spent time thinking about
my classes and how to improve them for their students
and myself, the addition of dialectical and contextual
frameworks has done much to systematize my thinking.
Again, I have often been critical of easy answers and
tried to dig more deeply into the reasons why my
classes are the way they aredue to outside factors,
political movements, and deep structural issues in
schooling that are historic and philosophicalbut
having a name and criteria for this process has already
shown dividends in my students experience.
Another huge value this course brought to me
had a bit more to do with our one-on-one discussions
and your feedback on the ideas I struggle with. As I have
constantly written and must, therefore, summarize
here, Im struggling to reconcile my habits of mind with
a teaching style that and values that match. I wrote
about this extensively in my teacher beliefs statement,
and while that document was a great exercise in parsing
that swirl, my beliefs still continue to evolve. When
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considering also the autobiographical study, the

connections form a longer narrative of this struggle,
which I think goes back at least as far as elementary
school. In high school, I gravitated toward teachers who
shared a similar perspective on education and
frequently was in conflict with teachers who had a more
constructivist and project-based stance on education. In
some sense, my journey seems to be that I must
become the kind of teacher I hated in order to best
reach my students. Herein lies the difficulty, and my
search for a workable middle path.
Finally, there is a frequently told joke that goes
along the lines of, The reason white men must destroy
other peoples cultures is because they have no culture
of their own. One reading in particular during this
course (Nieto, 1999) helped me to see myself not as
culture-less, but as part of a dominant, hegemonic
culture that is as influencing as any other on values and
mores, and certainly on teaching practice. While the
course itself has been perhaps too short to fully process
all the ideas in it, I think that this is the one I will be
thinking about the most during the upcoming school
year, both in terms of how I can minimize the
hegemonic process and in how I can adapt Fechos
(2004) model.

154

How Students Learn

Critical Article Review
Levine, M. (2007). The essential cognitive backpack.
Educational Leadership, 64(7), 16.
Levine (2007) writes on the importance of the
cognitive skills that he believes are a necessary and
under-implemented in our schools, particularly at the
secondary level. He believes that students leaving high
schools are underprepared for the cognitive and selfregulatory demands of higher education and the
workforce. These cognitive skills are listed as four is,:
interpretation (as opposed to the rote memorization
that is required for success at the high school level),
what Levine calls instrumentation, by which he means
the acquisition of a project-oriented mindset,
interaction (i.e., social skills with emphasis on building
appropriate relationships both with peers and
professionals and colleagues, and inner direction, which
is connected to the growing body of research on what
other authors have called grit (see Pappano, 2013,
e.g.).
Levines (2007) suggestion is that these skills
comprise a cognitive backpack or set of essential tools
for students that are crucial for their ability to achieve
success beyond high school. As such, it is essential that
these skills be taught directly within the high school
curriculum; he goes so far to suggest that whole courses
be developed to address these deficits for students in
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order to maximize the future successes of our students

and to head off the potential pitfalls that may occur
without them.
Levines (2007) foremost weakness in this
article is that he has not sufficiently stated what he
believes the aim or purpose of education is or should
be. Insofar as we can infer the purpose of our current
secondary curriculum based on what it includes and
excludes, it appears to be based on the idea of a liberal
education, wherein students are instructed in a variety
of general topics to give them a broad base of general
knowledge, integrated with itself, in order to build upon
this or specialize later. Levines insistence that these
soft skills be taught directly bespeaks an aim of
education that is somewhat different; he might endorse
a statement such as the goal of school is to prepare
students for entering higher education or the
workforce. Failing to state this explicitly undermines
his policy and curriculum suggestions if the reader does
not share his assumptions about what students are
meant to gain from their education.
To his benefit, some of the tools included in the
cognitive basket establish connections to other areas of
school research. For example, much of what was
written in the sections on Methodological Thinking and
Working Capacity relate directly to Dwecks (2006) work
on mindset. Specifically, Levine (2007) writes High
school education should stress methods as much as, if
not more than, results. (p. 20) This echoes what Dweck
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wrote on focusing on the process rather than the

outcome, so as to focus attention on the growth of
students rather than to imply that results derive from
fixed skills and talents that some students just lack.
Incidentally, both Dweck and Levine may struggle to
make educational change, as the current system of
high-stakes testing implies a focus on results rather
than process pervading the whole current educational
system. Additionally, his writing on postponing
payoffs, finding intrinsic motivation, and developing
effective personal work patterns all presupposed the
idea of grit (Pappano, 2013) by several years.
Unfortunately, Levine (2007) fails somewhat to
write a convincing picture, as his writing is full of
declarative, simplistic statements that are presented
without citation. In fact, apart from himself, he cites
only two other sources, which makes a reader used to
academic writing immediately suspicious. In fact, this
analysis paper has already cited more research than he
did. This is all to say that Levine missed an opportunity,
because research exists now to support his claims:
Joseph (2010,) for example, wrote how metacognitive
awareness can improve the work of students in middle
and high school. Additionally, he could strengthen his
argument by including a recent meta-analysis (Abrami
et al 2014) that found that there are effective programs
for the teaching of critical thinking skills, many of which
must surely have overlap with the kinds of tools that
Levine is describing in the cognitive backpack. That he
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failed to include substantially more reference to

research makes his argument, which is both correct and
important, to appear to be weaker than it is.
Through my own teaching, I have tried my best
to focus on the cognitive skills at work in the procedures
of the classes I teach. A common scene in my classroom
includes me solving a mathematics problem on the
board with suggestions from the students, all working
together, that I will write on the board as we try them.
At the conclusion of the problem, we will all review the
specific critical thinking skills and techniques that were
useful in the solving of this particular problem
metacognitive awareness modeled explicitly for the
students. However, Levine (2007) is asking us to
consider a larger set of skills than just metacognitive
problem solving strategies. He incorporates social skills,
self-regulation, analysis, drive, grit, the right mindset,
and a host of other skills that we would like our
students to develop.
In some sense, these are things that are already
built into our schools program: the students are rated
on their self-regulation as a part of their behavior
management system, and students with IEPs often
receive extensive career advising as a part of their
requisite transition planning. However, I do intend to
increase the amount and manner of my metacognitive
instruction in classes in incorporate some of the skills
listed herein that I had not previously considered in my
teaching, e.g. finding a balance between top-down
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and convergent thinking (Levine, 2007, p. 19). I often

talk to my students about the differences between
analysis and synthesis, but this is a broader context for
that discussion and I think it would help my students
and me to discuss how our thinking styles impact our
problem solving and regulation more broadly. Finally, as
I have done with many similar summaries before, I
believe I will post the contents of the backpack in my
classroom for my students to consider when they are
busy zoning out in my lessons.

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Case Study of a Learner

Part One: Introduction and Description
The Student
Mary Anne Price has been a student at Hurtfew
Abbey School (HAS) for roughly seven months. She is a
17 year old senior who was adopted as a young child
from Korea. She presents as a typical teenage girl from
her geographic region and socio-economic status.
However, of note is her unilateral cleft lip and palate
(orofacial clefting, OFC) and substantial medical history.
As HAS is a school dedicated for special education
students, it is worth noting her dual classifications of
Emotional Disability (primary) and Other Health
Impairment.
Background
Mary Anne was adopted as an infant by two
well-educated, suburban Jewish parents and has one
older brother at university. Of note is that her father, a
Ph.D., also has a repaired OFC, which seems to indicate
that Mary Anne was adopted in part for that reason
specifically. As noted above, Mary Anne was adopted
from Korea, and though she has been back to the
country with her family since then, she cannot speak
nor read Korean. (Her records do not indicate
disordered attachment, as is common among children
in this industry who were adopted from foreign
countries) Her home language is English. Her mother is
employed; however, her father is underemployed and
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this makes him frequently available to be involved in

Mary Annes education, both prior to and during her
enrollment at HAS.
She has ongoing medical issues (Postural Orthostatic
Tachycardia Syndrome [POTS], migraines, etc.) and will
frequently miss school or request to go home early as a
result. Her relationship with her father has been
described by clinicians as enmeshed and it is clear
that he has often parked outside the school for hours
waiting for her to request to go home so that he can be
available as quickly as possible.
Mary Anne notes few interests or outside
activitiesin part because of her complicated medical
history. However, this writer believes that her tendency
toward negative thoughts and perceptions is a good
reason to be skeptical of such reports. For example, she
used to be actively involved in orchestra prior to her
most recent major episode of illness, hospitalization,
school avoidance, and reclassification.
Prior to her attendance at Hurtfew Abbey, she
participated in a Dialectical Behavioral Therapy group
(DBT) in the evenings as part of Hurtfew Abbeys
outpatient psychological services. In this group, she met
a young man, Mark Fossie, who was also in the process
of choosing a private, dedicated high school with a
therapeutic component, and very nearly chose HAS as
his school. After this, she and Mark dated for several

161

months while attending separate private day schools

until their relationship ended, sometime this summer.
Setting
She now attends Hurtfew Abbey School (HAS),
a small therapeutic day school located near the center
of a small city that is a suburb in the greater
Washington, D.C. area. The school has been operating
for just under two decades and serves Emotional
Disability, Learning Disabilities, Multiple Disabilities, and
Other Health Impairments. Students are placed at this
private school via their public school districts (Local
Education Agencies, LEAs) who find that they are unable
to demonstrate success at a lower level of care. This
process can be lengthy and as a result, many who
attend HAS have had a variety of placements prior to
attending, though this is not the case for Mary Anne,
who enrolled at HAS after being on homebound
instruction and her base school, only. The school
exhibits remarkable diversity both geographically and
economically and in all other ways, as students are
drawn from a variety of districts (eleven total) in one of
the most diverse parts of the world.
Other Information
During the course of this case study, several
incidents caused some substantial upheaval in Mary
Annes perception of her education and her path
toward post-secondary transition. In the first incident,
Mary Anne took the PSAT examinations at HAS, but
elected to leave the examination early. Her father
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appeared to blame HAS for this outcome and sought to

have her test scores invalidated, though it is unclear
whether College Board is currently investigating HAS.
Additionally, due to her decline in attendance
percentage, it became clear that her Local Education
Agency Representative was considering removing her
from HAS to place her in another educational setting,
perhaps on homebound instruction. (of this possibility,
she wrote: could be homebound, which I will not let
happen again. [Appendix F])
During late November, Mary Anne reported
that her grandmother had become ill, and in early
December, her grandmother passed away. In part due
to the stress upon her family related to this incident,
she did not return to school in December, marking three
full weeks of unexcused absences. On December 14, an
IEP was held at HAS involving five HAS staff members,
Mary Anne and her family, and their educational
attorney. The result of the IEP was the decision that
Mary Anne should enroll, if possible, into a GED
program and to complete her requirements through
that path and begin her post-secondary education, if
desired, at a community college level. She was
discharged from HAS on that day.
Learning Factors

For Mary Anne, some key learning factors that

impact her ability to gain the most from school
seem to be as follows: Her emotional and affective
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states appear to impact her motivation to attend

school and stay for the duration of the school day.
This is somewhat unsurprising, as she is classified
as having an Emotional Disability and was
identified for placement at a school with a strong
therapeutic component. Part of this study will seek
to investigate whether there are substantial forces
at work with respect to her ability to self-motivate
that are preventing her from attending fully.
Additionally, Mary Anne has a complex medical
history, including disorders that are not wellunderstood, which have an ongoing impact on her
attendance. It is not clear the extent to which her
absences are due to legitimate medical complaints,
the utilization of her diagnoses as an excuse for
missing school, outright school refusal, or some
combination of all of the above.
Finally, it has been noted that Mary Anne had
strong peer connections during the previous school
year with seniors who graduated. Social data will
be collected to analyze whether there appears to
be an impact on her learning that is a result of
social interactions or a lack thereof.

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Data Collection

Data were collected on Mary Annes learning from

the following sources:
Data Source
Grit Survey

Mindset Survey (1)

Mindset Survey (2)

Handwritten Notes

Student Records

Sociogram

Observation

Work Sample

Interview
(12/15/2015)

Information Sought
Is grit a key factor in her
motivation to attend
school?
With respect to MAs
mindset and perspective
on personal growth, does
she see herself as unable
to achieve the kind of
improvement that is
being asked of her due to
a fixed mindset?
See above.
How does MA think about
the ongoing issues
surrounding her
attendance and
placement? How does her
socioemotional state
interact with these
circumstances and in
particular with her
parents?
What is the general
pattern of MAs
attendance?
How do MAs peer
relationships impact her
connectedness to school?
Does this impact
motivation and
attendance?
What is her classroom
experience like? Is she
participating with the
group?
Has MAs apparent
disconnect from school
always been a pattern?
Corroboration of some
assumptions about
connections between
data points, triangulation,
verification of some of
the survey data

Learning Factors Addressed

Affective / Motivational

Affective / Motivational and Cognitive

Affective / Motivational and Cognitive

Affective / Motivational

Affective / Motivational and Individual

Differences
Social / Developmental

Social / Developmental and Cognitive

(?)

Individual Differences

Individual differences, Social /

Developmental, Cognitive, Affective /
Motivational

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Summary
Mary Anne is a student with a complicated
medical and psychological history, and who has a
history of school avoidance, as well. She was chosen for
this case study because of her clinical and academic
needs, her positive relationship to the researcher, and
the degree to which her behaviors and clinical needs
seemed to confound and frustrate the clinicians at HAS.
Additionally, the school has serviced students with a
similar profile in the previous five years, 100% of which
had dropped out of HAS prior to graduating and at least
one of which has since earned his GED. The case study
was undertaken in part as an intervention against that
eventuality.
Part Two: Analytic Discussion
Introduction
The data compiled for the study gave a broad
picture of Mary Annes academic and psychological
functioning, particularly in regard to their decline over
the course of the last several months of her time at
HAS. As noted above, she voluntarily discharged from
the school three days prior to the writing of this study,
and so the data collected form something of a snapshot
of her academic and functional decline until her leaving
formal education. The data fall into three broad
categories: those related to her mindset about her
ability to succeed in the future; social and family
dynamics; perseverance, grit, and goals; and the
individual circumstances of her mental and physical
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health. Initially, these data were collected to investigate

her falling rate of attendance (see Appendix A), but a
larger picture developed, wherein each of these factors
intertwined to produce the outcome of her dropping
out of high school and seeking her GED.
Student Learning:
Grit and Goals

One possible initial explanation for her attendance

was insufficient grit (Duckworth, 2013), meaning
the ability to set goals and stick to them despite
setbacks. It is clear from her history that she has
emotional and medical setbacks on a regular basis
that make it difficult for her to motivate herself to
attend and maintain through the school day. To
assess whether this was the cause, Mary Anne and
her classmates were given the Short Grit Scale
(Duckworth and Quinn, 2009). No mention was
made of the relationship of this scale to the study,
of which Mary Anne is aware. Taking into account
the original studys averages for the closest
demographic group to her, a mostly female sample
aged 25-34, Mary Annes Grit score is within one
standard deviation of the mean, indicating a score
in the average range. However, her score on
Perseverance of Effort is slightly below the mean
(z-score of -1.3). Though it falls into what can be
called the low average range, her score on
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Perseverance of Effort does not seem to match the

low level of perseverance demonstrated in her
attendance record and at school, making the
insufficient grit hypothesis somewhat uncertain.
During an interview (Appendix H), her ability to set
goals and persevere through them was discussed in
several locations. As noted above, her current plan
is to complete her GED, attend a local community
college, and potentially transfer to a four year
institution. When asked what her goal was after
that, she replied, Uh, it changes every daynot
really, I dont think about it every day She was
able to suggest two possibilities, namely the music
industry or counseling, but later re-stated that she
didnt know what she intended to do after
postsecondary education. She reported, I feel like
if I had better goals, more set goals, they would
help, and at the same time, not doing well in high
school has impacted my brain a lot in the sense of
how I think about myself and how I think about
how I can do goals. Whereas a strong life goal may
be essential for Mary Anne to have the motivation
to persevere through her present difficulties, the
fact that she has already failed to graduate high
school by her initial graduation date has given her
no confidence in her ability to complete any goals.

168

Additionally, grit was a relevant factor for her in

persevering through small difficulties; making it in
to school and remaining through the day.
Regarding her ability to persevere through days of
intense physical ailment, she said, I can manageI
can push through and I can do things that I know
would help somewhat, and granted I might have to
come home that day, but I still would have done
things I know to do when I have a headache, versus
when I have an emotional day and my head hurts I
dont even bother trying to leave. For her, physical
maladies can be persevered through, to a point,
whereas mental health precludes any attempt at
all.
When asked what it would look like when
things were going right, she reported that it would
include having the motivation to attend school, and
not wanting to go home every class period. It is
clear that for her, motivation is the crucial factor in
her attendance and success at school, but her
motivation itself is impacted by deeper factors
related to her mindset, her social space, and her
illnesses.
Mindset and failure
Further data were collected via two different
scales assessing growth versus fixed mindset. (Dweck,
2006; Mindset Works, 2012) A possibility was
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considered that if Mary Anne had a fixed mindset, she

might be less motivated to attend school and
participate if she felt that nothing she did could change
her level of success. The protocol was the same as in
the previous survey: Mary Annes whole class was given
a short survey on mindset (See Dweck, 2006), which
was then scored for each student. However, upon
learning that the researcher had an additional
assessment, Mary Anne requested to take both. Her
results for each showed results in an average range,
with a G1 (first level of growth mindset) on the Mindset
Works (citation) assessment, and 34 (growth mindset
with some fixed ideas) on an assessment adapted from
Dweck (2006).
Additionally, one of her notes (Appendix F)
reads: Since I didnt graduate on time, in my head, Ive
already failed. My successes are very numbered. While
this is not precisely a fixed mindset framework, it does
demonstrate that she perceives her abilities toward
growth to be limited. This perception was explored at
length in her interview, because it appeared that Mary
Annes view of failure itself was fixed, as in: because she
had failed once, it was not worth it to try again.
She reported, I feel like Ive already failed high
school cause Ive passed mymark, so Im already kind
of failed high school, like I know logically its not,
rationally its not, but setting goals for meseems
pointless to me? (Appendix H) Later in that same
discussion, she reported, Cause I missed on goal, a big
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goal, a huge goal, and you know, I dont see the point of
making other goals when I know Im gonna fail. She
reported again that she understood the irrationality of
these beliefs (she is, of course, familiar with tenets from
cognitive behavioral therapy) but felt unable to not
believe them. Though her mindset was not markedly
fixed in the two surveys she took, upon closer
inspection, it seems that she very fixedly views herself
as having failed and seeks an alternative path because
of this viewpoint.
Social and family factors

Throughout the course of the case study, it became

more and more apparent that Mary Annes
education and its difficulties were substantially
impacted by social and family factors. To assess the
hypothesis that she feels socially disconnected at
school, a sociogram was made on a day that she
was present and given to every student who was
present at school. Each student was asked three
questions, developed in consultation with a
research partner. Students were asked to name
three students for each of the following questions:
Who would you ask for help with homework?
(Appendix C) Who would you like to be put in a
group with? (Appendix D) Who would you like to
go to Chipotle with? (Appendix E) Several students
data were thrown out for various reasons: three
students refused to answer the questions outright,
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and any student who put down teachers, other

adults, or students not at HAS had those answers
disregarded as well (for example, this author was
the most common answer for who would you ask
for help with homework? despite the students
being told to put down only students). The result is
a small but legible map of the social network at
HAS, which shows that Mary Anne was only chosen
by two separate peers for any of the questions. For
all three questions, one peer, labeled I in the
chart, answered Mary Anne. On only one other
question did another peer put her name down
(put in a group with?). The total size of the data
was too small and there were too many thrown out
or unanswered surveys to analyze whether Mary
Annes number is significantly below average;
however, it is worth noting the identity of Student
I. As noted above, in the previous school year,
Mary Anne was friends with many graduating
seniors who were all socially connected inside and
outside of school. Of this group, only Student I and
Mary Anne remain, though it is also worth noting
that she did not choose him for one out of three of
her questions, on Appendix E, being the most social
and least academic. Additionally, 78% of the time
that Mary Anne chose a peer, that peer did not
choose her in return. Although she is willing to
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choose peers for these questions, she is not

forming strong dyadic or group relationships this
year and does not seem to be strongly connected
with Student I, either.
She had much to say regarding her social life at
school throughout her interview (Appendix H), as
well. She described joining a tight-knit group of
friends who had been students at HAS for several
years and then who all graduated. She is not in
regular contact with this group now: There wasnt
like a falling out, but it was like, ImI actually
dont know what happened, cause we hung out
like once and then I just, we hadnt talked in a
while, so it was a disconnect. The difficulty of
making friends with graduating seniors was not
new to Mary Anne, who reported that happened
every single year with me, cause I always make
friends with kids, not necessarily older, but yeah,
seniors. Their graduation represented an
important change in the school experience for her;
she reported that they had helped her feel
motivated to come to school during the previous
year, but that by contrast there is no similarly
invested group of friends at school this year. When
asked about creating such a group, she cited the
schools small size and slow turnover of student
population.
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Again, as noted, all of her concerns seem to impact

one another: as her mental health has
decompensated, she has reported increasing social
isolation: A lot of the time this year was just like,
dont talk to me, dont look at me, dont, like, just leave
me alone! I wanted to be in a bubble but I couldnt be.
This tendency was noted during an observation that
was made during the case study:

Mary Anne was observed for 48 consecutive

minutes during her US / VA Government class,
which is timed during this researchers planning
period. The researcher had been called in to serve
as a substitute for that class period, which is typical
for planning periods at HAS. On the day in
question, five students were watching a
documentary about Ronald Reagan. For 48 minutes
of observation, Mary Anne did not speak or
interact with a peer a single time. Instead, she
wrote or drew in a notebook or journal for the
entire class period, pausing six times to rip a page
out of the notebook and continue. The only noted
interaction with the class subject matter was when
she looked up at the screen during the footage of
the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger. This
corroborates again her stated feelings of
disconnection from other students and the content
of what she is being taught at school.
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Additionally, family dynamics were often cited with

regard to the dysregulation of her emotional,
social, and academic life. Per her reports in
handwritten notes (Appendix F) and her interview
(Appendix H), Mary Anne painted a picture of
disunited parents with difficulty regulating their
own emotions and expectations, which in turn
impacted her mindset, cognition, and mental
health. Like many adolescents, she seemed
conflicted over her obligations to her parents,
alternately reporting that she would not make
decisions based solely on their desires, but that she
would do whatever she thought would make them
happy if the impact to her were minimal. She
reported pushing them away and avoiding them,
in part because she felt that all of their
conversations were negatively centered around her
lack of successes at school and declining mental
health. She also reported that when I got sick, my
dad took over and that this led to conflict: we
would get in these screaming matches, cause like,
getting taught by your parent isnt the best. Now,
however, she reports being treated coldly by her
dad, who she feels may have given up on her
because she has chosen to drop out of school. In
another part of the conversation, she wrote that
this kind of behavior from her father its like the
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quiet before the storm, indicating that more

conflict may be coming soon as a result of her
decision.
Individual Differences

Due to Mary Annes many medical diagnoses and

chronic illnesses, to include orofacial clefting, POTS,
and anxiety and depression, it is vital that the
research into the effects of these illnesses on
academic, emotional, and social functioning are
understood as they pertain to her case.
It has been shown that adolescent females with
chronic illness exhibit significantly increased
mental health problems, such as suicidal ideation,
emotional dysregulation, and symptoms of
depression as compared with control group
females (Suris, Parera, and Puig, 1996; Erikson, et
al., 2005). Wolman et al. (1994) had similar
findings, but noted a moderating effect of family
connectedness on the psychological wellbeing of
the children in question. Denny et al (2014) found
that daily functioning and especially problems with
socialization were highly correlated with
depression among high school students with
chronic illness.
A meta-analysis demonstrated that young people
with chronic illnesses have higher levels of
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behavioral problems, both internalizing and

externalizing (Pinquart and Shen, 2011). That same
study noted that the etiology of these behavioral
problems could be specific to the type of chronic
illness in question, and they noted that young
people with physical abnormalities such as cleft lip
and palate may be at particular risk for social
rejection. However, their results showed that
youths with orofacial clefting had insignificant
scores for internalizing behaviors and actually had
significantly low scores for externalizing behaviors.
Additionally, they noted that those with chronic
pain as a result of their illness are at risk for
somatic complaints that are part of internalizing
behaviors.
Cohen, Vowles, and Eccleston (2010a)
found that mothers of adolescents in particular had
discordant perceptions of their childrens ratings of
chronic pain when the pain was caused by internal
factors, e.g. headache. They further found (Cohen,
Vowles, Eccleston 2009) that parents of
adolescents with the highest levels of chronic
illness and pain showed the greatest risk for
psychological symptoms such anxiety, depression,
and stress. Finally, they found that there was a
complex set of associations between chronic pain,
disability, social and academic functioning, and
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anxiety (Cohen, Vowles, Eccleston 2010b), wherein

highly anxious adolescents were functioning
poorly regardless of the level of pain (p. 1039).
Mary Anne has reported some division in
her household (see Appendix F) wherein her
parents are not presenting a unified front, and this
has been documented within her social history
within her student records, as well. As noted
above, family cohesion can be a moderating
influence with respect to the effects of chronic
illness. Additionally, it has been noted above that
the confluence of these illnesses with mental
health, which is common, produces an increased
risk for decreases in social and academic
functioning. Several of the studies above noted
that a case such as Mary Annes, with visible
disfigurements, mental health concerns, and
reduced academic output, put her at substantial
risk for social isolation. This has been borne out by
both observation and sociogram (Appendix F).
In general, Mary Anne reported a
substantial impact of her individual psychological
and physiological health on her functioning and, by
extension, her ability to be present at school. In an
interview (Appendix H), she reported: if I wake up,
its usually more so like, if Im sad, my physical
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symptoms will happen, versus if my physical

symptoms are bad, Ill event-, Ill just feel shitty. I
wont be like, depressed and sad Ill just like, Ill
wake up in the morning and Im depressed, Ill
immediately have a headache, and Ill just be like,
my head hurts and Im sad, so Im just not gonna
try. In short, her physical symptoms made it
difficult to remain through the day, but it made
attendance possible, whereas days of poor mental
health exacerbated her physical symptoms and
sapped her of her energy and perseverance to try
to attend school.
In order to address the complex mixture of
physical and mental factors impacting her ability to
stay through a school day, a protocol was
developed by HAS staff members that she should
go through as an emotional coping skill checklist
before leaving school as a last resort. In the
interview, Mary Anne reported that the only day
she followed this protocol was on a day when the
school was on lockdown for several hours, and so
the protocol was never successfully followed by her
or by the staff, due at first to those circumstances,
and later due to her negative feelings about the
previous attempt.

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In general, Mary Anne reports substantial

anhedonia and detachment from life, making it
difficult for her to commit to or follow through
with goals: my mental health has been, there are
moments when Im really, really sad, but most of
the time Im kind of detached (Appendix H). She
reported that she was attempting further
therapeutic, psychological, and neurological
interventions to address her mental health, but not
out of a since desire or belief that they would help
her improve. Rather, she believed they were worth
it to make her parents happy if they did not put her
to too much trouble.
Theoretical Perspectives

Overall, it sometimes appears that a conflict

exists combining Mary Annes level of motivation
for school and her ability to manage the symptoms
of both her psychological and physiological
ailments, though there is also much to be said that
there is not a firm line between the two. Maslow
(see McCartney, Cherington, Hammell, & Dean,
2015) wrote that individuals seek their needs in a
hierarchical order, beginning with physiological and
safety needs. That Mary Anne has not made
substantial efforts to work on her social, esteem, or
actualization needs this school year could indicate
that rather than lacking motivation for these, she is
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too consumed with trying to meet her physiological

and safety needs as they pertain to her physical
and mental health to concentrate on needs higher
up on the hierarchy.
Additionally, the researcher noted that
during the portion of the study in which survey
data were collected by the student, she was eager
to take additional measures beyond what was
being requested. This may be a small indication of
Eriskons (see McCartney, Cherington, Hammell, &
Dean, 2015) stage of identity vs role confusion, in
which adolescents tend to seek out information
that helps them to develop a realistic self-image
and to know themselves better, though additional
data in this direction have not been compiled.
One of the most noticeable factors in Mary
Annes case is her lack of strong social connections
in her school, especially as compared to similarly
developing peers. Beyond creating an environment
at HAS that is not as socially welcoming as should
be hoped for, it means that she lacks appropriate
peer relationships that might model effective
behaviors in the classroom. Bandura, for example,
(Rose, Virostek, and Dubnoff, November 2015)
would predict that having contact with peers who
show more productive school behaviors with
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respect to attendance might do more to influence

her outcomes. As it stands, the peer who feels
most closely connected with Mary Anne, Student I,
has an attendance record that is only marginally
better than hers.
Recommendations
Mary Anne exhibits three main areas of need: cognitive,
academic, and social. Foremost, to address her
distorted thinking around her perceived lack of success
at high school and the attendant inability to develop a
concept of self-efficacy, additional cognitive based
therapies should be explored (Beck, 2011). For example,
the Penn Resiliency Program has had some success with
increasing levels of optimism in adolescents with
symptoms of depression, and has the added feature of
being able to be utilized in clinical or academic settings.
(Gillham & Reivich, 2004). Additionally, Wilkes (1994)
suggests additional time, and acknowledgment that
maladaptive schemata may be persistent across many
domains of life; the ability to recognize irrational beliefs
or automatic thoughts in one domain may not be
sufficient for improved mood. (Recall that Mary Anne
endorsed this problem in Appendix H).
As noted in several of the studies related to chronic
pain in adolescents and their mental health (e.g.,
Cohen, Vowles, and Eccleston 2009, Cohen, Vowles, and
Eccleston 2010a), parental perceptions and cohesion
are important factors for the mental health of the
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adolescent with chronic pain. As such, improving family

cohesion and parent relationships may be an important
key to improving Mary Annes general condition, and
family therapy or in-home therapy may be indicated to
those ends.
Some data exist (see Crossland, 2001) that children with
chronic illnesses respond better to proximate academic
goals and utilize academic experiences, even in
hospitals, as an important factor for socialization. Given
that her current goal is obtaining her GED, Mary Anne
should seek out GED preparation programs that enable
her to keep the goal immediate in her mind, structure
her academic time, and provide her with social contacts
that she feels are currently lacking in her former school
environment.
Summary
Mary Anne is a student with significant physical
and mental health concerns who is in the process of
dropping out of a specialized high school in order to
obtain her GED. She reports decreased motivation in all
domains of her life, with added negative emotions
around her current school setting. She reports that she
learned best when she had peers who could help her
stay motivated to attend school and achieve once there.
She further reports that she feels that she has already
failed in her goal of achieving a high school diploma,
and is obtaining her GED as the next best option. She
should continue to seek out therapeutic opportunities
for her mental health needs and family dynamics, and
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should seek out a highly-structured and social GED

program that will help her feel motivated to achieve a
proximate goal and begin to re-establish a sense of selfefficacy.
Part Three: Reflection and Self Evaluation
The Learner and Learning
The researcher began the course of the case
study with a fairly firm belief that clear evidence that
Mary Anne exhibited very low grit and had a very fixed
mindset around her abilities at school would be found.
The results were much murkier, as she scored mostly
within very average ranges on all of the surveys given,
yet often endorsed statements in her interview that
indicated low grit or fixed mindset. Currently, this leads
to questions about the validity of either measure, the
survey itself or the qualitative approach of collecting
work samples, notes, and interview data.
As noted in the interview and other parts of the
study, Mary Anne was a very social student in the
previous academic year, and her decreased attendance
at school somewhat obscured the change in her
sociality within school. The observational,
sociogrammatic, and interview data opened up that
realm for the researcher, who had still assumed a high
degree of sociality on the part of Mary Anne.

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The Teacher Researcher

This is the latest of many small and large
research projects undertaken by this teacher researcher
within Hurtfew Abbey School. A consistent theme and
problem of the school as a research environment is the
inconsistency and unpredictability of the student
population and the program itself. In other research
studies, participants have also exhibited attendance
rates that pushed against deadlines or have stolen data
from the researcher; at other times, the professional
obligations of the research preclude keeping to a
proposed research schedule or the population and
academic needs of the students as a whole preclude the
proper structuring of a proposed research study. This
researcher learned that he remains terribly nave about
the prudence of conducting research at HAS without
significant backup and alternative plans in place for
when the inevitable happens.
The Classroom and Teaching
As a teacher, he learned that the influences of
the students on one anothers mental health are
sometimes more substantial than staff members may
be aware of, and that iatrogenic effects could be a
reality, rather than a topic of humor among staff
members. Mary Anne referenced in her interview an
incident wherein the school was on lockdown for
several hours while a student caused roughly $20,000
worth of damage to the school building while the police
were stuck in traffic. HAS staff members have seen
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school damage before, but for the students, this was a

significant event that staff members, in her opinion,
failed to fully process with students. She reported that
she believed that in part set the tone for this school
year and decreased her feelings of connection with the
school.
Hurtfew Abbey staff members, and this
researcher specifically, have been intrigued and
frustrated by cases such as Mary Anne for several years,
and the insights into her perceptions of self-efficacy and
goal setting, especially as they pertain to chronic illness,
were significant for the staff members. Additionally, no
sociogrammatic data had ever been compiled at HAS
before, and many of the staff members found insights
into the student population beyond just Mary Annes
social connections. For example, many staff members
noted the change in student leadership and popularity
away from students who were engaged and positive
influences to students who were more negative and
destructive via the data produced by the sociogram and
long before Mary Anne pointed that trend out in the
interview over a month later.
Reflection
In the future, it seems worthwhile to produce
the kinds of data contained herein well before a student
chooses to drop out. The sociograms produced
remarkable insights into our student body and the
relationships contained therein, and they ought to be
reproduced every few months to collect information on
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the social standings within the school. Additionally,

having conversations with students about what mindset
means and the importance of grit felt important, even if
only one of those students was studied at the time.
Assuredly those will be regular parts of the classroom
experience at HAS in the future. Many children report,
for example, things such as Im not really a math
person, and this mindset is corroborated and
supported by a substantial majority of the staff
members at the school as well, who will utter similar
pronouncements. The effect is not only to make the
single mathematics teacher at HAS seem to be an
outlier (and thereby not a role model) but to undermine
the spread of growth mindset among the students at
the school. Perhaps the conversations about mindset
should include not only the students, but the staff as
well at the next meeting, in order to combat this
problem on a wider scale.
Summary
This case study presented substantial difficulty
in execution for the obvious reason: the participant was
rarely around for the initial stages, and not present at
all during the final preparations. A final interview was
conducted late in the evening on the day after Mary
Annes discharge, after she dismissed from an evening
therapy group at the clinical side of Hurtfew Abbey
Center. In spite of the difficulties presented, the data
obtained are remarkably rich, and anyone wishing to
obtain a deeper understanding of the ways that mental
187

health, social structure, and cognition / self-efficacy can

impact a learner with emotional disorders would do
well to read them thoroughly. It is hoped that
understanding the case of Mary Anne may help HAS
better prepare to meet the needs of similar students in
the future and in general improve its approach to all
students.

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Reflection Point Two

As a content heavy course within ASTL, How
Students Learn was obviously very exciting to me as a
student. I eagerly anticipated some deep-dive readings
into Dewey and Vygotsky, and expected there to be
additional theorists from the field of Education that I
had not yet encountered, perhaps some opportunities
to read Freire or Alfred North Whitehead? I was actually
rather shocked to discover that most of the theorists we
covered in the course were straight out of my
psychology undergraduate coursesparticularly
because I did not take any courses related to education
or development at that time out of disinterest. Here
again were my old friends Bandura, Watson and his
girlfriend Rosalie, the cognitive revolution, Maslow and
Eriksen, the Bobo doll and the rest. It was nice to see
them again, especially through my classmates eyes,
knowing that many of them were encountering these
ideas for the first time.
However, I think Im left longing for a little more
theory and a little more content. I had read and cited
Dweck in my first case study in my first concentration
course back in 2013. I argued about grit in earlier work
in the ASTL core. Somewhere in between being
skeptical of constructivism and thinking about irony, I
began to wonder if I had taken insufficient initiative in
meeting my goals for this courseI could have read
more content, asked for additional readings as in 612,
and given more attention to Hatties book, which had
189

been on my list since early 2014. I had been waiting for

my chance to read it for nearly two years, and now that
I finally could, I usually didnt. Maybe students really do
learn by taking an active role and constructing
knowledge for themselves, and maybe Ive been failing
at that task, focusing so much on completing this
review, this presentation and this paper instead of
focusing on the things that drove me to the course in
the first place: how do students learn, anyway?
On the other hand, at some points I really did
enjoy the process of collecting data for my case study;
having taken both quantitative and qualitative research
classes in the past, it was rewarding to be able to collect
data wherever they led without being restricted from
collecting rich verbal data or applying numerical
analyses, as in the past. Probably, someday very soon,
when the pressure and stress of the case study have
subsided enough, I think I will want to go back to it and
clean up its flaws: it lacks focus and doesnt address the
specific questions that generated it, nor does it truly
address the general problems it was, in my mind,
intended to speak to. Many of my colleagues work with
my student and were excited to hear about the findings.
It would be rewarding and worthwhile to re-write the
document for their consumption and its inclusion into
the portfolio.
Sometimes, its easy to think of my small school
with a dozen staff and maybe thirty students as one big
family. No secrets are ever really kept, everyone knows
190

what is going on and it seems like big, community-wide

conversations are occurring at any given time in all
classrooms. Theres really only one major story at any
given time. During the interview, my student referred to
the discrepancy between how staff members and
student members perceived a safety incident and its
aftermath. Thats been playing over and over in my
head again, and I think it may be the biggest lesson for
me right now, and covers ASTL learning outcomes 3, 4,
and 5: I cant just assume because I spend 4-6 hours per
day with the same kids that my intuitions about their
experiences and perceptions are always accurate. I
need to be seeking out their thoughts, feelings, and
opinions with more frequency in order to keep my
practice as relevant and effective as I possibly can.

Designing and Assessing Teaching and

Learning
Video Recorded Lesson and Analysis
Background
My classroom is located within a school dedicated for
students with Emotional and Learning Disabilities within
a major metropolitan area, from which we draw
students across 11 different jurisdictions. The students
represent all the economic, social, racial, religious, and
geographic diversity of that reason, in addition to a
diverse range of issues that manifest as ED, hence their
placement at my school. Students are not within selfcontained classes, but alternate between five special
191

education teachers, each of whom is responsible for

being able to teach across the high school curriculum,
including all core classes and many electives.
This particular class began the year with five Algebra 2
students, though due to a transition class, one of those
students left during late September. Of the remaining
four, three are very advanced math students who have
had me as a math teacher for Geometry the previous
year, as well, so they are very well prepared for the
course. The fourth is a student who is new to the school
from a residential setting and who struggles with selfregulation, which has hindered his math education
heretofore.
The students are broken up into two different pods
of four desks each, though they arrange themselves as 1
at one pod and 2 at another. All three students are
Caucasian males with classifications of Emotional
Disability, though two of them have additional
diagnoses (Autism and ADHD, respectively). None of
them is classified as an ELL (English Language Learner)
or gifted student, though one might have been able to
qualify prior to his expulsion. One of the students is
selectively mute, and can be observed in the video
passing me his notebook that he uses for
communication, and occasionally he will Sign his
answers, as well.

192

Lesson Plan (tentative)

Objective: Move through sections on
Products/Quotients of Rational Expressions and Sums
and Differences of Rational Expressions as quickly as
possible. Students may already remember how to do
these from a fractions review last week (though that
lesson was disrupted severely by the circumstances of
evacuation of school due to destruction by a student
earlier in the week).
Standards: Students are working on the following
standards:
AII.1 The student, given rational, radical, or polynomial
expressions, will
a) add, subtract, multiply, divide, and simplify rational
algebraic expressions;
Materials: The students have TI-83 graphing
calculators, pens, graphing paper, the teacher has a
whiteboard.
Plan: The lesson should use a few practice problems to
assess whether they have the basic skills here so that
theyre ready for complex fractions later in the week.
Take a few diverse problems from pages 234 and 237 to
ensure that the requisite four operation skills are there
for later this week.

193

Video Analysis
The stated objective of the lesson in my
recording was to assess students background
knowledge and memory of an Algebra 1-level skill that
we had briefly reviewed for a few minutes a week prior
to this lesson. My critical friend pointed out to me that
my attitude about the topic was apparent; namely, that
it seemed to me to be beneath my students level.
Likewise, she wrote, my students adopted the attitude
that they did not need to take the lesson that seriously
and that their time was being wasted. My real failing
was to not take into account what Hockett and Doubet
(2013) wrote about pre-assessments: they should
include only a few questions, should pique a students
interest and gauge understanding, not just skills. My
pre-assessment in this lesson was incredibly informal
and did not fully allow students to show me what they
understood or, least of all, pique any interest in what is
to come.
This provided a very interesting contrast,
however, as one student in particular adopted my
attitude about this subject being too easy and made
several comments agreeing with that belief. Normally,
this sort of behavior irritates the fourth student in this
class, who was absent on this day, and causes social
strife between them. Additionally, and more
importantly in this lesson, it blinded him to the fact that
he was not as proficient at this topic as he thought, and
he struggled with harder problems. There is a strong
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lesson here for me on the importance of remaining

values neutral with respect to my students abilities and
where they ought to be in the curriculum, especially
considering the typical lacunae in a special education
students learning. In particular, special education
students are likely to internalize their failures, and the
fact that they are required to have demonstrated
something like Stiggins (2007) losing streak in order to
even be eligible to be in my classroom means that I
need to treat these kinds of assessments incredibly
delicately, lest I wish to confirm what they already think
about themselves as failures.
Another important note from my critical friend
related to the concept of the lesson itself and the way in
which I presented it. She wrote that although my
students do not appear to be bored with the lesson,
they also do not appear to be too challenged. She
suggested that I ought to have started with the harder
problems (to pique interest, as above) to keep their
mathematical egos in check and in order to make them
feel more challenged by the assignment. I think I will
implement this change in future lessons of this kind,
though I would note that the student who struggles
more in this class would need to be absent in order to
justify that change.
Additionally, she suggested that I try to find real-world
examples of when this type of problem might be useful
and to give those to my students to work through. Here
I tend to struggle mightily, especially with more
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intermediate level mathematics classes. As far as I can

tell, the value of Algebra 2 is that it prepares students
for Calculus, which is full of myriad applications. In
particular, my students will be preparing to learn an
important formula for Calculus later this week that is
based on their current lesson, though they will not
necessarily recognize its utility now. I have often said
that the correct answer to When am I ever going to
use this? is You wont, but that doesnt mean it isnt
worth learning. How precisely to connect any of my
subjects to real life remains difficult for me on a
personal intellectual level, as well, because I have
always found those kinds of applications questions to
be tiresome distractions from the more engaging
theoretical considerations (I tend to be synthetic more
than analytic as a thinker).
In terms of technology, I realized after analyzing
this video that I missed a fantastic opportunity.
Throughout the year, during down time, I have had my
students use an online graphing calculator program. I
have wanted them to use it for mathematical doodling
in part to allow them some degree of fluency and selfexploration generated knowledge in addition to a high
comfort level with it prior to its becoming essential to
our class. I think that having read Richardson (2013) on
technology, I felt somewhat vindicated in my reluctance
to include technology in my courses for its own sake: I
have never felt that my students lacked skills with the
use of technology and I firmly believe that the way they
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use technology in situ will generate the way that

technology is used in a wider context as they become
adults. Because of this reasoning, perhaps, I have not
felt obligated to ask myself where to fit technology into
my lessons as a formality during each planning session,
and I missed the opportunity herein: I could have had
them graph each expression and their solutions to see
how, though the complexity and the appearance of
each changes, if they correctly simplified the
expression, the graph remained the same, providing
visual evidence of solid work. Another reminder:
consider the power of technology to provide a more
multi-modal lesson along with a more student-driven
form of assessment.
As for the impact on my students and their
learning, I do not believe it had a strong effect one way
or the other. A week later, my students are working
through the difficult section that followed the one
taught in this lesson and they are quite stuck, but not
for the reasons enumerated herein; mostly they have
had disrupted lessons and off days at the end of quarter
one that have prevented them from making serious
gains on this topic and put us a week behind. However,
the student who was absent during this lesson and who
tends to struggle more is still having trouble with these
concepts, in part due to issues with retention. After two
or three consistent days, he reports feeling like he gets
it but this seems tenuous over the course of a week or
month.
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However, my other students continue to excel.

One in particular, who is about to leave my class
altogether, is the kind of student most teachers dream
of: he works every problem, often does extra work, asks
the most insightful questions, and pushes the teacher to
provide the best possible explanations until everyone
gets it. You can hear him in the video (he sat closest to
the camera) correcting me: all into one big lump
sum. You mean product? He will soon leave to take
Algebra 2 in a general education setting as part of his
ever-increasing partial day transition, and I will have to
do my best to continue his legacy of insightful questions
and demanding thorough explanations when he is gone.
Meanwhile, my five student algebra class will be down
to three.
Reflective Narrative
For my first lesson in the formative video analysis, I
chose a lesson that I thought would be interesting to
teach, talk about, and observe for myself and other
adults. For this newest lesson, I chose an
inconsequential day of one of my favorite classes, just
to see what kind of feedback I received. The result was
vastly more illuminating, in part because my critical
friend had taught mathematics before, and the
feedback I received from my professor reminded me of
what I noticed in my first video: I spend a lot of time
talking. I know in the abstract that learning should be
more student-driven, that I do them a disservice by
teaching so actively when they could be exploring the
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ideas on their own. I think my ideal mathematics class

would be one with an enormous focus on problem
solving and puzzles, leaving the practical aspect behind
and focusing solely on the development of problem
solving skills, similar to the program described in
Wismath (2013), who found that such a course shifted
the focus from teacher as instructor to a partnership
with students. Certainly this would get me out of the
position of talking so much and put my students in the
drivers seat where they belong.
As noted above, my own interest in the subjects I teach
is only in theory, or what some call pure math. I had a
conversation with another math teacher recently and
we both concluded that the focus on pushing our high
schoolers toward calculus was wrongheaded and that
the correct direction would be toward abstract algebra
and other branches of pure mathematics, allowing the
students to have a broad base from which to explore
any time of application they choose. This focus of mine
is detrimental, as I said above, because I do not
naturally think of practical applications and real world
examples for my students to understand the value of
what they are learning, and though I go so far as to
discourage them from needing such examples to justify
learning the material, I know that I am doing them a
disservice by not having those things at my fingertips.
As I have said in other ASTL reflectionsit seems that
my journey as an educator is to become the kind of
teacher I myself disliked having when I was in school.
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Then again, this mentality itself might be laced with

incorrect assumptions. Perhaps my next step should be
to solicit feedback from my students on what they wish
to see in this class-I have the flexibility to provide some
deviation from the plan, as needed. And it may be the
case that my students, who are a lot like me in terms of
interest and personality, are also like me in terms of
what they prefer in their classes. This in and of itself is a
kind of assessment, but also a very informal qualitative
inquiry into preferred teaching practices, and might
suggest new avenues for teaching, at least as far as this
class goes this year.
Finally, I ought to consider how far is appropriate to
push myself. My role as a teacher puts me in something
of a complicated position of having to have expertise
both broad and deep, to prepare for six or seven classes
daily from chemistry to art, English to algebra. I think a
lot about Brookfields (1995) assertion that the idea of
teaching as a vocation is in part a hegemonic idea to
manipulate educators into giving an undue amount of
effort in order to keep costs down and increase
productivity. Finding the correct balance is difficult for
any teacher, but my position is laughably complex and
taxing, and I am starting to wonder if I am doing it
justice, or if any teacher could. I want to be able to plan
more extensively, to assess fully, to get my students
actively engaged and technologically plugged in. I just
do not think that anyone is fully capable of doing so

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who teaches in the setting I do, and perhaps it is time to

not accept the burden of attempting the impossible.
Reflection Point Three
I began teaching in the fall of 2011. Prior to
that, I had been a long term substitute at my school,
and I took on many of the courses I had been covering
in the spring of 2011 on my first day of teaching that
September. As I have noted elsewhere in my ASTL
coursework, my teaching situation is unique, even
among schools that are purported to be the same kind
as mine. Unlike most general education teachers, I
teach a small number of students at a given time, but
they are not in a self-contained classroom. I teach
subjects from across the core curriculum; at last count:
Geometry; Algebra 2; Algebra, Functions, and Data
Analysis; Statistics; Trigonometry; Pre-Calculus; Physics;
Chemistry; English 9-12; US Government; Psychology;
Latin 1-4; Art, and Philosophy. Unlike other special
educators, I am responsible for the creation and
implementation of each of these curricula, and unlike
other special educators, I am teaching them to students
who require an education commensurate or on a higher
level than what they might receive at their base schools,
given their exceptionalities.
Upon the completion of Designing and
Assessing Teaching and Learning, I find myself mostly
questioning the connections between the things taught
in my coursework and how they can be expressed in my
classes. From my very first class on education practice in
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2012, Behavior Management, I have found myself at

odds with how to implement those things that I have
been taught in my classes. Oftentimes, this is for
logistical reasons, though in the case of behavior
management, I have been reluctant to take strictly
behaviorist approaches to management, given that I
wish to model more humanistic social behaviors to my
students, who are sensitive to hypocrisy.
This was a dual struggle, as I needed specific
pedagogy tactics for a variety of content areas but was
unable to take those classes due to time constraints. My
content knowledge suffered. Simultaneously, I was
taking special education courses which were geared for
teachers with different settings and age ranges. I
learned how to assess first graders for reading
disabilities, but not how to teach pre-calculus to high
school seniors.
In this class, I loved the concepts behind the
thinking routines. I frequently try to discuss thinking
skills with my students and to question them on what
reasoning they use to problem solve in mathematics
and science classes and I welcomed the first experience
I had, two and a half years into my masters program, to
be given ideas on how to implement a lesson. I had, of
course, been given an assignment or two involving a
lesson plan, but these were always group assignments,
and yours truly has never had to show anyone a fully
formed lesson plan in four and a half years of teaching.
Unfortunately, the thinking routines we learned were
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mostly geared for the kinds of classes I am not currently

teaching: for example, many of them require that a
class of 20-30 students break up into small groups of 3
or 4. What if Im teaching only two students at a time?
The task of translating those routines into things that
can be implemented in my classroom, such as it is, is
bigger than one semester and one that I am just
beginning.
Similar problems exist for the implementation
of authentic assessments in my classroom. One of the
tenets espoused in the class was that they should
involve some kind of collaborative element, but with my
small population, the implementation of such things
gets strange. Certainly, though, I have found it helpful
to combine these ideasmaking thinking more visible
on my assessments in Algebra 2 helped me
conceptualize what I felt was missing from that class
and how to get it back. For my try it #2 exercise, for
example, I created an activity that somewhat
inadvertently assessed my students conceptual
knowledge in algebra and found it lacking; for my
authentic assessment assignment, I created a scenario
that forced them to further confront and explain these
concepts in their own words but the oddities of
teaching special education interrupted that exercise:
due to a substitutes reasonable mistake, my students
all took their work home with them for the weekend
and prevented me from actually grading and evaluating
their completed assignments.
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One of our counselors husband once quipped,

in relation to a graduation night gone awry: its a special
education school; why dont you guys expect that
everything you do will be a little special ed? Though I
would push back against the implicit prejudices in that
statement, theres a bit of truth in the idea. Everything I
learn, research, or try to implement needs to be
modified and individualized for my unique and
sometimes strange environment of teaching.

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Education and Culture

Its Okay if You Are One: Adolescents Use of Slurs
Framing the Study
Puzzlement
It is the week before Halloween, and my class is
decorating pumpkins for our schools contest and
munching on candy. One student, Calvin, takes out
some M&Ms, and offers to his peers an M&M that has
peanuts and chocolate poking through its lumpy shell.
Does anyone want to eat the autistic one? Upon
redirection for this phrasing, the student responds, Its
okay for me to say it; Im autistic.
Later, a group of students sit around a large
table in an art room. Each has a sketchbook and they
are passing around a series of art history books, each
focusing on a different painter. The students are then
choosing an image to copy and sketch. The teacher is
participating also, copying a work from the artist Goya.
A student to his left quips, How sad that he devoted his
life to art and his name [Goya] is now more famous for
beans. A second student to his left remarks, Carlos [a
third student] is famous for being a bean. He receives a
consequence (to wit, a time out) for this remark, and as
he is preparing to leave the room, he attempts to
defend his actions by saying: What? Carlos is okay with
being called that, so its fine!

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Some weeks after that incident, a group of

students are waiting to be dismissed to their busses on
a Friday afternoon. The students chat in a large circle
and teachers wait by the phone and discuss their own
weekend plans. Suddenly, a student emits a loud
outburst: I didnt say I hate black people. I said I dont
like all people! Several staff members turn their
attention to the group as they all begin to yell at the
teen who made the outburst. One staff member pulls
him from the room, while another attempts to redirect
the course of the conversation toward less controversial
topics.
All three of these vignettes deal with the
multiple discursive styles among adolescents in a
therapeutic day school for students with emotional and
learning disabilities. In the first, a student uses his own
diagnosis as a slang term equivalent to messed up;
defective and justifies it with his in-group status. In the
second, a student uses a racial slur to refer to his friend,
and defends himself by saying it should not be a
problem if his friend is okay with his word use. In the
third, a student attempts to entirely disavow any racial
prejudices, but is shouted down by a large group of
peers.
The three incidents illustrate a strange confluence of
factors within the social space of our schoollanguage
use surrounding marginalized groups, student
popularity and social skills, and pervasive ideas about
when such language, if ever, is acceptable among our
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teens. Why is it the case that a student can negatively

refer to a whole group of his classmates, as in the first
vignette, without any other student being overtly
offended? Why is it the case that a popular student can
use racial slurs without ignominy, while an unpopular
student can explicitly disavow racism and still be
disliked for the perception that he holds such views?
This study attempts to explore those ideas and to
reduce the severity and frequency of this kind of
language use among that same group of students.
Setting
My school is a small, therapeutic day school for
students with IEPs who are contracted to attend via the
local education agencies (LEAs) due to their inability to
provide for and accommodate those students needs.
Students at my school are drawn from the entirety of
suburban Northern Virginia and represent the range of
socioeconomic and ethnic diversity that exists within
that region. Currently, our 25 students are split 68% to
32% with respect to gender/sex, with no students
currently endorsing anything other than cisgendered
heterosexuality (This is perhaps atypical or unexpected,
given the increased risk for mental health concerns for
LGBT adolescents [see Coker, Austin, & Shuster, 2010]).
These demographics are not necessarily representative
of the schools recent history; we are at the mercy of
our referrals and transitions. Lately, our referrals have
tended toward disorders that have a higher prevalence
among boys than girls, though last year we had close to
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gender parity. We have no students who are currently

taking ESOL classes, though some of our students are
international in the sense that they were adopted at a
young age or are first generation immigrants who came
young enough that they are native speakers of English.
Ethnic minority breakouts are: Asian (East or West): 3
students (12%), 2 Hispanic students (8%), and 5 African
American students (20%).
All of our students fall under at least one of the
following disability classifications: Emotional Disability
(ED), Specific Learning Disability (SLD), Other Health
Impairment (OHI, usually ADHD), Multiple Disabilities
(MD), and very recently, Autism Spectrum Disorders
(ASD). Though the final represents only one student
who has ASD as his sole classification, some other
students have had ASD as secondary classifications with
ED as a primary (e.g., Calvin).
For the purposes of this study, I will consider the entire
student body of my school (currently 27 students) as
the population being studied, though many students
are omitted if I lacked access to them when conducting
research (mostly due to absences). All of my students
are at this school because they require a therapeutic,
clinical environment in order to succeed in school. An
overwhelming majority of them are classified as ED
(Emotional Disability) and many of those who have
other classifications probably could use the ED
classification. Due to the requirements of the IEP
process, all of them have been required to demonstrate
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failure at their public schools in order to be considered

for our school; as such most of them have few
friendships prior to coming to our school, and for many
of them, this problem persists.
A telling anecdote: when I was in second grade, an
acquaintance at school was hosting a birthday party. My
mom delayed in calling to RSVP on my behalf, and had
to say 'no' because of a family trip. On the phone, the
other student's mother broke down and asked if there
was something she didn't know about her son: one by
one, every single kid that was invited declined the
invitation. Years later, I found that student's name on a
list of former students at the school where I teach. The
experience seems to be fairly typical for most of our
kids: they lack close personal friendships and have a
hard time maintaining them when they do form. For
better or worse, they often make friends with each
other, which can lead to them supporting one another
to progress in their treatment and academics, or can
lead to them holding each other back. Last year, we had
much of the former; this year, the latter.
This is relevant to the study for a number of reasons.
First, my students are not typical and this must be
considered in the context of the study because any
conclusions I may draw will not be representative of
anything larger than my school. Secondly, the social
relations and experiences I intend to study are fraught
with so much history and imbued with so much

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meaning; to forget this would be to miss the most

important qualitative features of my subjects.
Again, the context of a special education facility is
crucial here. Students are not bound to the school by
the vagaries of suburban geography but instead by their
needs. This leads to a student population that is diverse
in myriad ways: racially, economically, socially,
geographically, and even by disability status to a
moderate extent. By contrast, our staff tends to be
educated Caucasians in their early thirties, though in
the last two years we have brought our proportion of
staff members of color up to 25%. Last year, there was
only one male staff member, though again we are up to
25%. Considering my status complicates the scenario
somewhat, and forgive the unseemly lack of modesty.
In contrast to my students, who typically have to fail out
of school at some point to access services, I had the
benefit of an incredible education at the secondary and
post-secondary levels and continue to maintain and
update myself in ways that other staff members don't
really seem to. That I am the youngest staff member,
and have been for the half decade I've taught there,
gives me some ability to connect with the students on
levels the other staff cannot. At the same time, the
connection is often ephemeral, as I have different
interests and abilities. In short, I often find it harder
than my colleagues to see through my students' eyes.
So I approach my students with nineteen years' and
counting worth of liberal education, in this case with
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respect to race, gender, and cultural issues. While many

would say that as a middle class straight white male
who can pass as Christian, I have no input to give on
such matters, and that's fair, but I simply do not find
there to be an appropriate context for the kinds of
language or discussions about race my students have. In
seeking to understand this, however, I may just be
exposing my disconnection from those same
communities, where, perhaps, different values pervade.
This is my assumption, as well: I have to conclude that
using racial slurs or making jokes about lynching people
have to damage a students' credibility, and yet the
opposite seems to be true. Am I now so old that I have
different generational values than my students?
Cultural Questions/Dimensions
Question: 3.2.2: How might tracking or ability-grouping
be contributing to the puzzling situation? This is the first
thing that came to mind upon considering the
commonalities my students have in spite of their
diversity. Nearly all of them possess some kind of social
inadequacy and those who don't certainly have learning
or cognitive gaps. I recall that it's been shown that
grouping ED students together leads to iatrogenic
effects with respect to behavior--is my observation
solely based on those kinds of problems?
Second Question: 3.5.2 How might individual students'
negotiations of their cultural identities be contributing
to the puzzling situation? This is the essence of my
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inquiry: how do they discuss and thereby create their

experience of racial interactions and identities as high
school students? How does this negotiation impact
individual students, and what effect is brought about by
the entirety of the discussion?
Literature Review
Types of Talk
In a study of a middle school in a district where
a desegregation order had been rescinded in 1995,
Schultz, Buck, and Niesz (2000) found that students at
the middle school engaged in two types of
conversations about race when in multiracial contexts.
The first type was bridging talk, which was typified by
speech that sought connections and commonalities
across racial groups and sought to decrease the
perception of differences. The students were careful to
distinguish themselves from an older generation and
media representations, which they viewed as racist. The
us versus them talk the students engaged in was
not between races, but between a generational divide.
However, the authors note that while students
attempted to engage in bridging talk, they occasionally
fell into latent power dynamics and othering based on
social and class lines, if not racial ones.
The second type of talk noted (Schultz, Buck, &
Niesz, 2000) was conflict talk, which involved the
erection of social borders within their focus groups and
went as far as open discussion of racial slurs and their
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meanings, a scene which erupted into outright verbal

conflict in one of their focus groups. This conflict spilled
out of the focus group and into the social scene of the
middle school itself and required substantial
intervention from adults to quell. This scene again
demonstrated that the communicative styles and
hidden power dynamics impacted the ways the
students were able to converse in multiracial groups.
The authors concluded that conversations among
adolescents about racial topics would benefit from
direct instructions about the power dynamics and the
conceptual and linguistic tools required to address
these dynamics to avoid superficial bridging or outright
conflict.
Alternatively, Anagnostopoulous, Everett, and
Carey (2013) identified two types of racial talk that are
employed by teens in the face of new racism. They
characterize new racism as the growing trend of white
youth to cast racial problems as issues of policy or
culture (rather than biology) or to make reference to
reverse discrimination, casting whites in a victim role
(the student Martin will take this approach later in this
study). The first discursive is the strategy of ignorance,
in which students of both races relied on the fallback
position that even in the face of apparently racist talk or
actions, it is impossible to truly know if a person has
racist intentions. The second discursive style was the
strategy of implicature, in which students emphasized
the interconnectedness of white and black experiences
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in the united states, drawing attention to the ways in

which white adolescents, while perhaps not racist in
intent, still benefit from a history and system which is a
legacy of explicit racism. How students negotiate these
competing narratives is crucial to understanding the
current discussions being had about race in schools. In
part, the first strategy relies on racism as a personal
prejudice or act of discrimination, whereas the second
allows for racism to be part of a complex,
interconnected system. These two versions of racism
are often conflated, leading to miscommunication and
frustration.
Talk and Cultural Identity
After a series of formal interviews,
observations, and numerous informal interviews,
Pascoe (2005) provided a functional approach to
teenage boys use of the epithet fag at a high school.
It was found that boys could be called fag for any
behaviors or qualities they had that were perceived as
non-masculine (though not necessarily things that were
perceived as feminine) , to include being stupid,
incompetent, dancing, caring too much about clothing,
being too emotional or expressing interest (sexual or
platonic) in other guys (Pascoe, 2005, p. 337). This
allowed the use of the fag epithet to be an effective
tool for policing the gender expression of adolescent
males to fit the dominant social norms.
It is also worth noting that the same study found that
the list of items for which a teenage boy could be called
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a fag was different dependent on the race of that

student. In the study (Pascoe, 2005), White boys who
danced could be labeled fags, but a popular Black boy
was known for being a good dancer and was never
vulnerable to the threat of labeling as other boys would
be. This piece of evidence as crucial, as it demonstrates
that the kinds of demographic-based slurs and epithets
under consideration in this study are intersectional
that is, the rules and norms for their employment is
based on more than simple gender, gender identity, or
race, but the combination of all of the above.
Taking Pascoe (2005) as a theoretical and
methodological starting point, Armstrong, Hamilton,
Armstrong, and Seeley (2014) followed 53 college aged
women through 5 years of longitudinal interviews and
observations, including over 2,000 pages of field notes
as part of a larger study on the college experiences of
young women (see Armstrong & Hamilton, 2013) . In
this sub-study, Armstrong et al. focused on the slut
discourse on campus and its function. They found that
the participants used slut discourse to define social
distinctions in the college setting that are closely linked
to class differences. Both low- and high-class groups of
women used the discourse to cast their sexual
performance in a positive light while labeling other
classes of women as slutty, though only the high class
women benefitted from this practice, as they were
privileged in the dominant social scene on campus.

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One important theoretical concept from this study is

the idea of defensive othering, in which a person from
a marginalized group casts the kinds of epithets under
study in order to reduce the stigma associated with
themselves and their memberships in less privileged
groups. (Armstrong, Hamilton, Armstrong, & Seeley,
2014) Though they ultimately reject this theory as it
pertains to slut discourse, it may be worth considering
within the context of this study.
In another observational study (Michael, 2008), first
graders in a bilingual (English/Spanish) classroom in the
Midwest were taught a lesson on Martin Luther King Jr.
in which the concept of race was presented as a binary
consisting of only Black and White. The students, most
of whom were Latino, identified themselves as White
upon reading the text presented in the lesson, in part
because of the binary presentation of race, but also
because of the presentation of Whites as powerful and
African Americans as powerless. Again, it is crucial to
note that when their identities were under attack, the
students sought to align themselves with the more
powerful and dominant group and to distance
themselves from the other.
Risman and Banerjee (2013) interviewed a number of
tweenagers in a school district in the American South.
They found a complex web of perspectives and
schemata related to race. For example, both White
Children and Children of Color were split among
themselves in describing race through a lens of
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inequality or via cultural differences (e.g. language).

Within these groups, many students supported these
explanations through either negative cultural
stereotypes or through ethno-cultural explanations that
were more neutral and descriptive. Again, this took
place within a context of color blindness or color
consciousness, as many students did not perceive that
there are real differences in the life experiences
between White Children and Children of color. Much
like Anagnostopoulous et al. (2013) new racism, this
colorblindness was only a mask for negative stereotypes
and vivid descriptions of racialized differences in the
public school setting.
Adolescents and Online Communities.
So far, these studies have focused solely on social
spaces where the researcher was present within the
social milieu and thereby impacting the outcomes of the
study even as they observed them. Tynes, Reynolds,
and Greenfield (2004) sought to examine the
differences between social spaces of adolescents and
their discussions of race and ethnicity by evaluating the
conversations within monitored and unmonitored chat
rooms. Though they are probably not directly relevant
to the current study due to their somewhat pass
nature, chat rooms can serve as a proxy for the kinds of
internet social spaces that are inhabited by
contemporary students, despite the dozen years that
have passed. Thirty-eight half hour segments of
conversation were transcribed in a mix of chatrooms
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that were monitored by an adult and those that were

not monitored, having been set up for this purpose by
the researchers on popular online destinations at the
time. Nearly all of these transcripts contained at least
one reference to race or ethnicity; these were coded
and then examined quantitatively to see what
difference was made within the two groups. They found
that there were significantly more negatively coded
examples of racial discourse in chat rooms that were
not monitored by an adult (p=0.02). Positive and neutral
references to race did not appear to vary significantly
based on the monitoring status. This indicates that the
kinds of discourse examined in most other studies may
not accurately reflect the kind of discourse that
students engage in when they are not being monitored
by adults. Since the time of this study, many online
social spaces have been created that have tools that
enable the privacy of conversations among teens
without adult supervision at all. As such, this finding is
crucial to the understanding of any results from this
study itself.
Further studying online communities, Reich
(2010) found that many social networking sites, while
often branded as online communities, often lacked the
crucial features of a community in a psychological
sense. Rather, they more closely resembled loose
networks of individuals. This analysis casts some doubt
on the idea that online groups can or do constitute
distinct communities or cultures, though it is worth
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noting that even in the last six years since this study, the
form, nature, and scope of online communities has
continued to change drastically.
It is tentatively hypothesized that bridging and
conflict talk are both possible among adolescents;
however, conflict talk will emerge if it is incentivized by
defensive othering or the identity formation processes
the students, unless adults are able to monitor and
direct the conversation of the adolescents involved.
Action Plan
In order to initially assess what factors surround
the adolescents use of slurs and other language around
marginalized groups, a survey was given to every
student who entered my classroom over two
consecutive days at school. In part due to absences and
our students frequent attendance issues, this resulted
in only 11 students taking the survey. The questions
themselves were intended to be broad and to simply
gauge the relevant factors and hypotheses I had at the
outset of the study and how my students would selfreport on these topics. As such, the questions
addressed issues of usage of disparaging language
about groups (based on gender, sexuality, race), social
status (I am well liked by my peers), the relationship
of this language to adults (I change the kinds of words I
use when adults are around; my parents and I talk
about race, gender, or sexuality), and, crucially, how
they derived an ethical basis for their use of this kind of
language (Its okay to make jokes or talk negatively
219

about a group of people if you belong to that group.)

This final question was derived as a result of hearing
that justification given in the first vignette. The
justification given in the second, namely that it is okay
to use that kind of language if the audience expresses
that he or she is okay with it, was not addressed in the
survey but will be addressed in later data collection.
Eleven students took the survey anonymously,
though one student failed to answer questions on the
back of the survey and one student skipped the first
question (I am well liked by my peers). The main
results can be found in Appendix X of this document. It
was noted that the three questions with which students
agreed the most (indeed, the only three with means
above a neutral score of 4) were: I change the kind of
language I use when adults are around; I like to make
jokes about race; and, Its okay to make jokes or talk
negatively about a group of people if you belong to that
group. From these, it is clear that the findings of Tynes
et al. (2004) that students tend to use more racially
charged or aggressive language when adults are not
around to monitor is at least somewhat in play in this
setting. Additionally, it was clear that race was the most
salient of the marginalized groups under consideration.
The idea that it is okay to make jokes about a group for
which one has an in-group status was comparatively
well-supported among my students. However, this
question also had a standard deviation higher than
most (SD=2.11) and so it is equally clear that this
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justification is controversial among my students. Finally,

it must be said that the number of students sampled is
incredibly small (though it represents slightly more than
one third of our entire student body) and no statistical
significance was sought or expected, especially given
the degree to which the results were skewed by outlier
students (e.g. the final student to take the survey
answered 7 for every question except #1).
From these very preliminary findings, the
question remained what the social consequences my
students faced and what the ethical norms they held
were when they used and encountered the kind of
language described herein. The survey was a good
starting point, but more depth was needed. As such,
small group discussions were planned to take place
within the context of regular group therapy, which each
student receives for 48 minutes, daily. After discussions
with HASs senior counseling staff, it was determined
that the groups would begin by writing some of the
kinds of words that were under discussion on a
whiteboard in the group room and seeing if students
were able to classify and see the connections between
all of these words. Prior to this, a video of a
performance on the topic of the question its okay if
you are one was considered and rejected on the
grounds that the students may not be able to follow the
video, which was fast paced and densely packed with
ideas. The suggestion of the counseling staff was
adopted, and each group started with a discussion
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about the words that might fight within this schema and
what kinds of groups they brought with them (race,
gender, disability, class, etc.). After that time, the
groups were free to discuss the topic freely for a few
minutes, until the researcher brought the topic back
around to what was the central idea for these group
discussions: does being a member of an in-group allow
or justify the use of slurs or negative language about
that group?
Meanwhile, the entire staff of HAS began
collecting quotations and incidents that might fit under
the umbrella of this topic and documented them for the
research team. These are included in Appendices I and
J.
Data Collection and Analysis
Survey results
As noted above, the survey was given to 11
students over the course of two days and included the
questions given in Appendix X. The survey was intended
to initially assess how students were using the language
socially, whether families or adult influences factored
into their use, and how they justified their use, if at all.
Additionally, the questions were all assessed
against one another for Pearson correlations (See
Appendix Y). No statistical significance was sought or
found, but it was hoped that this might provide some
sense of the validity of the concepts being addressed
222

and open the door to any relationships that might not

have been previously anticipated.
Only the highest correlations were noted, given
that the data were so sensitive to the pull of single
answers. The highest correlation noted was between I
like to make jokes about race and
I like to make jokes about gender or sexuality, at
r=0.92. Additionally, I like to make jokes about gender
or sexuality and Its okay to make jokes or talk
negatively about a group of people if you belong to that
group correlated at r=0.89 and formed some of the
justification for further investigating this justification in
the group sessions that came some weeks later.
Reports from hallways
After conducting the survey, the research team
enlisted the help of all HAS staff members, who began
submitting quotations and instances of racial, gendered,
or sexually charged language throughout the school.
These collections are separated into a before the group
discussion section and an after section. The before
group contained such utterances as, you have cancer,
faggot, and Hitler did nothing wrong! He had the right
idea! (Appendix Z) Within context, it is presumed by
the HAS staff members that the student who said both
of these quotations is not necessarily espousing those
views, but instead is attempting to elicit a reaction from
staff or other students, though this is not entirely clear.
These data were collected through the weeks between
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the survey and the group sessions, and then again

thereafter to determine if any change was made in
quality or quantity of these kinds of statements.
After the group discussions (below), the quality
of these instances did not appear to change much (If
Ari called me the most racist thing in the world, I
wouldnt care, (Appendix AA) along with a student who
was caught giving a Nazi salute in the hallway (Appendix
K), but the quantity appeared to abate, though this may
also be due to fatigue and forgetfulness on the part of
the staff with respect to sending in comments that
would meet criteria for inclusion.
Group text
The transcripts of the three extant group discussions
were examined thoroughly for evidence related to the
justifications the teens provided for this kind of
language use, the social consequences of such use, or
any other notable findings related to culture and this
kind of discourse. A fourth group session occurred, but
the audio recordings for this session were lost. As such,
impressions of the group session itself were recorded
(Appendix V) along with additional observations made
by a clinical intern (Appendix W) who was present for
the discussions. These were also assessed for their
relationship to the emerging themes and findings from
the first three sessions. The group discussions were
intended to be both a method of data collection and an
action toward getting HAS students to think more
critically about how and why this language has come to
224

be so pervasive in the culture of our school. The

emerging themes and findings from these sessions,
grouped into reactionary responses, justifications,
geography, full opposition, and linguistic features, will
be discussed more thoroughly below.
Dominance of the Discussion
Schultz, Buck, & Niesz (2000) reported that even in
groups of adolescents who reported strong affiliation
between races and low conflict still demonstrated
subtle biases toward the more socially dominant or
hegemonic group, particularly in terms of which groups
were able to dominate the conversation. As such, the
discussion groups transcripts were analyzed in terms of
race and gender to determine if groups were
disproportionately dominant in the discussions
themselves. This analysis was conducted based on
number of utterances. The findings were that male
students dominated the discussions, with an average of
86 comments per session by male students compared
to 64 per session from female students. The racial
makeup of the groups was such that a complicated
analysis was not possible; however, purely grouping
students into groups of White Students and Students of
Color found no substantial difference in mean
utterances between the two groups (70 utterances and
77 utterances per session on average, respectively).

225

Emerging Findings / Action Plan Monitoring

Reactionary Responses
The first kind of response that became clear, in part
because of its contrast to the rest of the discussions
being had, was a somewhat reactionary response to
groups that are seeking, at least nominally, to end the
very racial injustices that these same students purport
to oppose. Specifically, a recent social movement
known as Black Lives Matter (See Luibrand, 2015) was
mentioned twice. In the first instance, a European
American student, Martin, remarked: Yeah, theres
two groups trying to segregate again: Theres the KKK
and Black Lives Matter. In general, Martin had a
perspective on racial, ethnic, and gendered slurs that
was contrary to nearly all other students in the group
discussions. Namely, he reported Personally, I dont
even see these as insults, but apparently everybody else
does. (Appendix S, line 117). He went on to explain
that he sees no distinction between the connotations of
these words and their denotations, eschewing any
reference to history or emotional impact. In sum, he
said that that is nothing wrong with being a member of
any of these marginalized groups, so there should be no
offense taken to the use of words that place someone
within one of those groups. Additionally, Martin had
trouble understanding whence came the emotional
impact of the connotations of these words, relaying:
Quite frankly, if its far enough in the past [slavery],
then you probably didnt even live through it, so why
226

are you so upset? (Appendix S, line 181) Finally, he

seemed to perceive the struggle toward racial and
gender equality as a zero-sum game, or that Caucasians
were being vilified in the process: Some people will
randomly call you privileged, just for being White or
male, or both. (Appendix S, line 60) Martins responses
here clearly echo the descriptions of colorblindness
(Risman & Banerjee 2013) and new racism
(Anagnostopoulous et al. 2013), wherein he denies the
historical precedent of racism while simultaneously
benefitting from and perpetuating the system that
provided the racial imbalance which he is denying.
Taken together, his comments seem to portray a
student who has taken a reactionary stance toward
social movements toward equality. However, another
explanation might be availablethe student in question
is diagnosed with High Functioning Autism, which is
noted for literal and concrete thinking, in addition to
difficulty with perspective taking and empathy (Hobson,
2012, e.g.). Later in our discussion, it became clear that
Martin was able to perceive the offensive nature of
language toward in-groups (e.g. privileged White males,
above) but not outgroups, which may simply be a result
of his status as an individual with autism. It could also
be the case that his lack of distinction between the
connotations and denotations of words and his
difficulty with recognizing their potential emotional
impact is a result of this same kind of concrete thinking,
as well.
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Later, in a discussion about the historical changes these

words go through in relation to their social acceptance,
I brought up the United Negro College Fund. This
caused a strong emotional reaction from the group,
who felt that the UNCF was a discriminatory
organization. James, a biracial middle school student,
remarked: thats kind of like the Black Lives Matter
(Appendix U, line 2000). In some sense, he may be
correct: the students in this group were angered by
their perception that UNCF was discriminating by only
supporting African American scholars; likewise, much of
the country seems to perceive the BLM movement as
supporting African Americans at the expense of others,
though this viewpoint has been criticized often in
popular media (e.g. Goldberg, 2015).
Justifications
As was sought through the group discussion
process, many students gave justifications as to when or
under what circumstances it would be okay to use slurs
in conversation. These justifications can be broken
down into four kinds: The original if you have in-group
status, was present, as was an argument about the
intent of the use of the word, whether the group in
conversation allows such language as a norm, and with
reference to the power of the word.
The most obvious justification is the one given
in the vignettes above: its okay to say these words if
you belong to the group they specify. This justification
was explicitly queried in the groups, and some students
228

did endorse it, though not all of them and not

consistently throughout the discussion. Marcus said,
The only thing Im saying is, if youre African, and
youre talking to an African person, you should be able
to say words like that (Appendix U, lines 1795-1796),
and later, If youve got black in you, you should be able
to say that word (Appendix U, lines 1798). However,
most other students offered a more nuanced and
complex understanding of the mores and norms
surrounding the use of such words.
These students usually focused on the intent or
emotional quality of the utterance that might include
such slurs. For example, Carol related, I think its where
youre coming from emotionally that determines the
effect of what youre saying (Appendix T 889-890), and
later, if you are inherently respectful, then people
might not be so offended (Appendix T, line 855). Philip
reported that with certain of these words, my mom
taught me if they dont mind you saying it its okay
(Appendix T Appendix T, 723-725). Other students
offered similar explanations.
Another common theme was of the norms of the group
context within which such words were being said. David
reported, it depends on the crowd. Ive met some
black people that are totally okay with it, dont give a
shit who says it ..Ive met, Im sorry, Ive met some
people who would hear a white person say it and theyll
steel them right there (Appendix T, lines1023-1027).
Similarly, Ahmed reported, If youve known em for a
229

while and you know how they are, and how they react
to things then thats kind of okay in that kind of
crowd, but if you just meet the person, and you just say
that, then theyre gonna think youre some type of way
cause they dont know you and theyve just met you
and youre already saying that (Appendix T, lines 10331037).
The final justification given is perhaps more subtle, and
only arose one time. David reported: Im not gonna say
that I agree with its okay if you are one but what I am
gonna say is I agree with the original logic of what I
heard of, taking the power out of the word by using it
(Appendix T, lines 956-958).
Geography
One of the more surprising findings from the
group discussions is that geography seems to play a
factor in whether the usage of these words is
acceptable or not. This is perhaps not surprising, given
the groundbreaking work of Cohen, Nisbett, Bowdle,
and Schwarz (1996) who showed that individuals from
different geographic regions, particularly the southern
states, had different perceptions of how insulting
certain types of speech are.
In the context of the group discussion, Rebecca,
an African American counselor at the school, related
that she had been called a racial slur in the past, but
also indicated, maybe in more southern states,
where it is more okay (Appendix S, lines 537-539) in
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relation to the use of the word in question. This is out of

sync with the findings of Cohen et al (1996), who found
that southern individuals are more likely to become
offended or alarmed by insults or derogatory language.
This seeming contradiction merits further investigation.
Phonemics
In two of three sessions, students remarked that there
existed a dichotomy between two uses of the n word
that fell along phonemic lines. Multiple students
reported that the use of the word with the rhotic er
ending is always offensive, whereas the use of the nonrhotic a ending is perceived differently depending on
context. David reported: I have to say, though, it hits
the ear a certain way when you hear somebody say it
like theyre trying to say whats up dude and they say
whats up with the n-word, it soundsit hits the ear
different than if you hear someone who you feel is
genuinely racist. (Appendix T, lines 1002-1005)
Likewise, Marcus said, If you saying what up my. The
er one? Then thats a problem. (Appendix U, lines
1944-1945) In some versions, the identity of the
speaker did not matter if the proper non-rhotic ending
was observed:
Rosie: Like he said with the a, thats what he said
thats basically saying buddy, like, whats up, with the
er, I find it more with in older white people say it with
the er.

231

Interviewer: If a younger white person said it with the

a, how would that go down?
Rosie: just saying buddy. (Appendix T, lines 1017-1020)
This very situation was realized earlier in the day, as
Martin, a Caucasian high schooler, in the first group,
used the non-rhotic ending version of this word in an
example of what he felt should not be considered
offensive. It is not clear from the transcript that any
particular reaction was given, though it may be the case
that all others in the room chose to ignore the
comment.
This is perhaps the most surprising finding for the me
that the distinction between an acceptable and
unacceptable use relies on a particular linguistic feature
that is often hard to perceive. However, it seems to
underlie the okay if you are one message, as African
American English is usually non-rhotic (see Gick, 1999,
e.g.) and the strong reliance on this linguistic feature
only seems to underscore the message that the word is
okay for African Americans more than speakers of other
American dialects. Or as Marcus put it: I dont mess
with the -er I mess with the -a (Appendix U, 1906).
The Opposition
Many students offered immediate and full
opposition to the idea its okay if you are one. This fits
with the earlier data collection, which showed
ambiguity among the HAS student body as to whether
232

that justification is acceptable. In the third group

(Appendix U), for example, the question elicited an
immediate 75% negative response (but for James).
However, the responses of most students tended to
display a complexity around the issue that made it
difficult to establish what each student really thought
this may reflect an ambiguity in the minds of the
students as well. Rosie, a biracial Junior, said, for
example, that many of her African American friends
used words that are usually considered disparaging
toward their group, but that she felt I just think its
very disrespectful to say it about yourself (Appendix U,
751).
Two Caucasian students were strong voices in
opposition to the idea of its okay if you are one. Carol
said, I feel a little uncomfortable with that, like when I
hear black people call themselves the n word, I dont
necessarily feel like its totally okay, its like, why would
you say that about yourself? So Im not in consensus.
(Appendix T, lines 950-952). Later, Stephen said
because like, basically, I think that youre pretty much
like saying that about your own race. Like, lets say
youre white and you say it, thats unacceptable, but
same with um, if youre black or African American
whatever you call it, I dont know. I mean. Its just not
right (Appendix U, Lines 1873-1875). These two
students did not move from these positions through the
remainder of the discussion, but nearly every other

233

student moved positions a few times. A brief study of

one of these students is presented next.
Marcus: A brief study
On student in particular, an African American
middle schooler, appeared to shift his position
repeatedly as he considered the implications and
circumstances around the use of these kinds of words.
Initially, to my original query of is it okay if you are
one? he responded with a firm, no! Following this,
he actually appeared outraged that James, a biracial
student, had answered affirmatively to that question.
However, as the discussion progressed, Marcus offered
explanations of justifications for why it is okay to use
such language, particularly the n word. He reported
that he had a friend who was raised by an African
American family, and that friends use of the word did
not offend Marcus. I inquired, because he has a right,
somehow? to which Marcus replied, Yeah, cause he
was raised by black people. I further inquired, So for
you, its not only okay if you are one, but if youre part
of a community? which Marcus answered in the
affirmative. He seemed to be endorsing both the ingroup justification and the if it fits the group norms
justification simultaneously.
Later, Marcus was one of the stronger voiced
endorsing the linguistic justification, namely that the n
word is okay to use only in the non-rhotic version,
reporting: I dont mess with the er, I mess with the a
(Appendix U, 1906).
234

However, Marcus had the strongest negative

reaction of any in the group during my discussion of the
United Negro College Fund, saying repeatedly and in a
clearly upset voice, I dont like that word! four times
(Appendix U, lines 1953, 1956, 1958, and 1963).
Additionally, when considering that he has members of
his extended family are white, as well, and how
offended he was at hearing slurs directed at that racial
group, he began to shift back toward his original
position. He concluded by saying, I dont think none of
these words should be said (Appendix U line 2023). I
pressed him further, saying, So I think what youre
saying is, we have these, this community we live in now,
and were all connected and any one of these words we
use might not mean me, but it might be someone I love
and care about? to which he responded a simple, yup
(Appendix U lines 2037-2040).
The Fourth Group
As stated above, a fourth group discussion was
held, but the audio recording was lost. As such, the
group facilitator and clinical intern who were present
both contributed impressions of what had occurred
during the group (Appendices D and E, respectively).
This particular session was significant as it contained
two of the students who were implicated in the second
vignette, in which a racial slur was used by Ari and
Carlos, the subject of the slur, indicated that he felt that
Ari should not receive a consequence because he,
Carlos, does not mind being called that. Both of these
235

high school students, a Hispanic American and Asian

American adopted by a Caucasian family, endorsed the
idea that its okay if you are one. Later, they modified
this to say that use of this kind of language is okay if you
are explicitly aware that your audience will be okay with
it. Both boys also agreed that if a person is offended by
such language, that is their problem or responsibility
and that they would not change the nature of their
discourse for others. The girls in the group remained
largely silent, as noted by the clinical intern. Carlos had
the insight to ask if the if you are one justification is
hypocritical, in that a person who believes this
justification is presenting a racialized double standard.
Ari missed much of the more nuanced topics within this
group as he left on two occasions, once for yelling at a
peer and a second time for yelling fuck you! to a staff
member.
Conclusions and Implications
Culture and Subculture
Taking into consideration the voices and
opinions heard in the group sessions and in the reports
from HAS staff members as to what they are hearing in
the halls and in classes, it seems that the bulk of the
phenomenon of the use of slurs in conversation is
actually restricted to a small group of students. Though
Martin held reactionary viewpoints toward issues of
social justice, his use of nigga in the groups has been
the only documented case of the use of slurs from him.
Meanwhile, Marcus, Carlos, Ari, and a fourth student
236

who was not present on the day of the group sessions,

Calvin, make up 100% of the comments that have been
recorded by HAS staff both before and after the session.
One particular incident (Appendix K) happened
while I was off grounds at a conference. Calvin, from the
first vignette, was observed by a staff member giving a
Nazi heil salute in the hallway the day after Adolf
Hitlers birthday, reportedly as a joke to Carlos and Ari.
As noted above, the quality of the kinds of observations
being made with reference to these slurs and
insensitivities toward marginalized groups did not
appear to change as a result of the group sessions. It
did, appear, however, that the quantity did, as there
were about half as many reported incidents post-group
as there were pre-group. Given that the incidents were
entirely made up of students who are super users of
this language as compared to their peers, it strains
credulity that they truly reduced in quantity. Alternative
hypotheses seem more likely, first that they were
getting better at hiding it from adults (see Appendix X,
question 2) or that the staff members who were
reporting these incidents began to forget that they had
been given this task. That the incident described in
Appendix K is noted at all is only the result of its having
been recorded in an e-mail to all staff members. It is
unclear how many more similar incidents have
happened and received consequences but were not
reported to me.

237

The idea that there exists a small set of super

users of this kind of language is perhaps unsurprising
and brings the cultural question back to the forefront.
Though the data did not entirely capture it (Martin
implied it; Carlos and Ari might have said it outright, but
it was not recorded), it seems like much of the social
space these students inhabited was in online
communities, and mostly male-dominated ones, at that.
As noted earlier, Tynes et al. (2004) demonstrated that
online communities of teens that were not regularly
monitored by adults were prone to much more use of
racially divisive language than would happen were
adults in that social space. It seems safe to conclude
that gender and sexuality are also likely to be oftdiscussed topics in these fora as well.
In short, my students were part of a smaller
subculture that occupied a huge and important part of
their social space, at least as reported through teacher
observations throughout the year. The problem was not
necessarily that they were using language in a way that
was out of touch with their school culturethey were
using language that was normalized within their social
space and failing to appropriately code switch when
they came to school. Going back to the question of how
tracking impacts this phenomenon, it seems clear that
keeping students with documented social deficits in one
space would naturally lead to difficulties of the kind
described herein.

238

Ongoing Questions and Further Research

As I worked through the process of transcribing,
analyzing, an compiling all of the data, a few thoughts
came to mind that did not fit within the context of the
process itself, but are nevertheless important to
interpreting and evaluating my ability to complete the
process. The first observation I made is that I
constantly, throughout all the group sessions, make
reference to the language of doctors as a reference for
language that ought to be modeled. I would say things
to the effect of is that how a doctor would say it?
which is another way of establishing a certain style of
speech (educated, upper middle class) as hegemonic
style of speech, rather than referencing students home
styles (Delpit, 2002). In a sense, I am referencing the
communicative style of an oppressor in order to police
my students language, rather than teaching them the
importance of code switching when they transfer from
home to school cultures.
Within the context of our discussions, one
problem I noticed with the way I ran the group is the
marked difference I gave between certain classes of
slurs. For example, I was personally comfortable writing
some examples on the whiteboard, but at other times I
set a limit on our group discussion by only referencing
the word rather than putting it on the board. Likewise, I
was comfortable saying some of the words out loud, but
not others. This reflects, I think, the varying degrees of
cultural acceptance of certain types of derogatory
239

words. However, I can easily see my students

interpreting this as a model for how they should answer
my question: many students answered that context and
tone made the difference. Here I was using a respectful
tone, making it clear that we were talking about the
words, not using them for their intended purpose, and
providing a context for discussion. Did I not model that
precise justification for the use of these words, even as I
asked my students for how they would justify their use?
I worry that I primed them by tipping my hand in this
way.
Another problem of my approach is my
phrasing: is it okay? When is it okay? These kinds of
questions are very susceptible to the naturalistic fallacy.
Did my students interpret the question as when does it
seem like people are okay with it? or did they interpret
it as, when do you personally think it should be okay?
Both of these elements were present in the
conversation, and may account for Marcus and Rosies
apparent shifts on the issue. Both answered firmly in
the beginning that having in-group status did not justify
that kind of language use, but then both later offered
justifications along these very lines. Could it have been
that they were fluctuating in their answers because
they were answering an is question in one case and an
ought question in the other? I think this is likely to be
the soundest interpretation of the shifts shown by both
Rosie and Marcus.

240

Perhaps a more glaring problem from the group

discussions is that I did not clearly define what the
groups what precisely we were discussing. For example,
Martins interpretation was only that we were
discussing insults in general. Other students had similar
perceptions, asking me to write things like, punk and
motherfucker up on the boardclearly indicating that
they missed the point about terms used to disparage
marginalized groups. Through the course of the
discussion, I hoped to narrow down this perception
toward my specific topic, but it is unclear to me if they
followed that entire train of thought.
Reflection
The most significant thing that I think I learned
from this study is related to the size of culture. My
linguist friends talk a lot about dialects, but they also
mention idiolects (see, e.g., Coulthard, 2004). An
idiolect is an individuals speech patternit exists at a
smaller level than a language, indeed at an even smaller
level than a dialect. When considering them, I often
think of Russian nesting dolls, matryoshki, wherein a
persons individual speech patterns exist within family
patterns or social circle patterns, which are perhaps
influenced by regional patterns and national dialects of
a language that could be worldwide. When together
with friends, I speak a Pittsburghese-inflected version
of a language that is somewhat unique to my group of
friends in that it rewards puns and wordplay and offers
additional nuance and information-carrying through the
241

specific minimal pairs created by certain standby puns

that we use. This is my inflection on a style of speaking
developed through constant changing in small unit of
people over the course of a decade and I imagine it
would be quite unintelligible to an outsider. I am sure
that most tight-knit groups of people develop similar
family or group sub-dialects, within which each persons
idiolect exists.
How, then, could I lose sight of this feature of
culture when conducting my own study, which itself
was focusing on individuals use of language? The
answer should have been obvious to me all along that
the students who were using the kind of language in my
study were not just navigating their perception of their
home culture within the context of a culturally diverse
school in an even more diverse region. Instead, they
were exhibiting their own small group culture, driven
perhaps by internet culture or popular media culture.
The influence of all of these factors was driving what I
was observing in my students. Add to that the fact that
my students are selected, in essence, for their inability
to behave socially appropriately at their base schools
and of course there are going to be problems with code
switching effectively and knowing when is the right time
to do so. In the future, it will be essential for me to
remember that culture exists at all levels, from the
individual to the global, and that all of these levels
interact both vertically and horizontally.

242

Having come to those conclusions, it is

important that I bring some kind of change to the way I
teach and manage behaviors in my classroom. I recently
started reading a very old paper, and have not yet had
time to finish, a paper on repressive tolerance
(Marcuse, 1968) that argues, I understand, that
tolerance of intolerant actions or opinions itself
constitutes a kind of intolerance itself. Put another way,
this study sought to be descriptive in nature, for the
most part. I wanted to know why my students used
language a certain way and what the benefits and
consequences of that use were. My action merely
sought to get students to think more critically about
their own language use in these areas, but at no time
did I categorically state my opinion (notwithstanding my
observations in the implications section) on this kind of
language use. However, it is more clear than ever that I
must take at least an active role in the teaching of code
switching, even if I cannot convince my students of the
wrongness of using that kind of language in the first
place.
Part of me was perhaps influenced by ideas
along the lines of Nieto (1999), who wrote of the
importance of not purely having students accommodate
to the school environment, but of the relationship
giving in both directions. Certainly she is correct that
schools must meet students where they are in some
regards, but there can be no ambiguity in the obligation
to speak out for those who may be marginalized,
243

especially if their status is not readily apparent to others

(e.g. Filax, 2007). During our fourth group conversation,
the students did not even appear to understand the
question when asked how a person who was closeted
might feel about their use of slurs related to sexuality.
For those students, it is more important than ever not
just to shut down those conversations when they arise,
but to explain why and what the implications are for
that language use. They must think critically in our
group sessions, but also within those teachable
moments.
Sometimes, even as a staunch secularist, I have
to marvel at the way the universe sometimes gives us
those teachable moments at the most fitting times. This
morning, Calvin, the student from the first vignette,
used the word autistic as a synonym for messed up
yet again. I called him on that word choice, asking him
exactly what he was implying. What, Im saying Im
screwed up? Well I am! Another student leans in and
says, Mr. McCartney, arent you writing a paper about
that kind of thing like, right now? Why yes, I am. The
three of us had a wonderful conversation about what it
means to say things like that, both for ourselves and for
others. An hour later, Calvin sees a peer with a
bandaged knee and a crutch walking in the halls. He
yells, Hey cripple! Get in here, youre late for class!
My work continues.

244

Reflection Point Four

From the very beginning of the ASTL program, we
have striven to utilize our classrooms as laboratories for
the improvement of our own and others practice. From
the outset, I have been outspoken about my skepticism
about the ability of such research to create meaningful
results. Part of this is of course my connection and love
for big data sets and the statistical results I can squeeze
out of them. Education and Culture, and prior to that,
How Students Learn, have gotten me to focus more and
more on the smallest possible scale, which is not
something Im particularly used to. Its been
uncomfortable and refreshing, a little, to focus on just
one student or just a few students. Likewise, in my
Cultural Inquiry study, I finally discovered that I was
focusing on a particular subset of a subculture as tiny
a unit of research as can be found before going to
single-subjects design, I think.
I found the
metaphor of scale helpful, though. As I mentioned
during our CIP presentations, it reminded me a lot of
the childrens book Zoom, which starts with a chicken
and zooms out at mind bending scales through myriad
scenes before finally ending out in space. I have always
preferred to look at systems from the biggest possible
lens, and focusing on a small number of students has
obviously pushed me outside of that comfort zone.
However, the metaphor extends also to my perception
of culture right now. Just as an individual has an idiolect
within a dialect within a global language, likewise a
person has their own expression of culture which has
245

many levels, both horizontally and vertically.

I
wont be conducting any research in my own
classrooms again any time soon, but I will be doing
research in the classrooms of other teachers. In
particular, my next big research project appears to be
relate to the racial disparities in giftedness identification
in pre-K students. I cant think of a more culturallyinflected study that I could be participating in, and I look
forward to continuing to delve into how race, religion,
language, and culture more broadly impact the way our
students interact with their classrooms.

246

Educational Change
Disproportionate Representation of Minority
Students in Suspensions in a Special Education
Environment
Importance/Significance
Since the civil rights movement and
desegregation efforts of the 1960s, one might
expect that the school experiences of African
American youth and those from other racial
minorities might steadily be improving; however, in
many ways, their experience is worsening over
time. In particular, this trend is evident in the way
that discipline practices in schools are applied to
African American youth, especially with respect to
exclusionary discipline practices, such as suspension
and expulsion. Since 1972, African American
students have gone from twice as likely to over
three times as likely as their European American
peers to be suspended from school (DeNisco, 2015).
This ratio of three to one for suspensions recurs
repeatedly in the academic literature on race and
student discipline (DeNisco, 2015; Nishioka, 2013;
Skiba, Horner, Chung, Rausch, May, & Tobin, 2011,
among others). However, these data are not
consistent across geographic localities: the three to
one ratio held, for example, in Washington State
(Boyce, Barnes, and Eckes, 2015) but not in Virginia,
where the ratio has remained closer to two to one
(Cornell, Shin, Ciolfi, and Sancken 2013).
247

Given these alarming data for African

American students, it is worth investigating whether
other groups that are traditionally at risk of
marginalization or inequitable outcomes are
experiencing disparate rates of suspension. In fact,
in contrast to the consistency with which those
results are reported, the results for Latino youth,
for example, are often uneven (see Skiba et al.,
2011, for discussion). Additionally, students
identified as having disabilities are also significantly
more likely to be suspended for behavioral
infractions, (Achilles, Mclaughlin, and Croninger,
2007; Sullivan, Klingbeil, and Van Norman, 2013)
despite procedural protections intended to ensure
that their disabilities do not create precisely that
same imbalance (Cornell, Shin, Ciolfi, and Sancken
2013).
The causes for these disparities are still the
subject of debate, but some findings are becoming
clear. It is becoming clear, for example, that the
disparity in rates of discipline is not due to the
behaviors of the students themselves; students of
color do not demonstrate more problematic
behaviors than Caucasian students (Boyce, Barnes,
and Eckes, 2015). Instead, it appears that the levels
of referrals for discipline are often similar, but the
disparity appears in the administration of
consequences (Sullivan, Klingbeil, and Van Norman,
2013). It is known that when exclusionary discipline
248

data are broken down by infraction, the disparity is

greatest for those behaviors which admit the
highest subjectivity, e.g. loitering, defiance, or
disrespect (Skiba et al, 2011). It appears that in
cases where the behavior in question is ambiguous,
students of color and students with disabilities are
being given harsher sentences, or are more likely to
be suspended, than their Caucasian peers. Sullivan,
Klingbeil, and Van Norman (2013) pointed out as
well that a small proportion of teachers may
account for the majority of all suspensions (see
Gregory and Weinstein, 2008). Taken together,
these studies indicate that the disparity in
suspensions has its origins not in the behavior of
the students, but in the administration of the
consequences themselves.
Additionally, while it is clear that low SocioEconomic Status correlates with racial minority
status in the United States, it does not strongly
predict school suspensions (Skiba et al, 2011;
Sullivan, Klingbeil, and Van Norman, 2013). As
noted above, students with Emotional or Behavioral
Disorders are overrepresented in suspensions, but
the data on racial minorities and special education
representation are far from clear. While
disproportionate representation of minorities in
special education has been a received wisdom in
special education circles and called a persistent
challenge (Zhang and Katsiyannis, 2002), some
249

recent studies have found the opposite effect.

Morgan et al. (2015) found that minority students
were underrepresented in several disability
categories, including Emotional Disability and
Learning Disabilities. In addition, they found that
language minority children were less likely to be
found eligible for IEPs under learning disabilities or
speech / language impairment, in contradiction
with traditional findings (Artiles, Rueda, Salazar, and
Higareda, 2005; MacSwan and Rolstad, 2006).
Additionally, Wiley, Brigham, Kauffman, and Bogan
(2013) found a complex web of findings in which
Emotional Disabilities in African American youth did
correlate with disproportionate poverty, meaning
out of sync with their local communities.
Additionally, they found that state-wide political
conservatism was negatively correlated with
minority representation in special education,
supporting the evidence of the importance of
geography in the disproportionate school outcomes
for African American youth. Finally, they reported
that although statistical evidence may show
disproportionality between ethnic groups, all ethnic
groups were underrepresented in special education
in comparison to the predicted prevalence of
Emotional Disability, which stands as an important
warning for any statistical model comparing ethnic
groups proportionally.

250

Likewise, the data for in-school suspension

are similarly complicated. Whereas African
American students were less likely to receive in
school suspension than their white peers in one
study (Skiba et al., 2011), this was because they
were more likely to be suspended out of school for
their infractions. However, Latino students were
more likely than their white peers to be expelled,
out of school suspended, or in school suspended for
behavioral infractions. To complicated the matter
further, one recent study found that middle school
students in an out-of-school suspension program
were less likely to repeat their infractions than
students referred to in-school suspension
(Whitehouse, 2015).
Additionally, in recent years, many states
and districts have moved toward mandatory
suspension or expulsion policies, sometimes called
zero tolerance (Monahan, VanDerhei, Bechtold,
and Cauffman, 2014), which have also been shown
to be applied disproportionately to students of
color (School Discipline and Federal Guidance,
2015). These policies are in some sense founded on
a distinction between discipline philosophies like
get tough versus give support, which is itself a
false dichotomy, as both are needed. (Gregory,
Cornell, Fan, Sheras, Shih, and Huang, 2010).
Additionally, zero tolerance policies have not been
associated with a decrease in problem behaviors; in
251

fact, exclusionary discipline practices are not

considered by researchers to be effective at
reducing problem behaviors at all (see Achilles,
McLaughlin, and Croninger, 2007). However,
increased and disproportionate suspensions for
minority students have been associated with lower
test scores, increased dropout rates, and decreased
school safety (DeNisco, 2015), and an increased
likelihood of affected students becoming associated
with the juvenile justice system (Monahan,
VanDerhei, Bechtold, and Cauffman, 2014;
NicholsonCrotty, Birchmeier, and Valentine, 2009;
Rueter and Trice, 2011). In short, despite nominal
efforts to reduce the overall racial disparities
between African American and white students,
exclusionary discipline practices that are not
effective have been put in place that decrease
school safety and contribute to that same
achievement gap that such programs purport to
combat.
What is Being Done
Having identified a consistent problem over
four decades, proposed solutions abound. Some of
these solutions have been student-focused, such as
the teaching of socio-emotional skills (DeNisco,
2015; Nishioka, 2013) or having high expectations
for the behavior of students (Nishioka, 2013).
However, because it is already clear that the
disparity occurs not in the frequency of behaviors
252

but in the way the discipline problems are handled

at a classroom or administrative level, anyone
recommending solutions which attempt to address
student behaviors is offering a solution in search of
a problemthey are holding those students who
are discriminated against accountable for their own
victimization.
In contrast, other programs have focused
on impacting the way in which discipline is
administered, either through alternative programs
that keep students in school or through increased
auditing of discipline data and procedures to
monitor and watch for instances of inequality
(Boyce, Barnes, and Eckes, 2015; School Discipline
and Federal Guidance, 2015). DeNisco, (2015)
describes a program in which students who would
otherwise have been suspended were referred to a
program off campus which gave them additional
academic and socioemotional support for the
length of their intended suspension before they
returned to school. This program saw suspensions
decrease by 30 percent and misdemeanor arrests
decrease by 63 percent.
Others have taken a more holistic approach
to the problem. Mattison and Aber (2007) found,
for example, that achievement and discipline
outcomes were associated with the students
perception of the racial climate of their schools.
That is, students of color were more likely to excel
253

in an environment they perceived as positive or

welcoming with respect to racial and ethnic
diversity. Additionally, Gregory, Cornell, and Fan
(2011) found that schools that lacked structure and
support for their students had the highest racial
disparities in discipline outcomes after controlling
for demographics. Gregory and Weinstein (2008)
found that African American students appeared to
behave more defiantly and less cooperatively
toward those teachers and staff members
perceived as having untrustworthy authority (p.
455). Taken as a whole, these three studies depict
something of a feedback loop: untrustworthy
teachers lead to students who are defiant, who are
then suspended in a racially inequitable system,
thus confirming the students suspicions that the
school administration does not support them,
impacting the racial climate at school and giving
students less reason to trust the authority of their
teachers.
In sum, schools must make big picture
changes to their cultures so that African American
students are supported and full members of their
communities, both in their perceptions and in fact.
Schools must actively monitor their discipline data
and reduce, to the maximum extent possible, the
time spent out of school by those students who find
themselves facing disciplinary action.

254

Recommendations
As noted above, recommendations to reduce the
demographic disparities in suspension rates should
focus on the districts, individual school administrations,
and the experiences of classroom teachers. We cannot
solve this problem by changing student behaviors,
simply because the disparity does not appear to arise
from student behaviors. Therefore, the following
changes are recommended:
district policy
1. Districts should closely monitor
demographic data for all forms of
disciplinary action, from the most
routine possible data points
(elementary school time outs, e.g.) up
to and including expulsion and arrest.
school initiatives
1. Schools should adopt a schoolwide
system for adjudicating and assessing
problem behaviors that is nuanced and
open to complexity, as opposed to zerotolerance policies. This report
recommends as one example the
Virginia Student Threat Assessment
Guidelines, which have shown to be
successful both in reducing racial
disparity in disciplinary actions and
reducing the total number of out of

255

school suspensions in general (Cornell,

Shin, Ciolfi, and Sancken 2013).
2. Schools should take steps to address
the perception of racial inequality
among students, as students of color
are more likely to excel in this kind of
environment (Mattison and Aber,
2007).
3. Schools should increase the amount of
environmental structure and academic
support for students, as schools with
these features report lower levels of
disparate discipline outcomes (Gregory,
Cornell, and Fan, 2011).
4. Schools that do not belong to school
districts (i.e., private schools), which
may not be required to track certain
kinds of student data, should also
closely monitor demographic data for
all forms of disciplinary action in order
to detect inequities.
classroom actions
1. Teachers should actively engage and
get to know their students to ensure
that they are perceived as being
trustworthy (Gregory and Weinstein,
2008) in order to reduce both the
perception of racial inequality and the
likelihood that teachers will incorrectly
256

interpret student behaviors (see

Cornell, Shin, Ciolfi, and Sancken 2013).

Action Plan
My Current Situation and Importance
At our
school, which
for the
purposes of
this report will
be Hurtfew
11%
Abbey School
18%
(HAS), there
exists a legacy
61%
of a strong
11%
behavior
management
system that has
been in place
for over two
decades with little substantial changes. The system runs
on points and levelsstudents earn privileges
determined by their level, and they attain or lose their
level based on the earning of points which represent
their behaviors. In the experience of this author, many
clinical programs such as ours refer to a chain or a
spectrum of behavioral interventions, which begin with
ephemeral staff actions such as engagement as the

Total Population by Race

257

Asian
Black
Hispanic
White

starting point. At the more extreme end of this

spectrum, our school is in the practice of administering
out of school suspension (OSS) and in school suspension
(ISS) for behavioral infractions. OSS is rare in practice,
with only four instances between two students within
the calendar year of this study. ISS is much more
frequently used, with 72 instances within the timeframe
of this study. ISS is used as a disciplinary tool for a
variety of infractions, such as threats, physical
aggression, contraband, extreme cases of disrespect to
peers, and, most commonly, for refusing to be searched
for contraband in the morning. Because of the severity
of the consequence, it is almost never decided on by a
single staff member, but rather by a group of staff
members, with at least one administrator, who discuss
the incident, the appropriateness of ISS as a
consequence, and then the length of time to be served.
This process is known colloquially as teaming the
consequence.
As noted above, disciplinary actions often have
inequitable outcomes with respect to race, ethnicity,
and disability status. In order to assess if this problem
was evident at HAS, ISS and OSS data were compiled
and examined.

258

The data for OSS were not deemed to be as

problematic racially, in part because of the relative
rarity of its occurrence. Two students have been
suspended out of school in the last year, a Caucasian
male and a
Hispanic male.
The Caucasian
male was
suspended
three times
before his
25%
25%
transfer from
the school for
persistent
problematic
24%
26%
behaviors. It is
worth noting
that his
behaviors were
not aggressive or purposefully threatening, e.g. on one
occasion he accidentally injured a teachers foot.
Rather, he had a pattern of running from the school,
which put his own safety at risk. The Hispanic male was
suspended pending removal from the school after an
incident of property damage that was so egregious as to
nearly shut down the school for the three days it took
to repair the building. Racially, the data break down at
75% Caucasian and 25% Hispanic for OSS, but as
mentioned above, these numbers are so small as to
preclude thorough analysis.

ISS instances by Race

259

Asian
Black
Hispanic
White

Upon the examination of ISS instances by race,

it appears that there is relative equality in that each of
the four racial groups present at HAS drives roughly one
quarter of the instances of ISS. This is problematic,
however, as true parity would demand that the racial
makeup of the school and the ISS instances should be
roughly similar. That is, white students represent 61% of
our student body, but are severely underrepresented in
ISS instances at 25%. Meanwhile, African American
students are 18% of the student body but 24% of
instances of ISS. Similar disparities for Asian and
Hispanic students can be noted in the charts.
However, this form of analysisexamining at
the level of an instance of ISSis prone to distortion
from students who have recurring instances of ISS. Two
60%

Percent of students who receive ISS by race

50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
ASIAN

AFRICAN
AMERICAN

LATINO

CAUCASIAN

260

students, an Asian male and a Latina female, represent

49% of all of these ISS instances. With the outliers
excluded, the data change drastically, with no Hispanic
representation, minimal Asian representation, and the
rest of the ISS instances shared equally by African
Americans and Caucasian Americans. In further
researching the phenomenon of overrepresentation of
minorities in disciplinary actions, it became clear that a
more accurate way of assessing disparity is to calculate
the percentage of each racial or ethnic group that
receives a given disciplinary action over the course of a
given timeframe. As such, the researcher calculated the
risk of receiving ISS for each of the four racial/ethnic
groups represented at HAS:
As one can see, a significant disparity exists,
wherein a Caucasian or Hispanic student has a roughly
1/5 chance of receiving ISS during the period of this
study, and an African American or Asian American
student has a 1/2 or 2/5 chance, respectively. That
African American students are 2.5 times as likely as
Caucasian students to receive this disciplinary action
falls in between the national rate reported in the
literature of three times as likely (e.g., DeNisco, 2015)
and the rate reported for Virginia schools at twice as
likely (Cornell, Shin, Ciolfi, and Sancken 2013).
Desired Outcomes
Over the long term, the obvious goal is to
reduce the disparity of ISS rates among the
demographic groups at HAS. To do this, it will be
261

necessary to make changes at the administrative,

programmatic, and classroom level. The school
administration should implement a consistent method
for the monitoring of its racial climate, both in the
quantitative study of racial outcomes (beyond just
discipline) and in the qualitative perception of racial
issues among students, as both are necessary for the
maintenance of an equitable school operation.
Additionally, administrators should audit the locus of
origin of ISS and OSS instances, as research has shown
that a small minority of teachers may account for the
majority of suspensions (Sullivan, Klingbeil, and Van
Norman, 2013).
It is likely that changes to the behavior management
system of the school (and potentially the entire clinical
center) will be required. This system is entrenched
deeply within the culture of the school and the facility,
having been designed at the outset of our founding 25
years ago by a well-respected local child psychologist
who now runs our clinical psychology services. Out of
School Suspension should be removed as a disciplinary
action entirely. As noted above, the adoption of a
system for adjudicating and assessing the threats made
and posed by students is an integral part of the
reduction of the influence of unconscious bias (Harvard
implicit???) in the teaming process. This report
recommends the Virginia Student Threat Assessment
Guidelines (see Cornell, Shin, Ciolfi, and Sancken 2013).
At the classroom level, it will be necessary to
educate the staff members to the nature and
importance of the problem and to implement
procedural schoolwide changes in order to attempt to
reduce the problem incrementally.

262

Action Plan
The first necessary step would be to bring in the
administrative team of the school in order to establish a
unified base for support and to explain the data, what
they mean in context, and the larger plan for enacting
changes. This may be the most crucial step, as the HAS
administration has, in the past, indicated that research
assignments for non-work-related coursework are
inappropriate and unprofessional uses of time at school
and personally disrespectful to other staff members.
Convincing that administrator of the importance and
urgency of this disparity and the plan for resolving it will
be an essential first step that should be taken care of in
the first week after the completion of this report. The
Principal and the Vice Principal together have the
authority to enact some changes; for example, the
removal of OSS as a disciplinary possibility could be
accomplished as early as this first meeting if the proper
data are presented in a convincing manner.
The researcher can also easily create
monitoring and data tracking systems for auditing the
class of origin of problematic behaviors and the
continued monitoring of suspensions for racial bias. For
serious incidents, HAS staff members report racial data
on incident report forms, so doing so for all suspensions
via a centralized system might not be a hard sell if that
system is already created and ready for use. This can be
accomplished as early as the end of April: all that it
requires is an extremely user-friendly centralized
263

document for the use of all staff members (e.g., excel or

one-note). To assess the qualitative perception of racial
climate, it will be necessary to establish a paradigm for
the interviewing or surveying students on their
perceptions of the racial equity of the school itself. An
interview form can be produced in a similar timeframe
as the other data tracking methods, though it will not
be shovel ready until the 2016-2017 school year, as
other staff members tend to be resistant to change,
additional work, and the implication that they are
somehow being unfair.
In June, a meeting should be arranged between
the senior administrators of the entire building, as the
consistency of our behavior management system is
seen as a crucial element of our operation among our
senior staff members. This meeting would include our
principal, executive director, clinical supervisor, and the
psychologist who developed the behavior management
system itself. The Virginia Student Threat Assessment
Guidelines (Cornell, Shin, Ciolfi, and Sancken 2013) will
be presented as a more firm model for the teaming of
consequences in the school and program at large in
order to reduce the likelihood of unconscious bias that
likely exists in the current process, which has no
codified procedure other than group discussion.
Removal of OSS may also need to be a topic of
discussion for this meeting.
Finally, the most important aspect of this will be
to win the hearts and minds of those individuals who
264

work with students directly. Time should be taken

during the fall orientation to explain, from the
beginning, the origins of this data analysis, its findings,
what changes have been made administratively in the
deliverance of discipline and the monitoring of racial
outcomes and culture for the school. This will likely be
the greatest barrier to success. As entrenched as some
programmatic features are at our school, the beliefs,
opinions, and methods of our staff members are even
more fixed. One member of our team has been at the
school for 21 years and appears to have not updated
her teaching methods or beliefs in that time. Other
members of the team either do not understand or do
not trust numerical data, in the experience of this
researcher, and so this presentation of programmatic
changes will require the full strength of logos, pathos,
and ethos.
Reflection Point Five
As Ive mentioned a few times as our class has
wound down into the reflective phase, that I have been
somewhat invigorated by the idea that I have but a
short time left to have any direct impact on my school
setting. I think I intend to utilize that time to create a list
of problem areas or aspects for improvement that the
benefit of half a decades time teaching gives me, a list
which I can leave with our new principal with the
confidence that he will persist on working through the
problems and solutions presented. The first item to go
in that list was inspired by this courses PBA. The second
265

item will be that PBA itself. More items will follow, I

think, and that will perhaps be the strength of my
legacy at this school.
As noted in a previous reflective paragraph, I
intend to establish a regular teachers meeting to
discuss problems in practice and in policy in order to
strengthen and unify our schools teaching staff. I think
part of that process will be signing each of the teachers
up for memberships in the AFT another major legacy.
Our teachers are heavily in the silo model (Hargreaves
and Fullan, 2012), and if I can get them to unify in a
bottom-up professional learning community, that would
go miles for strengthening the practice in our school
and balancing the counseling versus education problem
that persists in our practice.
At the end of the previous school year, I was the
youngest and least experienced teacher on staff, even
as I finished my fourth year. However, as we
transitioned to a new principal, our vice principal began
utilizing me as a resource for all academic related
inquiries (shes a social worker by training). Coming into
the new school year, I still didnt have any age or
seniority over the other teachers. Then we hired a new
teacher. We shifted the role of one veteran away from
the milieu into a self-contained room for children with
autism. The other veterans were a teacher who was
consistently not meeting expectations and a 20-year
veteran teacher who is so unstable that most people
ignore her and pretend she isnt a member of the team.
Somehow, I had become the go-to and point person for
the teaching staff, helping to transition in the new
principal and provide input for the other teachers. In
short, I was the closest thing we have to a teacher
leader. Whats more, its becoming more and more
266

clear that the things which solidified that role were

related more to my GMU classes than I might have
predicted, considering that nearly all of our teaching
staff had come through the CEHD. In working at my
school, I benefited from the mentorship and the
learning experiences of that environment, but it took
the ASTL courses to propel me beyond what my
situation and my coworkers were able to teach me.
In particular, Hargreaves and Fullan (2012) has started a
process of changing my perspective on education. Im
not finished thinking it through, and Im certainly not
finished reading their book, but the idea of the business
capital model versus the professional capital model has
certainly changed the way I see myself within the
context of teacher education and training. I left a copy
of their book on my principals desk recently, with
instructions to read the first chapter. I think if he gets
that far, hell be hooked.
I have 20 weeks left to cast the last of my mark
on this school. if I can leave behind a portfolio of mini
equity-audits, establish a PLC, and get enough inside the
head of our new principal enough that every time he
thinks about policy he hears my voice, maybe I can
make the kind of educational change that I want to and
leave that legacy, after all.

267

Part Four: Synthesis

The little ASTL moments
Many of the biggest or most profound changes
that happened in my thinking and reflection on my
practice came from moments that in retrospect seem
very smallso small that it is difficult or impossible to
remember precisely the source of the quotation, or
even the topic of the main conversation. Sometimes I
cannot even remember which class produced which
idea In Inquiry into Practice, an offhand comment was
offered in a reading or classroom discussion to the
effect of: if you arent changing your practice
constantly, are you really teaching for twenty years? Or
are you teaching the same year twenty times? Given
that I started as a long-term substitute before I started
teaching, there are problem sets I gave out this year
that I have done for the sixth year in a row. I can even
remember which problems are incorrect in the
textbook, and why, before the students even set about
them. I am slightly horrified with myself as I see myself
doing this for a variety of subjects I teach, and I look
forward to spending some time during the Extended
School Year this summer devising new strategies for
upping my game in response to the things I have
learned. Designing and Assessing Teaching and Learning
pushed me to change up my lesson structures a bit in
many of my classes, and I look forward to continuing to
adapt the collaborative thinking routines from that class

268

into routines that will actually work for the numbers

and odd structures of the classes I teach.
Another significant moment for my thinking,
though it was a small one, came from what must have
been an off-hand comment in a reading for one of our
classes, one so insubstantial that I can no longer
remember its provenance, though I believe it came
from Educational Change (it might have been
Hargreaves & Fullan, 2012) . Within the reading, the
author noted that the way we talk about school in and
around our students can send powerful but subtle
messages about our attitudes toward school in general.
This struck a chord in part because it was something I
had argued at my school for a long time.
Many youth-workers in residential settings and
schools do countdowns until the end of whatever
program is being offered: therapy, summer camp,
school, etc. I learned early on from a mentor that this is
a terrible idea, but was left to define the reasoning for
this on my own. Years later as a teacher, I found myself
pestering my coworkers and students not to do this,
and had to define my reasons for doing so. The obvious
ones about the problem of this with youths with
attachment disorders came first, but I landed also on
explanations like, what kind of message does that send
about school and how we as staff members see it, if
were all just counting down until its over? I found
sympathy with our reading then, that said that if we
celebrate Fridays and bemoan Mondays too much,
269

arent we sending a similar message to our students?

How can we expect them not to phone it in, when were
making statements or reinforcing the idea that were
just in it for the paycheck, anyway?
From the distant pull of last summer, Taggarts
(Taggart & Wilson, 2005) classification came back to
me, and I noticed that I was struggling to get my
colleagues to see things from the dialectical level of
analysis that was becoming ever more common for me.
A final off-the-cuff teaching moment that stuck
in my head came in Educational Change, wherein
Professor Ra paraphrased one of her own professors in
response to the oft-repeated canard that the purpose of
education is to prepare our students for jobs in the real
world. She quoted, If our economy is built on the
backs of studentsIm not sure I want to be a part of
that. I was, as I said, disturbed, in a good way by that
comment, and I spent a good deal of the next week
thinking it through. It reminded me somewhat of the
famous Mario Savio speech, wherein he said, the
faculty are a bunch of employees, and we're the raw
material! But we're a bunch of raw material[s] that
don't mean to have any process upon us, don't mean to
be made into any product, don't mean to end up being
bought by some clients of the University (Savio,
1964). It always struck me that the education is for
jobs line was deeply politically conservative, even as I
hear it constantly from conservatives and liberals alike
(education politics do make for strange bedfellows,
270

after all), and so could I find an appropriately liberal (for

my taste) explanation for the purpose of education?
The more I thought, the more I remembered a
recent lecture I had given on the basics of Marxism to
my students, and I had to wonder: if our students have
something of an educational capital, how exactly would
one return that from the educational bourgeoisie to the
educational proletariat, being the student body
themselves? The answer is obvious: give power over
their education back to the students by engaging them
in the learning process(yes, constructivism), making
them more active participants, and helping them to be
more actively engaged in education policy and
curriculum structure at the local and state level. I found
myself becoming way more political in my teaching than
I had even been before, but it was for the purpose of
getting my students to be disturbed, in a good way,
and to get them active in their education. Why does the
government teach you what they do? I ask my
government students, and what goal do they have in
mind as a result of that? Seeking the answer for that
question is the most passionate Ive ever seen myself
teaching, and I hope they got as much from the
conversation as I did.

As a Teacher/Researcher
The PBA for Educational Change, the equity
audit and subsequent analysis and position paper, was I
think a liberating moment for me. For years, I had been
begging to be allowed on our institutions research
271

team. At the last meeting before my mentor and

principal left last year, she brought me along to the
meeting, but the senior administrators never invited me
back. I dont need an invite to do institutional
researchI can set my own agenda, collect the relevant
data, and report out the findings whenever I care to put
in the effort to do so. Somehow this had never clicked
before, but I feel great about doing so with the
remainder of my time.
The day before that PBA was due, I found
myself running the data on our SOL scores and proving
to my own satisfaction that our summer program was
massively short-changing the students who took it. I
wrote it up and took it to my principal, who begged me
not to show anyone outside the school we then set
about the task of reforming the program so that the
discrepancy was less likely (though it probably cant be
fixed to my own satisfaction, which is to no ones
surprise, Im sure). Lesson learnedshow up with the
data analysis in hand, and you can get most of what you
want.

My Talk and Teacher Leadership

Heres a case study in how I see the ASTL
program having changed the course of my career and
development as a teacher: In January, I got an e-mail
from a former principal and mentor, relaying a request
from our accrediting body for speakers for our spring
conference. At the time, I was feeling like my chances of
being admitted to PhD programs were slim and I
272

needed things to pad my rsum for the following year

when I intended to apply again (in truth, my first
acceptance came in the mail that afternoon). The
theme for the conference was making a difference in
our classrooms and they had a list of proposed topics,
one of which was similar to one of the biggest
pedagogical problems I face at my school: how do I
teach multiple grade levels or content areas in the same
classroom at the same time? This has been less
problematic this year, but in the past Ive had
concurrent Algebra 2 and Pre-Calculus classes, and
Chemistry with Physics is a very regular occurrence, not
to mention US History with US Government. I wanted to
share some of the ideas, timelines, and lessons I had
come up with in the past with other teachers, and I
wanted the other teachers at the conference to give me
feedback on what they were doing with this problem, as
well.
I worked hard on the presentation, which came
right in between the PBA assignments for Educational
Change and Education and Culture, and structured it
well. Somewhere in the design of the assignment, I
started to notice my politics were getting into the
presentation: I was including lesson plans on genocide,
human rights, oppressed people and the struggle for
independence and human rights. In my best teacher
self that I was trying to present to the best teachers
and administrators for what I do in the state, I was
heavily bringing in issues of cultures coming together
273

and social justice. This had never been a hallmark of my

teaching before, but after engaging in more critical
reflection on teaching, culture, and the role of
pedagogy in the lives of our students, it couldnt help
but shine through. Additionally, I knew that most of my
audience was full of Southern Virginia conservatives,
and I wanted them to feel, as we said in Educational
Change, disturbedin a good way.
The talk went well, but was mostly for an
audience of administrators, rather than classroom
teachers. I had hoped to present mostly for teachers
because I wanted to generate some kind of data as to
what they were doing in their classrooms. I was hoping
to establish something of a starting point for further
research into the effectiveness of different practices, or
at least what kinds of pressures teachers were under
and how they responded. Unfortunately, my talk was
heard by only one or two teachers who, like me, teach
these classes at the secondary level. However, no fewer
than five of the administrators present have so far
asked me to repeat the talk at their schools. Ive been
invited by two larger systems to give the talk at their
August orientations, and one of our local competitors
offered me a job (in jest, I think). To pat myself on the
back a little, as a foundation of a larger point, I was the
youngest presenter at the conference by at least a
decade or more and one of only two teachers who
presented, and yet that night at the dinners and parties,
I was getting way more attention than any other
274

presenter had. The larger point is thisthough we have

frequently talked about ASTL students as moving into
teacher leaderships positions, it has been hard to
manifest that idea in my role that seems both natural
and right. And yet, as I started planning a statewide
committee on how to blend curricula most effectively
and to have teachers from all of the schools in our
accrediting body to come togetherwithout
administrators, just to plan as we know bestit started
to really, truly feel like I was experiencing and exhibiting
teacher leadership. Somewhere along the way from
being a smartass in mine and others classrooms who
was saying things just to rile people up, I ended up
forming something of the beginnings of an ad hoc PLC
among disparate teachers in the far corners of the
state, and I can hardly wait to see where it leads this
summer.

Mr. Last Year Teacher

I wrote briefly in my Autobiographical Study
about a book that I cannot stop reading. I found it
tucked away in the books app on my iPad and to this
day I have no idea how it go there (likely downloaded
and immediately forgotten from a post in a teacher
forum, though googling has yielded no results). The
book is Mr. Last Year Teacher (Gracy, 2013), and as it is
self-published, it is both full of idiosyncrasies and
impossible to trace online. It is written from the
perspective of a teacher in his fifth year, as I am, who is
certain that this must be his last year of teaching, as I
275

also now am certain. Gracy teaches at a Catholic high

school in California and wrote weekly updates to his
friends on his thought process, pedagogy, and
philosophical musings about teaching. He compiled
these weekly e-mails into a narrative that traces three
fourths of a school year as he wrestles with ideas about
behavior management, student rapport, teacher
responsibility, and how to fit into a faculty full of people
who probably shouldnt be teaching, but are.
In short, he takes different levels of analysis to
the job, and is motivated by his status as a last year
teacher to do so unflinchingly. From his perspective, he
is both an insider and an outsider with nothing to gain
or lose. As I said before, I think this has a quality
somewhat like the quote, falsely attributed to Camus,
Should I kill myself or have a cup of coffee? Instead,
Should I quit teaching, or Deciding to quit, or to get
up every day and teach, forces you in either decision to
account for your reasoning for so doing and to closely
tie your practice with its theoretical underpinnings.
By now it should be clear that I feel that I have a
similar perspective on my teaching practice, as I am
three short months away from leaving the classroom,
perhaps permanently. This position has given me a
similarly nothing to lose mentality that has enabled me
to take more risks with lesson planning and structure
and with my place within the politics of the workplace.

276

Going Forward
As I am leaving the classroom in August, the
opportunities I have to continue to progress in the
direction I have been going are somewhat different
from the usual ASTL student. However, I dont think
that that means I am permanently done with our
particular blend of inquiry, global-mindedness, and best
practices.
Of the classes I have signed up for next
semester, the one I am most excited for is Comparative
Education. We discussed education and its relation to
culture extensively in ASTL, of course, but I am excited
to dig more deeply into the ways in which cultures
inform and produce different education systems and
norms in different countries throughout the world. In
this sense, I intend to keep moving forward and
exploring the theme of education and culture in the
next year. Perhaps I will find an excuse to travel abroad
and study those education systems directly, if I could be
so lucky.
As mentioned above, I dont think I am quite
finished yet in working with our accrediting body and
the corps of schools that work with it in Virginia.
Another class I am taking this fall will be on managing
large sets of educational data, and I am aware that our
body has a quality services committee that has a data
set in dire need of cleaning up. I intend to offer my
services to the committee, if, as I presume, the class will
require me to take some hands on approach to the
277

topic with real data. And as I said before, I think I will

continue to work as a teacher leader by creating a PLC
(what Ive wanted to do for a long time for our schools)
of likeminded teachers beyond just my own school in
order to work on issues related to curriculum in our
classroomsthe invitations for such a project are
already starting to come in, and Im eager to do as much
as I can while I still can.

278

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Appendices and Miscellaneous

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Appendix A
So we were just talking about, um, in his case
individually the gaps in sort of the difference
between the expectations and the reality with twiceexceptional kids. I wanted to have that on the record; I
dont want to make you say it all again, butthe
general idea was
I think, what I was saying was a student like [Jonathan]
is so intelligent that people make the assumption that
he knows how to do more than he does. He doesnt
know how to do the basics, the foundations that you
learn in school. He doesnt know how to fill out the
application correctly. When we put together our
portfolios, we set them upwait I picked up the wrong
one; he doesnt have anything.
wait, I have his right here
okay, see. I told the kids, set it up with their binders
and their dividers he put the dividers up but he
refused to list what they were. He didnt want to do
that; he said he doesnt like to do that. So, and I was
talking to him and I said, this way, when I say go to
rsums, you dont have to flip through it. He said he
doesnt like to do that because it confuses him to have
the it classified like that. I think what it is is, he was
never taught how much easier that is. So little things
like that, and the difference between a trait and a skill.
So I think hes missed that foundational basis. I mean,
hes very smart and he knows what he wants to do, and
he can solve the most difficult of mathematical
equations and scientific proofs and hypotheses but
when you ask him how to fill out something, he doesnt
know how to do that.
298

I think whats interesting, connecting that back to his

personal history, it seems like hes so self-taught, but
he missed all the basics that you learn in school, that
like you cant teach yourself or you wouldnt teach
yourself if you were on Wikipedia your whole life,
which I think is really what were talking about.
yeah I think so too. You know, he jumps into every
topicwe were talking about sushi last Friday and he
was able to talk about the iron content in all the fish
and you know how you have to make em, how you filet
em, how they have to be within a certain number of
hours. But little things, you know, when you watch him
walk across the room, he does the same thing, hell
bump into desks and he doesnt know how to interact
with people; he doesnt realize that sometimes his
personal appearance is scary and puts people off, and
his long hair and scraggly look.
Do you think theres a big social skills element with
him?
Yes.
Cause I think for me its less obvious than the other
students and I dont think Ive been paying attention
to it but I totally can see it, especially with his
avoidance.
Its very Hell do things like when Im talking to
another student, he wants to engage. You see I see in
him the same things I see in younger students with
Aspergers, little kids will come up and theyll just shove
a kid on the playground to get the interaction. He
obviously doesnt do that but he does instead of the
physical contact, he does a verbal contact. Like when
Im talking to John, John what do you think your third
target goal should be? [imitating Jonathans voice] well
I think it should be, to be John! is what he said this
299

morning, because he wanted to engage in a

conversation. He wanted to talk to John but he wasnt
sure exactly how to say, hey John how was your
weekend?
Yeah.
So he wants to get that conversation going. So I think
he uses humor a lot; thats his shove on the playground
is using humor, and he doesnt know his body language.
Hell be talking to someone and hell ask you questions,
and he automatically goes down, looks at his [paper]
and starts writing. Hes listening, as if anybody else, but
when you look at him you dont understand that. And
he doesnt understand that its coming across to others
like he doesnt care, he doesnt want to listenSo
theres a definite huge social piece.
I think that part of where Im going with this is that
one of the sources Ive been looking into has a lot to
do with teacher education and they interviewed
general education, special education, and
gifted/talented instructors to ask about twiceexceptional kids: how many even know what the term
means? How do you have them in class? You obviously
know what the term is; I think they found [knowledge
of it] was strongest among the special ed [teachers]
who got that as part of their [education.] I know weve
had a couple of kids who have haddo you have a
perspective on teaching them or engaging them on the
gifted side, too? Pushing them a little farther or
individualizing it to their specific talents?
Well I think thats definitely the key. I think, um.
Not just about their gaps, which are important and is
what were doing here anyway, but about their
strengths, too.
300

Oh yeah, definitely, I think part of it, the challenge of

teaching gifted kids is to keep them engagedthe same
is true for special ed kid. When youre talking about a
twice-exceptional kid, you have to take into
consideration on one hand, their challenges and on
their strengths. What I try to do is, I found out what the
strength is and I gear toward them. Like today in class, I
was talking about he wants to do, Jonathan wants to
do math and science. We have another student that
wants to do automotive, another student wants to do
design. So when Im talking to the class, I keep bringing
in specifics so they know it can be about them. And
what I will do, I will take his strength in math and
computers, and I will give him an extra project. I want
him to go above and beyond. cause hell get bored very
quickly just doing the basics. I dont want him to feel
that hes doing more, cause thats not gonna be pretty,
hes not going to like that. So I want to give him a
chance to expand upon his strengths and go further and
challenge himself. Cause if hes not challenged hes not
going to want to work. If hes challenged and hes
enjoying it, hes gonna want to continue working at it.
But its a constant struggle, especially in a class like this
where youve got such a huge diversity and a huge mix
of strengths and challenges and ability levels, trying to
keep everybody engaged is a challenge that I dont
think people realize how challenging it is. I dont know if
that answers your question or not
It does. The next thing I wanted to talk about was a
little bit about his school avoidance, cause obviously
thats been a frustration on a practical sense for this,
but its also a huge part of his whole story. And we
have other students who do it, too, but do you have a
general philosophy or policy about school avoidance? I
301

feel like personally, theyre very hard to work with

because theyre not present, you cant do anything
with that. Have you picked up any tips or tricks for kids
that have huge, long absences or frequent absences?
Ithe only thing I guess I found is the younger they
are, if you can hook them, younger you can turn it
around. I think a lot of it is trust. My personal opinion,
good or bad, is I think school avoidances come from
embarrassment in school, not feeling like they belong,
not having a connection with a teacher or staff member
and not feeling comfortable. So if I can make them feel
comfortable, let them know that I care about them, Im
not going to leave them I think a lot of the kids,
theyve always had people leave them because of their
behavior or their issues, you know? Like, I cant look at
you anymore, Im gonna need a new teacher. So I start
off by telling them, Im not going anyplace. Im gonna
be here. Theres nothing you can do thats gonna make
me leave. So Ive laid that groundwork right away.
Whether or not they have to test, they have to test
me. But I let them know, Im the teacher and thats
what Im gonna be. I let them know I care about them, I
try to have fun with them, I let them know I care about
them, that school is fun. I think a lot of them dont
realize that school is fun, so I try to have fun. I show
them that it can be fun. It doesnt have to be boring,
although today was kind of a boring class. Sorry about
that.
I mean it is what it is, you have to teach it and you
cant make that exciting
But I try to make it more fun, I try to keep it
interesting. ESY is a little more challenging because its,
you know, we have to do so much. But I try to show
them I care about them, that school is fun, that Im not
302

going anyplace, Im not going to leave them. They dont

have to worry about me not liking them. And I found
that that worked very well with the littler ones, the
younger students, but I think its they get to a certain
age. There comes a point where it may be too late to
show them that. So the earlier you can get them I do
think it still works with the older ones but I think its a
bit more challenging. Cause theyre set in their older.
But I think they need to feel belonga sense of
belonging. They need to know that theyre accepted,
they dont have to be afraid, and that somebody cares
about them. I think those are the important things for
kids to come to school.
I guess the last question is one that my professor
recommended, so he wanted us to ask what your
general philosophy toward teaching was. Which may
be impossible to answer, butyou might have a really
good answer.
I dont know about that.
I found it tough.
It is tough, and I think, um, you get asked this question
all the time as a teacher, whats your philosophy on
teaching? My philosophy on teaching I think life is
just a series of learning and life is a series of teachable
moments. And I think a good teacher has to see a
teachable moment in anything. I think if we can show
the kids that learning is a lifelong process; everything
we do is learning. Thats why I try to bring it in like,
today I brought it in that while I was out having lunch I
was at California Tortilla and I was talking to the
manager and when I I had a massage yesterday and
when I was talking to the message therapist about their
experiences and about their Im always trying to learn
and I bring that to my students. So I think my
303

philosophy on teaching is, I want to show the kids that

learning is lifelong; learning can be fun; learning doesnt
have to be difficult to make it what it is. But I want them
to know they dont have to be afraid to learn. A lot of
kids are afraid to learn. And I want to show them they
dont have to be afraid to learn. For me, and I know Im
probably getting way off on a track
Do it!
I was not a good student in high school. I was horrible.
I never studied. I had a really bad childhood so I didnt
have anyone helping with homeworkI didnt care. I
didnt do anything. And I look back now: I am these kids.
Thats why I enjoy teaching my algebra I, because I
know they dont understand. I know they dont get it.
Because Im them. So I try to let them know that I
understand what its like to be them, what its like to
struggle, what its like not to feel like you belong, what
its like to not know about school, not care about school
because it doesnt matter. So my philosophy: Show
them its fun, its a learning process. Youre always
learning. Youre never too old to learn. Youre never too
smart to learn. Always learn, if you learn something
new every day its a great day.

304

Appendix B

305

Appendix C
The Declension Song
Lyrics by Sister Anna Roberta, CSJ
To the tune of "The Martins and The Coys"
Now in Latin there are only five declensions
All the endings you must memorize and say:
"a" is for the NOMIN-A-TIVE, "ae" GENITIVE AND DATIVE
"am" ACCUSATIVE, The ABLATIVE long "".
Start with a - ae - ae - am - , then ae - rum - s - s - s
And repeat the first declension every day:
"a" is for the NOMIN-A-TIVE, "ae'' GENITIVE and DATIVE
"am" ACCUSATIVE,The ABLATIVE long "".
Now the second one is very very simple:
us - - - um - , - rum - s - s - s
And the neuter starts with bellum - bell - bell - bellum - bell
Plural: a - rum - s - a - s
Start with us - - - um - , then - rum - s - s - s
It is masculine. Remember five a piece.
And the neuter starts with bellum - bell - bell - bellum - bell
Plural: a - rum - s - a - s
You will find that when you come to third declension
Nouns will end in L and R and S and X.
Dux and ducis - duc - ducem - duce, lcis - lc - lcem - lce
cnsul.....impertor.....mles.....rx.
Start with: blank - is - - em - e. Third declension for today
s - um - ibus - s and ibus. Say it next.
Dux and ducis - duc - ducem - duce, lcis - lc - lcem - lce
cnsul.....impertor.....mles.....rx.
One, two, three and then we come to Fourth Declension
us - s - u - um - and - . It's just a ball.
Plural: s - uum - ibus - s (accusative) and ibus.
Now we're ready for the fifth and that is all.

s - - - em - , then the plural right away:

306

s and rum - bus - s - bus too.

First you SAY IT then you PLAY IT, but be sure you EVERY DAY IT
And with all the five declensions you are through.

307

Appendix D
Absolute

B1

B2

P1

P2

P3

P4

23

32

27

27

30

25

12

12

13

308

Appendix E

As %

B1

B2

P1

P2

P3

P4

62.20%

86.50%

67.50%

67.50%

75%

62.50%

16.20%

8.10%

30%

30%

17.50%

32.50%

10.80%

2.70%

0%

0%

2.50%

0%

8.10%

2.70%

0%

2.50%

0%

5%

0%

0%

2.5%

0%

5%

0%

309

Appendix F
Percent of time On Task (T)

100.00%
90.00%
80.00%
70.00%
60.00%
50.00%
40.00%
30.00%
20.00%
10.00%
0.00%
B1

B2

P1

P2

P3

P4

310

Appendix G
Percent of time Off Task Verbal (V)

35.00%
30.00%
25.00%
20.00%
15.00%
10.00%
5.00%
0.00%
B1

B2

P1

P2

P3

P4

311

Appendix H

Student self report ratings

P1

P2

P3

P4

3*

3*

2*

2*

1*

1*

1*

1*

1*

1*

1*

1*

1*

1*

2*

1*

*indicates response that conforms precisely with adult

observations

312

Appendix I
This period I was:
On Task:
1 (not very much)
2 (a little)
3 (mostly)
4 (all the time)
Off task by Talking or making noise:
1 (not very much)
2 (a little)
3 (mostly)
4 (all the time)
Off task by fidgeting or playing with things:
1 (not very much)
2 (a little)
3 (mostly)
4 (all the time)
Out of my seat:
1 (not very much)
2 (a little)
3 (mostly)
4 (all the time)
Singing or Dancing:
1 (not very much)
2 (a little)
3 (mostly)
4 (all the time)

313

Appendix J
Karl
November 25
Fairfax, VA
Teacher Burnout and Attrition

Interviewer: I thought we could start by like, talking

about a little bit of your development and history as a
teacher, where you came from, how you got started,
and where you went...[pause] Like, howd you get into
teaching?
Participant: Yeah, actually I started really with
coaching
I: Yeah?
P: So, uh, that was somewhat natural for me. And led
me towards, uh to education. So some of the people
that I coached were also involved in education,
suggested I get involved with it. Uh, and I did not have
education degree, but enjoyed coaching so much,
enjoyed working with young people, enjoyed uh,
making their lives better through curriculum, through a
sport, and improving them as people, uh, et cetera.
Really that passion led me to a masters degree which
eventually led me to teaching.
I: Did you do youryour masters degree like,
concurrently with uhlike, you had been in business
before, is that right?
P: Yeah, so no. It was a dream deferred. [laughter]
I: Yeah?
P: Yeah, so uh. But it was always in the back of my mind.
You know I have relatives that are teachers,
coincidentally special ed teachers.

314

I: Yeah?
P: And uh, a niece and a aunt so maybe its in my blood,
who knows? So yeah, I coached tennis till about 1994
got involved with technology for about seven, oh no its
longer than that, Im sorry. From about 1995 to about
2000maybe 8? I guess it was? But anyhow, I started
working my masters degree I would say in 2002. And It
was just a goal that I said, okay Im gonna go ahead and
do it, and just work through it; took me six years to
complete and I got my masters degree in education.
I: And then, so 2008 you started working
P: Yeah I was I think at uh, Hurtfew Abbey School
started in 2008, what was it? So now its 2014, yeah
about 2008, 2009 yeah.
I: Thats good, you did I didnt know any of that, I
dont think. I dont think I
P: Sorry
I: ever really asked you those...thats good. And so I kind
of have us jumping right in, the questions regarding the
main idea which is burnout. And its a word that we use
a lot, but Id be interested to hear your specific
definition for what you think it is, um burnout among
teachers or other people who work at schools, other
youth workers and things like that.
P: Yeah its an interesting question, because uh, you
know I think to get started to it takes a lot of energy but
youre passionate about it. Um, but you know quite
possibly as they continue in the profession the their
passion for teaching becomes circumvented by the
paperwork, the meetings, the parents, the legislature,
you know some of those necessary, sometimes evils
that are required by the job. And also, you know, they
sometimes hinder your development as a teacher. You
know, if these meetings and communications between
315

all these parties and legislatures were doing things to

enhance the teachers and students experience, they
probably would be beneficial, but you know a lot of
teachers might find that it hinders their teaching and it
gets and they still have the same amount of classes [if]
not more kids to teach and you keep adding these
added changes, responsibilities, yeah I could see how it
could [inaudible] it could lead to burnout. In the case of
smaller schools, you know, some people continue doing
it because theyre getting paid more and more each
where smaller schools may not have that luxury. So you
just have the burnout, you dont have the extra money.
I: Theres so much going on there! Uh, so one of the
things I noticed was that youre sort of defining
teaching as like a practice against like the paperwork,
and the meetings and things like that. Would you say
that those arent really like like you sort of created a
split between, like where you said people are teaching
versus doing paperwork and things like that is that a
big difference in your head?
P: Well, because you start doing administrative duties,
or what might be perceived as administrative duties and
not something thats going to enhance your teaching. I
mean, you know at Hurtfew Abbey School we had, we
could spend an hour on scheduling. It wasnt going to
do anything for our teaching.
I: Thats true. Thats true.
P: So now if we could spend a half hour on, okay how
are things going to go better in the classroom? or
Andrew and Karl can share ideas to have a better
experience the next day or the next week or the next
quarter. Great! But you, not only that youve got extra,
possibly extra classes that youre teaching. And youre
getting less time, and then that time spent in meetings
316

is not geared towards, uh, a better experience in the

classroom.
I: So everything comes down, back to classroom
experience? Yeah.
P: Yeah. But, right. I mean, for the kids and thats what
youre there for. I mean I would say most teachers are
not going to say they live for those administrative
meetings [laughter]
I: that, yeah youre right. I guess thats ridiculous. Um.
You sort of described this sort like, this pattern of
additional expectations being piled on.is that what
you think it means to you?
P: Yeah I mean it definitely gets harder, I know my
personal experience you have, oaky, you have four
classes and um, you have a certain amount of time to
plan, but then all of a sudden you have another class
added on and so now you have more responsibilities,
plus you have less time to plan for added
responsibilities so it, uh, I dont know if exponential is
the right term, but you have an hour an hour added to
your schedule and at the same time an hour less to plan
for more.
I: Right, so that time comes from somewhere, right,
right.
P: right, right.
I: Thats a good point, that its not just like, an extra
hour, its like, it could it comes from both directions.
P: Yeah, and I think with smaller schools you youre
doing more curriculum for sure. I mean it was that, Ive
seen that at least at some larger schools it might be
planning for two classes, three at the most, all like it
might be standard biology, AP biology, honors biology
at the most. Um, but uh, not you know cross curriculum
cross grades
317

I: yeah
P: thats what gets really hard, too. But I think, and its
a lot, and heres the other thing to, its like give you a
even another example, sometimes the administration
doesnt understand time required to implement
something to be specific like, we have to do exit tickets
at my new school, okay? So you have exit tickets and
youre gonna grade them and, and okay, see you have
30 kids, 25 students in a class and you gotta grade and
give feedback on it. But what they dont understand is
okay youre giving them an exit ticket, which I think is a
great idea, I personally I like to do it orally, but.
I: yeah.
P: But okay,
I: And not just cause thats what youre used to, but
P: yeah and its not the grading but they want us to
basically give feedback and understand what they know
or dont know, well what they dont understand is okay,
if Ive got 25 new pieces of paper and it takes me 30
seconds, and that would be quick, 30 seconds to grade,
thats close to 15 minutes! You cross that with 4 or 5
classes, whoa! I mean where do you get that time? I
mean thats uh, what, fou- uh, si- thats an hour, easy
what
I: yeah
P: you have. So um, just for an exit ticket thats an hour
and then you just dont have that hour. I mean you
gotta cram a lot into an hour. You know?
I: yeah
P: Uh, so. Uh, thats thats tricky too. So, you know, I
think thats a great idea, they say you implement it you
have to do it because you gotta you wanna keep your
job you you do as
I: right
318

P: your bosses say. But I dont know if they realize,

okay, even if its, oh sure it only takes you 30 seconds,
but then multiply that times 30 students.
I: yeah. Yeah.
P: You know?
I: Um, what makes a school environment particularly
positive or negative? You may have sort of already
answered this, um, in terms of like, what makes a
particularly good school environment for teachers?
Maybe it doesnt matter for who it is.
P: Oh, uh for teachers?
I: well, I mean, maybe its just, it doesnt matter?
P: The uh, its interesting cause my new school had a
very low one of the lowest in Fairfax county in terms of
teacher satisfaction.
I: really?
P: and I think from what I heard, um, administration
had made some divisive comments, and it was almost
what, what they were doing wrong rather than
supporting them on on making things better, like hey
I really appreciate what youre doing now, lets make
you better and we wanna step you up and make you a
um, you know the teachers I think need to see the value
added
I: yeah. Does it come down to administration?
P: Um, well thats just what I heard, I havent
I: yeah
P: I dont know
I: I mean your experience
P: oh in terms of making a positive or?
I: yeah! I mean, is that, is that administration?
P: Um, yeah well I think well you gotta get the buy in,
just like the students, I think what the administrations
need to do some, you know, and try to do it, try to get
319

teachers and administrations and even students and

community, parents, to create the vision for the school,
what does the school stand for? Where are they going?
Whats their mission statement? And if they need to
change it, it doesnt have to be something set in stone,
and you have some vision statement thats 15 years old!
Uh, so you gotta get that buy in, so that ownership, you
know, you gotta get the kids to own their education, to
invest in themselves, and how do you make it ours
instead of? You know, where the kids dont feel its
their school or the teachers dont feel its their school,
or they dont You know a problem we had at Hurtfew
Abbey School is the teachers never felt, they felt like oh
they gave feedback, it didnt matter, it wasnt gonna
change anyhow. [laughter] and then it gets to the point,
it whats the point of getting feedback, and so.
I: Does that tie back into the burnout? Like-P: yeah I think when you lack control
I:--Is that, yeah so lacking control is that like almost an
operational definition of what, of is that what it is, to
you? Is like, control of your, your environment or?
P: Yeah, yeah and just getting them you know to
understand, you know again like if I walked an hour in
an administrators shoes, Id probably, like, oh my god
this is really tough and then if they walked in our shoes
I: yeah
P: you know? Um, itd probably feel the same as well. I
think its just having that understand of, of you know
sometimes the time, [cough] the time it takes, um, you
know, I know, for me I was, even the year before, which
really tough, I mean, la-, the start of this year wasnt so
bad, cause I had some planning, but I was nearly
broken last year
I: yeah
320

P: Cause it was just so much! I couldnt do it all! I was

planning 6 different classes with meetings and it, just, it
was really hard. I had a lot of different kids, and we
were bursting at the seams, because theyre trying to
get that full class to get another teacher so they pushed
to the limit
I: yeah
P: [coughs]
I: Well that might segue into a potentially, into a sort of
a next place I wanted to go with this, with um, uh I
mean the negatives you were listing about the teachers
were not being heard or being overwhelmed with heir
work load, do you feel that would like, cause a teacher
to leave the profession? Or at least leave their current
working setting?
P: Um, yeah I think I think most teachers would walk
the coals for their kids I mean, I know you and I would
[laughter] I mean youd just do anything for em, youd
just, its that important to you. I mean you respect
education and what it can do, so yeah, I think,
anyone, its even doctors the same thing is when
theyre doing that paperwork, when their caught up in
that bureaucracy, when they dont get to spend time
with their patients, they dont get time to make their
lives better, you know, its driven by outside forces. You
know. [cough] You know I think and I guess right now
were SOL driven, too, but uh
I: yeah
P: uh
I: and thats that legislative piece that you were talking
about earlier.
P: Yeah I mean its, its driven by what were able to do
or what we can do, I mean. I do, I think uh the thing I
like about Hurtfew Abbey School though, its has that
321

holistic approach, thats you know, the whole student,

to make them better understanding of themselves, the
better access to education, to make, uh, them better
each day through the, to show the complete different
kinds of curriculum and be successful, and that
hopefully will move them on to a job, or a trade, or
college. But the burnout, yeah I mean its, cause theres
so little time, I mean we were in class up to 2:30, by the
time you finish and really settle at your desk its 3:00, I
mean that gives you an hour
I: yeah.
P: to just grade and if theres a meeting,
I: yeah
P: I meant heres just no time, and then you feel like, I
mean the year before I felt like, um, I couldnt
effectively teach, I couldnt, even the last uh, the fourth
quarter I couldnt even properly grade their papers,
cause there just wasnt enough time to do it. I mean,
thats where I got a little frustrated, cause I felt the
service I was providing wasnt as good as it should be.
Um, its always gonna be at 80% I mean if youre giving
someone 100% you probably are tutoring, thats not
economically efficient for school to do that, its totally
different, Im not saying that. I felt like I couldnt even
give them that 80% which is what they paid for in my
view. And uh, I was giving them maybe 50% and just
because so much was being tacked on you know what I
was responsible for.
I: Where did all that extra come from?
P: I mean teaching you know teaching electives, adding
a bit more curriculum or different types of curriculum
I: yeah

322

P: Uh, you know having, even the different curriculum

is tough, as you know, when youre teaching multiple
classes at the same time, [laughter]
I: yeah, I do know. [laughter]
P: yeah, and, and just like here, you have a pride for
what you do so you wanna do a great job,
I: the high self-expectations that like
P: yeah, and yeah
I: and what do you do if you cant meet those?
P: it doesnt get as fun. I mean if, you know, thats,
thats just yeah just not as fun, cause youre not doing
what you love to do, you know, and being able to
prepare
I: yeah
P: you know its like theyre saying oh okay go play
Wimbledon but by the way were not gonna give you
time to practice. And so you go out there, you get
crushed, oh no, and its not fun, but then and then
youre still responsible for results [laughter]
I: right thats true, youre yeah, youre uh [laughter]
P: the press is asking you, why? What happened?
Educators stink!
I: You couldnt even tie!? What! Come on! Um, are
there some types of specific student types or situations
that make teaching more difficult than other types of
like, situations, or student or? Or categories or things
like that, classes, subjects?
P: I think as teachers, you know you always feel like you
can reach everyone, and you give soand it hurts when
you lose a kid, whether its to jail or something else or
dropout or, um, I mean theres some, theres definitely
the ones that sometimes are depressed are difficult to
me, because it felt like it didnt matter what my
teaching strategy was, I couldnt, I couldnt, like theyre
323

drowning and I couldnt save them. And that was always

hurt just tough for me. Uh, opposition defiant kids were
somewhat tough for me, cause I, I kinda like that
structure, consistency, but uh it is helpful, I tell you, it is
helpful when administration takes kids that arent
emotionally prepared to learn for that hour, when
theyre able to take them out of the classroom and put
them in a safer environment for them and for the class,
or a different environment.
I: yeah
P: that definitely helps.
I: yeah
P: cause
I: cause the [inaudible]
P: you could have one kid, I mean, even now when one
kids absent, unfortunately, its probably bad to say,
class goes great, uh.
I: if its the right kid
P: yes exactly, and thats but sometimes one kid can,
youre having trouble using strategies to reach em, to
keep em busy, and it can just wreck a class. And next
thing you know you have 3 people off class, youve lost
control.
I: And that impact that has on you as a teacher, then is,
what?
P: well, you feel like you just dont have control, and if
you cant rectify the situation, like hey this persons not
in a place to be able to operate within the classroom,
Ive tried everything that I can to reach him to get him
to at least line up so theres not a disruption in the
class, its helpful when theyre able to say okay, you
need to exit out of the classroom and when youre
ready and prepared to be a part of the community of
learners come back to, and that I think it always helps
324

cause they realize theres an expectation there, but

when it, when I thought Hurtfew Abbey School was
always great at that.
I: yeah
P: so that that would that was helpful for sure.
I: um, do you think that, I think, I think youre in a really
good position to answer this next one now, do you think
that teaching at an environment like the private day
school, the tiny little school, um, has a difference or
makes a difference ty--, or or the type or extent or wear
on a teacher emotionally or in terms of burnout or
things like that?
P: yeah, well, I mean we take on a lot. At a, at a thats
the hard part. If theres a way to do it, without taking on
so much, it would be wonderful. I mean, cause it, it
really is a holistic approach to education, and you know
theres, theres a lot that you can do to energize and
inspire a kid about education, you know, you got a lot of
flexibility
I: do you feel like some of your flexibility has been lost
by switching to uh like, the bigger public schools?
P: oh no question, I mean youre, cause youre, the
nice thing is you have the support of the time, but that
curriculum is driven by the team, youre testing at the
same time, so you have teachers rushing through the
curriculum sometimes, and you might have need kids
that need to have it slowed down a tiny bit or cover a
little less but you cant do it cause the test is a common
assessment which is big now, but its going toward
I: yeah
P: so um, that part is probably difficult.
I: yeah, were actually getting a little piece of that on
our end, its interesting
P: yeah is that right?
325

I: yeah, Ill talk to you about it after the thing

P: so, it definitely um, you know you cant really and
like when somethings going on class you could really go
off on a tangent for 20 minutes and get kids excited
about a topic, you cant because you gotta keep pace
with the other classrooms and theres this expectations
you gotta do exactly the same, and if you deviate, Big
Brothers gonna get you
I: [laughter]
P: you know, uh, youre gonna have to go into the, you
know, meeting room or, or, or I dont know how to say
it, just youre gonna have to call to a different authority.
So that makes it hard and it and you know cause a lot
of it you do have a base plan with education, but
sometimes when somethings going well you can really
engage some kids, and allow them to input.
I: yeah
P: Sometimes, its hard, too, the time, its like, with
these kids Im working with now, its like they dont
even have time to really engage and input, you know,
I: its being lost there
P: there almost being taught that, yeah
I: yeah
P: Whereas if you could take your time through the
curriculum and they got, you know, they could ask
questions, they could almost drive
I: yeah
P: the conversation where now sometimes I feel like
theyre being talked at a lot, and so but thats just the
way it is, its a its a time and you have to get this in,
cause thats what the state says, and the whole team
has to do the same thing and you gotta give this test the
same week of November, um, cause you cant let the
test get out, and yeah I dont know, so thats the hard
326

part. Theres a huge value, for uh, thanks [to waitress]

for the uh alternative school um, that really allows the
delivery of the education and a little more customized
manner. And just allows I think for a little more uh, for
the child to engage in their and own their education I
think its great experience.
I: this next one is one of those questions that if you
wanna skip over it we can, but I was gonna ask about
your current level, of where you are with teaching, if
youre feeling like youre burnt out or if youre feeling
like renewed and refreshed and where you are with
that right now?
P: yeah, I still love it, I mean when a lesson goes well
and a kid is excited and asks questions afterwards, its
like, wow! thats the key right there. Thats great and
um and you feel like you know theyve, theyve left with
just a better way of thinking and youve grown some
myelin in their brain.
I: yeah
P: and their brain is they got a good workout. Um, so
thats you know I just love that. Thats like scoring a
touchdown when that works. And then Ive had days
where, oh jeez, and that just didnt connect.
I: So for you its a day by day sort of question, one day
at a time?
P: yeah, no I still love it cause Im still trying to perfect,
perfect the trade I mean
I: yeah
P: Right now I gotta be careful that I dont get bored
because Im team-teaching and I dont, I gotta
somehow find my way to get myself inserted into the
curriculum and I dont know whats the norm for team
teachers, but a lot of seem to take a more of a back seat
and Im not used to that.
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I: thats interesting. Did you do the class at [University

#1] on team teaching? Now, its required now,
P: is that right?
I: its this whole theory, philosophy, I mean it was
interesting, but it really turned me off to the idea, I
mean I heard you were gonna go do those, like, good
luck!
P: yeah its different, and yeah maybe I did take a class
in collaboration, and you know, its definitely not quite
what I imagined.
I: no?
P: thats okay,
I: yeah that might be a different interview, I dont know.
P: yeah but Ill, Im just trying to find a way to make it
work and really carve out my niche
I: yeah has that been a tough process?
P: Uh, little bit, but Im slowly gaining some confidence
of the content teacher and, and, and I get to do tidbits
of the lesson.
I: what uh what subjects are you doing? That youre-P: [laughter]
I: No? sorry!
P: Biology and Chemistry!
I: Biology and Chemistry? [laughter]
P: Oh yeah! With the promise that there was
potentially something to open up in English or other
areas.
I: yeah
P: Seriously, now that Ive got my Highly Qualified
I: Oh! Yeah, yeah, yeah! Congrats on that by the way.
P: yeah, so
I: Uh, what about your coworkers, could you speculate,
maybe compare your current people to the people at
Hurtfew Abbey School, maybe in terms of like how
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people are doing emotionally, exhaustion, burnout, or if

theyre doing great? I dont know.
P: yeah, well I mean, at Hurtfew Abbey School theyre
just, theyreeveryones works so hard there, I mean,
theres definitely that common characteristic: theyre so
invested in the kids. [inaudible] I mean they would do
anything for those kids, and thats maybe to the
detriment of us or not, but I definitely see a lot more
negativity, theres negativity, Id say, probably more at
my current job, and I definitely see some that are burnt
out that probably shouldnt be there.
I: Is it negativity or is it like, cynicism?
P: Uh, its no its not, I wish it were a little more
cynicism.
I: Can you give me an example? Like, of what youre
thinking of
P: yeah, or just like, you know, the kids are, uh, just
dont care about their education, or theyre not, they
cant do it.
I: yeah
P: and that the kids are, you know, just awful and uh,
and you know even just the kids that are special needs,
you know you have the teacher, that even in the
concerns meeting thats harping on the student not
doing any of their chemistry homework, and Im
thinking this kids severely depressed, [laughter], and
you know, that you gotta address first and you know,
maybe well come back to chemistry when shes
emotionally able
I: yeah
P: cause shes a great kid, its not that shes, you
know, choosing not to do it, is, which I keep hearing
some teachers say

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I: Yeah. Well, you said that like um, some people say
that the kids cant do it or, or
P: [mocking] or theyre choosing not to, like my
I: theyre choosing not to do it; that kind of makes the
question, like, if they cant do it, why do you get up
every morning and go teach them? Like, why wouldnt
you, why wouldnt you quit if that were
P: yeah. Well, exactly!
I: your attitude.
P: yeah, so they, uh I think thats what they, you know
and granted, you know, and some of thats because you
cant remove certain kids or find them a better
placement, maybe, and it just really can bring down a
class to where yeah, those kids dont care, and if they
were in a different environment, they could learn to
care. But unfortunately doesnt change, uh, so, possibly,
they, they say that. And theres definitely some that,
you know, whether they take off or not, I could see
theres, Id say probably 20% that are going through the
motions, thats just my estimate
I: yeah?
P: at the current school, then theres
I: I dont know if that seems high or low!
P: yeah! Well, I mean, you take 10 teachers and 2 dont
give a darn and uh, and then maybe you got 6 that are
gone, that are on autopilot, you probably have got 3
that are the newbies and that are out there, theyre
ready to save the world, until reality hits! [laughter]
I: So youre saying that like, the, the sort of the
autopilot and then the total like, lack of care, thats just
something that develops over time.
P: yaeh, well, the autopilot too, you gotta be careful of,
when you get to autopilot you stop engaging the
students, then
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I: yeah
P: youre not getting fresh ideas, just because you did
something that way last year Im gonna do it because
Ive already got the copies and this and that, you know?
Rather than maybe yeah, uh, bring something new and I
think somehow the, every so often teachers it might
benefit to re-check and see how they can improve
things.
I: Um, I think Im going to skip [question number] ten
and see, so, if you had to offer some solutions for all the
things weve been discussing, what, what would you
suggest?
P: well, I guess the one thing is, you know, sometime
with regular jobs, if you havent changed jobs, in the
private sector or a role in 5 years, uh, you get stale
I: yeah
P: thats sort of a benchmark, Id have to maybe google
it. I mean even for teachers, you know you could keep
that same role, you gotta somehow change your role,
even though youre still that teacher, and
I: well Im thinking 2008, 2014, thats about that time
for you, right?
P: yeah! Yeah, well I started in 2009, so this is my fifth
year, and yeah you gotta somehow reinvent or
recharge, cause if you dont, I could see how youre
doing the same 6 and 7 years, it could get stale, and
then youre stale and then the students get stale
I: what about administration?
P: yeah, I guess they gotta find out how do to that, and
sometimes, and if theyre loading up the teachers, and
the teachers dont have time to change, cause
I: yeah
P: and thatd really is what I see now, too, is what they
have that curriculum, that curriculum going, you would
331

need to give, administrators need to give teachers that

extra time to recharge that curriculum, actually that
would be the solution.
I: yeah?
P: um, cause now, it used to be before now, its
standard, I think its 5 classes for all teachers, right, um,
and um, its you know, somehow they dont have time
to really re-look at, cause it takes time to go through
curriculum, to look through, to change an activity,
youre much better off to choose last years activity and
maybe you could tweak and, and that even takes time
and you have papers to grade, meetings to go to,
parents to contact, um, so I think the solution would be
to somehow, you gave them extra time, or maybe had
department assistants that could do the grading or
could do those tasks.
I: thats an idea
P: have a more layered approach rather than that
island of one
I: yeah, the isolation of being a teacher, does that have
an impact on it, do you think?
P: it might I mean I know I do a lot of the grading for
some of my team-taughts and they definitely appreciate
that, and it opens up them to do more things.
I: but, like, the emotional isolation of like, being in your
own class or having control over your curriculum, being
sort of stuck in there all day, does that have a lot to do
with some of the issues weve been discussing or ?
P: uhhhhh
I: cause you said that like, being more connected to
other people, not being an island, would be a possible
solution
P: yeah. Yeah, because, even going and, going to other
schools, you know I would love, love, even if I was
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working at Hurtfew Abbey School, okay, Karl, I want

you to go to Roberts High School and sit in on three
English classes, I bet you Id come back totally charged.
But where do you have that time? I mean, even to take
one day off of work at Hurtfew Abbey School it was like
a moI: [inaudible] a suggestion
P: it was just, like, it was a lot! Just to take off one day,
and that was for sickness
I: right
P: I mean, it was impossible to do. You know, less and
when you do that
I: did you, did you take off sick days?
P: maybe one or two
I: in four or five years
P: yeah. Yeah. And you know, to go for a whole week at
another school would be wonderful, but that week, you
know, how do you do it?
I: yeah
P: I probably would learn a lot, you know, go to Roberts
[High School] one day, go to North City [High School]
the next, and visit different English classes
I: yeah
P: whether its IB or something else, you probably could
get some great stuff. And they sort of have some of
that, like, once a year I guess, one day for teacher work
day when teachers are then stressed to get work and
grade in so they cant really even enjoy that experience.
I: Right, if you take your teacher work day up with
other, yeah. I mean we used
P: which happens!
I: we used to do that too, with every election day,
remember?

333

P: yeah! But now its meetings! You gotta sit in a

training for half the day
I: half the day
P: and then you gotta still do your
I: yeah
P: so you dont get a chance to really do it. I guess you
could it during the summer, but then teachers are so, I
guess, they work so hard during the year that they
dont, I [laughter]
I: is the summer not enough?
P: I mean I work during the summer, so, you know
I: alright well I think thats it unless you had something
else you wanted to add?
P: About teacher burnout?
I: Burnout, attrition? The way it wears on you
emotionally, I mean anything like that
P: yeah I just think I think somehow, you know even
dealing with the difficult parent, its you know or,
someone somehow its, youre all working towards
providing a better experience, and you know, just dont
ask for data or have new things put upon if it doesnt
make a difference in the classroom
I: yeah
P: [laughter] You know, and like every bit of time, is this
meeting gonna make a difference in the classroom? You
know, or like, everything that you do, you know, I think
they gotta look at, at, you know almost like, I cant
remember that person, I cant even remember his
name, would come in and look at a comedy and just
every, you know, every, every minute or every hour
basically every minute that youre doing something
should be leading towards the end goal or the mission
of the school
I: the through line
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P: yeah, so youre sitting in a scheduling meeting

maybe thats better handled by a scheduler not by a
teacher. You know, Im just saying
I: yeah
P: yeah because it definitely doesnt do anything if
youre a teacher. It doesnt do anything for the kids, it
sets the schedule, but, why, you know, I dont think
teacher hours are best used for that, you know? Its like,
its like having your doctor fill out medical forms and
you probably want him in the operating room and
having someone else taking the medical forms and
having the patients fill out the forms.
I: thats an interesting analogy.
P: Alright I think have to actually cut it short.
I: No thats cool.
P: Thank you so much, this has actually been really
34:58

335

Appendix K
Priscilla
November 26, 2014
Fairfax, Virginia
Teacher Burnout and Attrition
Interviewer: and we are signing our informed consent
Participant:signed!
I: Lovely! Lets talk
P: okay!
I: I thought we could start by just talking about your
development as a teacher and how you got into the
career and how you got started and where you went,
and how you ended up where you are today.
P: Okay! How I ended up as a teacher, well I tired from
the police department and I was home with my kids,
and to make it perfectly honest, Ill tell you exactly what
happened. I was at a Christmas party, and a lady was
talking about how she was working just part-time
whenever she wanted to, setting her own hours as a
substitute teacher. And I was like, really?? A substitute
teacher! And Im like, what are the qualifications?
cause at that time I didnt have my bachelors degree
even!
I: oh okay!
P: I didnt even have my degree
I: police academy stuff, yeah,
P: yeah
I: yeah well of course
P: she said all you need was just some college and Im
like really? and she was like, you can even be like
certain schools or certain subjects and Im like,
[incredulous] really? So, I worked very closely before
with the uh, special Ed principal at Roberts [High
School], Lenore Johns, cause I was Fairfax countys first
336

special education ombudsman. I fought with the

superintendent to get that position, I worked at PEATC;
I was a special education coach. The Parent Educational
Advocacy Training Center,Virginia.
I: Thank you, I would not have gotten that acronym
P: Yeah. Every Under Federal law every state has to
have a special education environment for parents.
PEATC is Virginias. I was a special education coach for
them. I was a lobbyist so I knew Lenore Johns from all
that stuff. So I called her and I said, listen I wanna be a
substitute teacher! Shes like, Sure you can! You can
work at Roberts! Im like no way! So after I went
through all the fingerprinting and all that she called me
and she said, listen, Im gonna have a teacher out, do
you wanna work for me? cause shell be out , shes
having a baby. Shes like, you know, do you have
anything you wont teach? and Im like, well the only
thing I dont wanna teach is algebra.
I: [laughter]
P: She said, well, guess what!
I: [more laughter]
P: [laughing] its Algebra! Im like, really! So I ended
up teaching at Roberts, the teacher was only gonna be
out three months, ended up being out all year long.
I: naturally
P: So I ended up teaching the same class all year long, it
was Algebra, I fell in love with algebra. Lenore said,
listen! go back to school, get your degree and Ill hire
you next year.
I: just like that, right?
P: just like that, so I went to [University #2] and I got,
finished my bachelors, did my masters, finished up in
just a few months, I mean it was like, I was taking like 17
credits while working full time, it was like, unbelievable
337

I: thats
P: I dont know how I did it, now. But unfortunately, I
was so late, she already, everything was already hired.
So, thats when Im like, I put the job in here and I mean
I was hired like, got the call from John Monroe [now
retired Master Teacher at current workplace]
I: Oh!
P: Yeah. To come in, and so I came in for an interview
with him and by the time I got home hes like, okay we
need to set up a panel interview. So I mean it was like
[snapping] so thats how I became a teacher.
I: wow.
P: and special ed was all I was all I was gonna do
because thats all I know.
I: Yeah. Uh, do you wanna switch gears to talk a little bit
more about burnout?
P: sure!
I: How would you, I mean, its a term that we use a lot
the environment, but how would you describe it, how
would you define it, personally?
P: Oh thats a good question. Uh, I guess you reach,
where you cant when your job starts taking up too
much of your time.
I: hmm
P: and you end up using all of your resources on doing
that job and it becomes all-encompassing for you. I
think thats when you reach burnout. And you realize
that you have nothing else, or everything else you had is
taking a back seat.
I: Thats almost like, uh, like the way people with
addictions describe it like, swallowing your life and you
have nothing else going on in your life.
P: Yeah. Thats how I see it, because youre using every
resource you have, I mean like, for example all last year
338

I would go every weekend I would go to McKenzies

bookstore and Id be buying new books and Id spentI
mean I spent thousands of dollars of the course of
buying stuff then I was like, oh my god! This is taking
over everything I do.
I: adding up, yeah!
P: yeah
I: wow.
P: thats what I think burnout is, when you every
ounce of energy you have goes into it, and then, youre
like, I have nothing left and you just reach the point
when youre like, and what did I do it all for?
I: So, if you had put in all that effort and had something
pay off, and maybe no burnout in that scenario?
P: [beat] you know
I: If you put in a bunch of effort and then you get
nothing out of it; that seems like thats a pretty
P: yeah
I: solid statement of
P: yeah I think thats what it is, I mean you do so much
and so much, and its not like, in teaching we do it for
the credit and we do it for, to get roses at the end of the
year when the kids give out the rosesbut I think when
you do it and you dont see it in I mean its hard to
describe, you see it in the kids but I think we as people,
no matter how I guess, intelligent we are or selfsufficient, or strong, we want our colleagues or bosses
to say, hey, you know, wow, nice job. We appreciate
that. And I think if you get more of that, maybe?
I: yeah
P: I mean I have no other, thats a hard question, I
havent even thought about it.
I: well that jumps into the next thing, which is more
about, what makes a school environment, like a positive
339

or negative environment for the employees, for the

people who work there? Thats a tough call, I guess?
P: thats another tough call. So are you asking me what
would make it?
I: Yeah. What would you describe as like, the positive or
a positive school environment or could you contrast it
with a negative school environment?
P: well, Ill tell you that, when I worked at Roberts [High
School] for that year, even though I was a substitute
teacher, the principal, Lenore Johns, was fabulous.
Always felt supported, if you had a problem youd go to
her, her door was always open. I dont think she ever
raised her voice, did anything she was just, what can I
do to help you? This is what we can do! Lets work on
this! Let me get your advice on this! You know, Ill do it
but I just want your advice. And you always felt
I: it sounds like youre talking about, just the respect
from administrators, like the professional respect. Like
your principal just trusted you, to do your job and do it,
P: mmhmm
I: or to have the right ideas about what it means. Is that
what youre getting at?
P: yeah, I think so and its also um yeah. I think thats
what started and thats what I thought it was supposed
to be and then I came here and it so wasnt like that
here.
I: yeah.
P: and then there were so many things, and Im
probably jumping off way off base,
I: no please do, say what youve got to say
P: there are things about being a teacher that youre
supposed to have. Youre supposed to have snow days
off

340

I: [laughter] as it snows outside [gestures toward

window]
P: yes! And youre supposed to have these days off and
the fact that you dont I think that is such a morale
booster I think thats what I was talking to another
colleague today and I said, jokingly, I said, if I ever
become principal, the first thing Im gonna do is make
sure the teachers and counselors get off because thats
on those snow days, because thats what being a
teacher is. Thats what being a school worker is. You get
those days off. So I think, and she was like, yeah, you
know what, thats why we all came into this. Because
thats important.
I: yeah
P: and I think we dont get that. And so I think its being
supported, knowing that you get what youre supposed
to get, you know, being a teacher is having snow days
off, having summers off, calling in sick when you need
to call in sick.
I: so lets say that, that kind of scenario where youre
not getting the things that you need and, or, like the
snow days or, or just um, having a negative school
environment, so a teacher is burnt out, lets say,
because of those things, does that lead the teacher to
leave? To maybe leave the school in particular or to
leave teaching as a profession, or does a teacher whos
in that scenario tend to stay on? What happens, is there
connection between those things?
P: I think yes. I think there actually is, I think tat the
beginning of this year, Ive been feeling that way in this
school for a long time, at least the last two, three years.
And I was gonna leave this job and go to another job. I
think now Im looking at getting out of teaching
altogether
341

I: really what made the difference between changing

schools versus changing career paths?
P: well, Id still be a teacher but I think Ive got such a
bad taste in my mouth of administrators.
I: mmm
P: And the, not the necessarily the politics, because Ive
been involved in politics
I: yeah
P: I think its just the negative feelings of working in the
school environment. I dont think I wanna work in a
school anymore.
I: What about being an administrator yourself?
P: you know what? I would love to be an administrator,
because I would like to bring change, knowing I think
some administrators, and I wont mention
names[glancing pointedly in the direction of our
principals office]
I: I mean, Im gonna be redacting all the names
anyway.
P: Alright. I wont mention names. Hannah Ames.
I: [laughter]
P: I think they, they forget what its like to be in the
trenches. And I think thats what makes a good
supervisor, remembering what its like to be in the
trenches. Remembering what it feels like, you know,
how much you already beat yourself up over when you
have to call in sick or you have an appointment. You
know, you dont need to be attacked and made to feel
bad. So I think, you know, I would like to bring in some
of these positive things and like I said, and having the
snow days. You know I realize thats the policy of some
places that you, you know, essential employees blah
blah blah.
I: yes
342

P: But I think that if we had somebody that was really

willing to fight for that
I: maybe that could be a
P: yeah
I: for the transcript, what youre referring to is the fact
that, due to our organizations status within a larger
organization, no one is allowed to take snow days off.
And youre saying that you feel you could make an
exemption for us because were not regular employees,
were teachers.
P: yeah, well there are already so many exemptions, like
were considered 10 month employees, so I dont even
think we get that adoption benefit because you know,
10 month not that that, not that Im looking to adopt
a child
I: [laughter]
P: for the transcript.
I: I hadnt even considered that! No, but youre right,
there are a lot of exceptions for us. Um, and thats
P: I think we have
I: interesting
P: Im sorry.
I: yeah, no! Say it, its about what you have to say.
P: we have, we [Parent Organization] has such a
possibility to make a stand and do so many wonderful
things and set the mark for special education private
day schools, and theyre falling so far behind the mark,
it frustrates the crap out of me.
I: what do you think is preventing [Parent
Organization]from, from making those changes. Is it
just, youre saying you would advocate, are you
suggestion a lack of advocacy now?
P: yes
I: or is there something else
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P: I think theres a lack of advocacy and Im not sure if

its the admini- if its the immediate administrator or
the administrator over the administrators head
I: mmhm
P: um, but you have people like, for example six, seven
years ago, five years ago, however long it was, the
service dog. Or, Im sorry, the therapy dog. I brought
Charlie in, he was in, and I was willing to do everything,
I was willing to do all the paperwork, and do all the
research, and do the proposals, and it just got thrown
by the wayside. And I think that could have made kids
go to [competitor school] because of the service dog,
I: oh! So youre saying having your service dog now that
hes no longer really fulfilling that capacity, sort of take
up a new career here?
P: he would have been the therapy dog! And I had the
I: I didnt even know that you thought that thats
P: I had him certified as a therapy dog and they just
wouldnt get on board with it. And now Dr. Mukherjee
wants to do it and its just like that that we could
other kids go to [competitor school] because of the
therapy dog.
I: mmhm thats true
P: and we, we had that and it wouldnt have cost them a
dime, I was even gonna pay the insurance. You know?
And it was just, and then like we had the drivers ed
stuff. And
I: whered it go? Yeah.
P: you know, Ive talked to people so many times so its
just frustrating when you can we can do so much with
this, even though there are only 12 of us and its a small
school, we could be setting the mark.
I: yeah

344

P: and it just frustrates me when have people that

arent willing to do that, or at least come back and say,
listen I wanna do this but this is where its getting stuck
at so we can all team together and work.
I: yeah. Um. Wow. You just answered a couple of the
questions.
P: Sorry about that
I: no thats great! Its efficient!
P: I do like to be efficient!
I: [laughter] are there some times of perhaps students
or situations that make teaching more difficult than
other types of environments, students, situations,
classes? I mean is there one population of students that
those teachers just have it the worst, or?
P: No, I dont think so, I think and I think this school is a
good example of that. I think if youre a teacher and I
think a special education teacher in particular I think
you can teach anything, especially if you have a general
education. I think theres such a wide variety of
different kinds of students I think everybody has their
strengths everybody has their, I dont wanna say
preferences but theirstrong points. And I think you
open yourself up to do more teaching, um, I think if you
put a teacher in a situation where they dont wanna be
in, I think thats bad for everybody and I think if you
take teachers out of where they wanna be, I think thats
bad and I think that happens a lot and I think to have
teams, cause you know, you have, in this school, for
the transcript,
I: [laughter]
P: in this school we have a teacher and a counselor
working together and when your principal comes back
and says, you guys are too comfortable together, you

345

need to split up, I think thats wrong because that

whats you strive for
I: you want the synergy
P: yeah
I: and then you split it up with the assumption that that
makes two good teams, but it
P: it breaks peoples spirits
I: would you say that thats a big part of where youre
standing in your own situation?
P: no, you know what I dont think that. I mean I think I
was extremely disappointed the way it happened when
I was split up with the partner I had. But that, like we
were just talking about on a phone call with that parent,
thats staffing issues.
I: yeah
P: okay, so you know, nothings set in stone. So I, no I
dont think that. I think its good to branch out a little
bit with other people. Um, so I mean I know that the
other half of my old partner is miserable. No Im not
miserable in that respect. Im enjoying the people Im
working with. I just think that to split people up just
because theyre too comf-- or comfortable together I
think it ridiculous.
I: so you had a little bit of experience at Roberts, which
is a public school, right?
P: mmhmm
I: would you say that you think that this kind of
environment, this small very small private school has a
different impact on, on what, how teachers react
emotionally to the job or any kind of emotional
exhaustion or burnout or whatever you call itdo you
think that that is happens differently at a school like this
versus at a bigger, public school.

346

P: I think the, the potential for burnout to happen in a

private school, smaller private school I think is higher
because you can get yourself to emotionally attached
and you can emotionally drain yourself, which could
lead to burnout. I think if you are able to set those
boundaries, and that doesnt mean you cant work 80
hours a week or bring in food for the kids or bring in
clothes I think you just need to be able to emotionally
not drain yourself
I: yeah
P: but I think, I could see it, I dont know I mean I could
see it the workload I guess thats a good question, it
depends on how youre defining burnout as a opposed
to emotional burnout or physical work cause obviously
working you know if youre teaching 40 kids a class and
you have 6 classes thats 240 kids thats a lot of kids, a
lot of papers to grade
I: but like you said its sort of depersonalized as
compared to what were doing
P: mmhmmso I dont know, I dont think its necessarily
makes a difference, I think to me I think its all about
being happy.
I: yeah
P: I mean if youre happy where you work, then I I
dont know cause I remember when I first started out
up until last year I would work 60, 80 hours 6 days a
week and I was happy, I was ridiculously happy. And
now, Im working 40 hours a week, or a few hours over,
because I dont come in 6 days a week and
I: can I challenge you a little bit on that?
P: challenge!
I: okay. Um, you had, when I, you first described, your
last year scenario of like, working 6 hours a day, or 6
days a week 10 hours a day and like, going to the
347

bookstore to get extra supplies and pulling it all

together and you listed that as an example of what
burnout looks like. But then youre saying burnout is
when youre not happy in your current position and I
was happy doing that, so?
P: I see what youre saying. Karl did the, I dont know if
Im allowed to mention his name,
I: well Im gonna give him a fake name and so its cool
that you can refer to him.
P: Well Karl did the same thing cause he had to buy all
of his supplies and he was miserable and he resented it
and hated every minute of it. I was actually okay with it
because I enjoyed it. I enjoyed going out and finding the
books. Um, I think the burnout
I: the process of getting your own stuff
P: well, that wasnt even so much, it was just the fact
that nobody said thank you, nobody when I took over
the middle school, there were no books. I mean there
was nothing. So when, when administrators would
come into the room and they would see that I had three
bookshelves full of books, they would have said, wow,
Priscilla, nice job, thank you for doing all this. Thank you
for getting all this. So its just, I did it for me, to be
honest, I did it for me to make my life easier, too
I: yeah
P: but its just, it would have been nice for people to
say, hey, listen, thank you. You know, thanks for
doing this; thanks for coming up with the gojo idea and
thanks for doing all this so for me the burnout was not
so much doing the work because I love what I was doing
and it was worth it to me. Now I dont love what Im
doing so to me it is drudgery.
I: yeah

348

P: so that, I dont know if that answered your question

and I think what the confusion came in,
I: yeah
P: but I think the, the, for me it wasnt I mean I would
complain about oh I have to go to the book store again
but I loved it.
I: and then you turned me onto it and I love it now
P: yeah see!? Its just the thing. Um, but again I think it
was just its just not feeling appreciated and not being
respected. To me, thats what it was about. I mean like,
while youre looking for your next question
I: [laughter] Im trying to figure out
P: like, um, I worked for [local driver education
company] since the summer and whats that, four
months? And Im I was already employee of the month
I: its the recognition
P: yes! I worked as hard if not harder here and yeah, I
mean
I: well you had mentioned the roses at the end of the
year, but if youre not teaching seniors, youre usually
not, you know,
P: yeah
I: it just doesnt happen. We have the R.O.S.E. award
but that, that hasnt even happened.
P: yeah, havent seen that one in a couple of years.
I: So Im gonna skip the next one thats gonna ask about
your current level but I think youve really spoken to it.
Im gonna ask if you feel like your coworkers are
experiencing similar levels and if you could speculate as
to whyI know thats ironic
P: isnt it though? Yeah, I think many people are, Ive
said I several people have said theyre definitely not
coming back. I think its a lot, I think its not being
appreciated, and being I mean I know that, again I know
349

that no one gonna, this is confidential and I know that,

Stacy is angry about being split up with meand not
that Im so great, although we know that I am.
I: [laughter] be that as it may.
P: [laughter] exactly. Moving on! Um, the fact that shes
still talks about the fact that Hannah came up and said,
you guys are too comfortable together, you need to
move on. and that has made her miserable and the
fact that she was thrown with the new partner and
shes not getting any support from the administration
on how to work on that, shes just getting blamed for
why arent you working together? Why arent you
doing this?
I: Yeah. It seems like, I mean, from what you were
saying before the taping, that shes got her hands full
with that new partner, too, its not a normal situation,
of a new partner.
P: well, and they keep saying, well, they told her that,
when Karen takes over it will be a lot different because
Karen has a way of talking to people, so they are pretty
much saying to her, its all your fault
I: yeah
P: that things are
I: wow
P: yeah, so shes very I mean, shes angry sure, theyre
like, well have you tried to talk to her shes like yeah
theres nothing else I can do! and then Karens like,
well yeah [pantomimes innocent nonchalance] well
they told Karen the same thing, that there like, well you
have a way of talking with people so Stacys like, what,
so Im mean? and I think theyre, you know other
people are like, I think what happens is, and to be
honest you know now that Im talking all these things
are coming into my mind
350

I: let them all out

P: I think you come into a place like this, and youre like,
Okay, I can make a difference you know, maybe I can
make other people happy because you know when,
when Charlotte left, when Rene left, when
Gundersonshe was a crazy woman anyway
I: [laughter] I hear she was great before she came to us
P: yeah, thats I hear that about a lot of people. I think
you come in and youre like, this is why they left, we can
make a difference, we can pull together, and how many
times have we gotten together as teachers and like, and
what, many voices are stronger than one voice and it
all just kinda falls by the wayside. And I think you very
quickly realize, you know what, I theres I cant. I
cant change it, I thought I could change it, you know I
have all these great ideas, but like, I dont volunteer for
thI have these wonderful ideas about doing things but
I dont say anything because, because theyre gonna say
okay, you write a proposal about that or you do this
and do that and its like, no! thats . who wants to
take over this? Um, nobody!
I: yeah
P: so I think um people just realize that you know what,
I cant do what I do best here, and one of those
questions, I do what I do best, or I
I: oh, on our institutional
P: yeah
I: yeah survey
P: Yeah, I have the chance to do what I do best No! I
dont! Because Im doing so many other things that I
dont do good, I dont do what I do best. My first couple
years here, when I taught world history 1, we were
talking about the Renaissance and Michelangelo, who
painted the Sistine Chapel, and the kids couldnt grasp
351

that so I had them get on their on the floor underneath

their desks with paper and draw murals
I: [laughter]
P: to get a feel for it what it was like
I: thats so good
P: and you know thats what I do best, thinking outside
the box and being creative and I dont have time to do
that. And you know when youve got so many classes,
I: yeah
P: and I mean, thats part of what we do here, so the
classes isnt an issue for me, its just the fact that we
dont have the supplies we need, we dont have our
planning period, we have a 20 minute luncha 20
minute lunch!
I: yeah
P: which and yet theyre taking off 30 minutes!
I: they are
P: and were getting paid, you know were only getting a
20 minute lunch and we dont even get that, cause by
the time we get the kids out and your planning period
we dont get that so I think its just we dont have time
to do anything so the you know the end of, what I
hate is having the kids just read out of the textbook
I: yeah
P: I hate that, but thats sometimes what you just end
up having to do. Because you just theres no time to
do anything else. And I dont want to go homepart of
being a teacher is grading papers and coming up with
the lesson plans and thats what were supposed to do
and thats
I: yeah
P: the fun part. But when I have to do when I have to
come up with the the resources to then do the lesson
plans and Im like, wait a second, why am I? thats not!
352

I: too many, too many links in this chain

P: yeah
I: yeah
P: So I think thats whatso a lot of people are feeling
that way right now.
I: um. I was gonna ask if you felt that that was typical,
but I think you spoke to that, that its been a pattern for
as long as youthats what you were saying as long as
youve been here youre thinking that this has been a
pattern?
P: yeah. I know that today I was talking with Nancy, and
she said that Hannah came up and chewed her out one
side to the other for having a late IEP. And shes like,
Hannahsweve had 12 weeks and Ive had 9 or 10 IEPs
she goes, one out of nine falls by the wayside hey dont
you say, hey nice job on the 8.
I: yeahthe prosocial versus negativeindeed
P: yeah, so its you knowthings like that and you, you
know, you turn in a report and the first of all reports,
they shouldnt be 5 pages long, but whatever. I mean
they should and I understand why they are
I: yeah
P: because I think its good, but, that being said, theres
no, um, consistency. One time you want this, one time
you want this. Why is this in here? because you said
last time to put it in there!
I: yeah
P: and then no matter, you work so hard on one to get
it perfect and it comes up just as marked as something
that you do in 5 minutes.
I: yeah, Ive heard that from other people, that why
even try if youre the result is gonna be the same no
matter what.

353

P: I mean unfortunately me being a perfectionist I have

to spend like 4 hours on each one. Um, but its just
youre right, I mean, if I Ive seen people like oh I
threw that together in like, my 20 minute lunch break
and its like, oh look I spent 4 hours on that.
I: and they look the same? Yeah. alright. Well. We at
that part winding down, where I ask you if you have
some solutions to everything, everything weve been
talking about and you can throw a lot out there and I
and I know that you do so why dont you
P: oh I have lots of solutions.
I: Go for it
P: okay well I think again and Im gonna say this I said it
before I think having I thought I heard keys?
I: thats me fidgeting
P: oh
I: sorry
P: I um, I think something, I think minor things like
having snow days I think would do a lot for morale. I
think it would show staff that you care. I think having,
and I realize having substitute staff is not as easy as it is
in a public school, but I think you need to have a pool of
like, PRN people that you can possibly call. I think that
because that would take a lot of load off. When you
cant you know, [choking up a bit] when youre thinking
about well, gee, how can I get out of being arrested?
From going to court, you know, thats a problem.
I: can you sum that up in one sentence because, thats,
magical and I would love to be able to include that. One
or two sentences, I mean as much as you need to, I
dont wanna make you go through the whole ordeal
again but.
P: Sum up what? cause Im confused

354

I: well you were referencing forced being forced

between showing up for work and having to go to court,
or being able to
P: yeah! I mean, it when its like when when youre
made to feel like you have to choose between your
childs high school graduation or childs party when you
need to go to court and youve been threatened theres
gonna be a summons, youre gonna be summoned then
youre gonna go to jail and your boss says, Well, do you
really have to go?
I: [laughter]
P: you know? Im like really, what kiI mean, how?
How can that be? I mean Im j- Im still dumbfounded I
just cant
I: yeah I dont
P: I cant
I: I dont have any solutions to offer
P: I cant even sum that up. I think, I think that if you
have snow days off, I think having a pool of subs I think
if every, like, Im only gonna speak to teachers right
now. I think if you started the year and they gave you,
oh, Im sure, you know have receipts, but I think if they
said okay look, heres $200, you know for supplies or
whatever, $400 for supplies, you know we need
receipts for everything but do what you want this is
your classroom money, if you wanna buy textbooks if
you wanna buy pillows if you wanna buy paintings,
whatever for your classroom for your students, I think
that would, at least youd have some resources and you
could get what you want. But I think that would be
helpful. Um. Being nice for gods sake. You know?
I: its the bar being set that low is. You know
P: Yeah I know, how sad is that? Just like, you know?
Can you just be nice? Can you just say good morning
355

and not go, Hmm, good morning! [ pointedly looking

at a wristwatch as if to suggest tardiness] looking at
your watch when you, not that thats happened
because Im always here early but,
I: it happens for some people?
P: yeah Ive heard people like, ahh! Good morning or
you know its little things like that, were professionals
but were humans and I think we go above and beyond
so often that that becomes the expected
I: and then how do you go above and beyond from
there?
P: yeah
I: yeah
P: thats exactly what happens and I think thats I
mean thats what happens with a lot of marriages, you
know, I had um, talking to a marriage counselor, cause
Im not, you know, weve all had problems and the
marriage counselor said, Im like, well I do this! And I
come home and I worked 2 jobs and blah blah blah and
the house is filthy you know why cant something, you
know I just want him to do this or do this or do this and
shes like you know if you just say to yourself Im not
gonna Im gonna come home and the house is gonna be
dirty, youre not gonna be angry. You know, so if you
just, lower your expectations. And I was like, that just
sounds so you know, to lower my expectations with
what should be a world class school, to lower my
expectations seems wrong to me.
I: when it could be, what you envision it to be
P: yeah
I: to be able to be, to accept it as good enough. Yeah
thats tough

356

P: yeah, I mean. We should have, you know, people

putting in, like, ideas and picking ideas and like, the
whoever you know the best idea of the month gets
I: gets funding! You know! Whatever!
P: yeah
I: yeah or
P: yeah gets some-a day off with pay or half a day off or
whatever, you know. So people areyou want people
to generate ideas and I think theres so many people
that have so many good ideas here but like, it just it
very quickly becomes the expected like, um, my first
year here I taught criminal justice, because of my
background
I: sure
P: and I had speakers, I had state police come in, we did,
I had all kinds of speakers come in
I: of course
P: so the next year, it was like, you did, you brought so
many speakers in, we want you to be on the speaker
committee or whatever to bring in speakers to the
school. And I was like, but thats more work for me
now, so now cant do that because now I have to do
this
I: you cant do the creative thing that you were doing
for fun because now you have an extra responsibility
P: yeah
I: thats like, competing time.
P: yeah, so thats the last time, first and last time, now I
no, no longer do that because
I: if you set the bar high for yourself thatll be whats
expected of you from now on.
P: yeah. So I think that would, if I had to sum up
everything, I think, I think I just kind of hit on it, I think

357

we all work so hard going above and beyond that

becomes whats expected and not whats appreciated.
I: um that is, if youre if you think youve nailed it I
think thats a good place to stop, too.
P: yeah I think so, too, th
I: thats brilliant
P: yeah that just hit me.
I: alright thank you.
34:38

358

Appendix L

Special Education Alphabet Soup

IDEA

IDEIA
FAPE
LRE

The Individuals with Disabilities Education

Act, a reauthorization of the Education for
All Handicapped Children Act
A more recent reauthorization of IDEA
Free and Appropriate Public Education
Least Restrictive Environment

IEP

Individualized Education Plan

PLOP

Present Levels of Performance

DOE

CSA

Department of Education, either at a state

or federal level
Independent Special Education Facility
National Association of Private Special
Education Centers
Comprehensive Services Act

CSB

Community Services Board

ASD
ED

Autism Spectrum Disorders

Emotional Disability (not disturbance)

ID
SLD
OHI
SLP

Intellectual Disability
Specific Learning Disability
Other Health Impairment
Speech Language Pathology

TBI
DD
AUT
MD
ISP
LEA

Traumatic Brain Injury

Developmental Disability
Autism
Multiple Disabilities
Individualized Service Plan
Local Education Agency (sometimes refers
to a representative thereof)
Response to Intervention
Curriculum Based Measurement
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

ISEF
NAPSEC

RTI
CBM
CBT

359

NAEP
NEA
FERPA
HIPAA
BASI
WJ-III

National Assessment of Educational

Progress
National Education Association
Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act
(schools)
Health Insurance Portability and
Accountability Act (hospitals)
Basic Achievement Skills Inventory
Woodcock-Johnson Test of Achievement,
rd
3 Edition

360

Appendix M
Transcriptions from Mary Annes Autobiography of a
Reader assignment.
Each bullet point was written front-and-back on a
notecard. All mistakes are (sic).

The Things They Carried (Age 18) I really

enjoyed this book. For some reason, I enjoyed
the themes of guilt, storytelling, and the
physical and emotional things people carry.
Siddhartha (Age 18) I read this book in 2015.
This book was the first book I had finished in 2
years. I really connected with the concept of
om and the concept of interior vs. exterior
guidance
Into the Wild (Age 16) There are a few themes
but the one that stood out to me the most was
materialism. His views on materials and his
rebellious nature interested me.
The Harry Potter Series (Age 12) I loved this
series. The value of friendship was amazing.
The description in those books was beyond
incredible.
The Giving Tree (Age 12) This book is how I was
taught the concept of tzedakah. Tzedakah is
sort of like voluntary charity.
Ella Enchanted (Age 10) I loved reading this
book. It seemed magical. I also loved that there
was a female heroine.
361

Where the Sidewalk Ends (Age 9) I had to

memorize a few of the poems in this book. This
is the way I started to understand poetry and
how poetry is structured.
Junie B Jones (Age 8) I loved this series because
I felt like I could connect to the main character.
This series was also the first set of chapter
books that I had read by myself
The Stinky Cheese Man (Age 6) My dad used to
read this to me all the time. I remember
reading this book and laughing until I was
almost in tears. This story is told well and has
amazing illustrations.
(ED. Unknown title of book about Korean
adoption) (Age 5) I remember my mom reading
this to me over and over. One night it clicked.
There was a mom out there who looked like
me.

362

Appendix N
(ED: Transcribed notes in unknown chronological order.
All errors are (sic). )
But the two alt. possibilities are / could be
homebound, which I will not let happen again or
residential.
Just had family meeting, and previously had talked to
[Counselor] about howserious(?) my attendance issue
is/could be, so my mind is racing. Also with the added
anxiety of the SAT and just life in general.
When its lunch time, could I request alt space
beforehand? Im finding it very straining and triggering
to be around people in general.
At this time, my life isnt balanced. Most, if not all, of
my anxiety is from my parents or school, and
emotionally, Im just not doing well. I can feel myself
starting to give up on myself. Since I didnt graduate on
time, in my head, Ive already failed. My successes are
very numbered. And not feeling like I can connect or
enjoy being around people eat school makes it hard to
stay
Next Thursday, I have a meeting with Erin about my
attendance. SIDE NOTE, could you email [counselor]
and ask her to check in with me? Family issues SIDE
NOTE TO MY SIDE NOTE, is there any way to do the
interview during lunch? (ED: there was not)

363

A Econ
D Physics which Im confused about
A+ Gov
C English
D- Group
F P.E.
C- Art
Cause my Grandma fell on Tuesday and went to the ER
yesterday went to see her after school. Got notified
about the email from [LEA Representative] yesterday.
My dad, I can tell, has things / thoughts about it but
isnt talking about it and I feel like I have to take care of
my mom because of my Grandma

364

Appendix O

365

366

367

Appendix P
Summary of Short Grit Scale Scores

Grit
Consistency of Interest
Perseverance of Effort
Brief Grit Scale Score
Ambition

2.67
2.67
2.67*
2.63
3.2

368

Percent Attendance

Appendix Q

100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%

Series2
Series1

Month

369

Appendix R
Interview with Mary Anne, Fairfax, VA
12/15/2015

INTERVIEWER: okay, were recording. Um, and you

know that you can withdraw consent at any time if
youre frustrated
PARTICIPANT: mmhmm
I: or upset, or if you just get bored, or if you have a date
or theres something on TV, you can get up and leave at
any time.
P: okay
I: Um, if you want the door closed we can close the
door, leave it open, I dont care either way.
P: mmhmm
I: um, I just wanted to ask you a bunch of questions and
have a conversation, and I dont even necessarily have a
hard and fast list of questions down, I just wanted to get
your thoughts on some things and like talk to you and I
feel like as much as I had that kind of wanted to ask
you, theres so much more thats been going on that
you can fill me in in your perspectives on
I: That like,
370

P: Yeah
I: It doesnt even need to be about, about what I, what I
was gonna ask you, I feel like I can,
P: Yeah
I: We can just have a conversation. And then well have
a good appropriate goodbye and you know that you can
always
P: Yeah, email
I: e-mail me and I can always be available.
P: mmhm
I: you know that. But we dont have to get to that part
yet. So, Howd yesterday go? [nervous laughter]
P: I ugh I dont know I sat there and we talked about
ways I could come back to Hurtfew Abbey and what
that would help and halfway through the meeting,
think, I mean, I was saying it the whole time, but I was
indirectly saying it, I wasnt able, Im not, my mind just
kinda, and being gone for three weeks,
I: Yeah
P: Your mind just shifts to Im not going. So for
whatever reason, I wasnt cause usually when Im
absent Ill do work. Ill get work, Ill ask for work
I: right
371

P: Ill do something.
I: right but this time you just had
P: didnt do any of it, didnt ask for anything, didnt
contact my teachers, didnt do any of it, and so um,
I: In your defense, you contacted me.
P: yes. Yes. Um, but, I was indirectly saying, none of the
things would work, and came up with ideas like having
alt space but I cant have alt space for more than 15
minutes. Just how the structure is, um.
I: right, the structure of the place is not enough?
P: yeah. Well, its too much if anything, cause I
I: In certain ways too much structure, in other ways not
enough.
P: yeah, um and so, I think it was Dr Weisskopf who
asked the question, it was just, do you think school is
making you more depressed?
I: yeah
P: or the, the, he, he said something like, if you take
away the stress of coming to Hurtfew Abbey, how do
you feel?
I: yeah

372

P: or what do you see your life without Hurtfew Abbey?

And, high school has never been a thing for me, really.
I: yeah
P: for freshman year, is the first year, only year that I
had, very few hitches with, cause sophomore year I
failed, junior year I think it was junior year, I failed one
year and then got sick.
I: yeah
P:so thats when it kind of, from then on high school
hasnt been easy at all
I: hasnt anymore
P: yeah
I: um
P:but he asked that question, and I said it would be a
relief, so then we had a break and I talked to Miss
[Counselor]. And she was like, well, um, she told me I
was saying basically what I wanted, indirectly,
I:yeah
P: um, and she asked what I wanted, and then what I
think other people wanted for me, and what I think,
they, thats the same thing, she asked me
I: sort of like, your goals, and then other peoples goals
for you?
373

P: yeah and then what I think their goals are for me,
I: yeah
P: which is even more confusing
I:which is whole other level yeah
P:yeah, but actually like, how ready are you to get your
GED? and I was like, 99% sure
I:yeah
P: and the one percent was because I dont know how it
was gonna effect other people ,
I:yeah
P:so, she, it it was like, the only reason I didnt want to
do it was cause um, only reason I didnt wanna say Im
gonna try to do Hurtfew Abbey was cause Im not
gonna, if I was really gonna put effort into Hurtfew
Abbey, I would try.
I:yeah
P: but I dont wanna, thats wasting peoples time at
that point
I: you dont wanna try to do it if you know youre not
going to putting 100% effort into it
P: yeah its not worth it.
I:right
374

P:cause its wasting peoples time and my time

I: yeah I can see that.
P: um
I: um, [Counselor] kind of mentioned briefly that
conversation,
P: mmhmm
I: um, and I think the messageshe told me she told you,
which is what I would have told you, which is like you
have to look out for [points at self] right.
P: yeah
I: number one
P: yeah
I: which sounds callous but its not
P: no
I: cause its takin care of yourself first
P: but its yeah..and again Im not living my life
[inaudible] parents, I will help them, but at the end,
when Im fifty, they might not be around, so what, if I
make a life for, is based on what they want and theyre
not here, or they go off and move to some other place
and Im not there, like its, I dont know

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I: someone might push back against the idea that the

decisions you make when youre 17 or 18 is gonna
affect you when
P:yes
I: youre fifty
P: yes
I: but
P: yeah
I: uh, I mean, this isnt a therapeutic conversation, this
isnt counselor, or this isnt even teacher mentoring
student anymore, but I do want you to know, cause Im
guessing you see the GED option, well, why dont you
tell me how you see the GED option as compared to
what your original plan had been.
P: my original plan was to get high school degree and be
done
I: yeah
P: GED, I dont, I mean, people think itsI dont see it
as anything, like, get it just like taking a test, its like an
off brand shoe, it does the same thing.
I: it does the same thing!
P: its just not the best,

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I: yeah
P: cause high school degrees are more valuable than, a
GED but if youre going to [Local Community College],
which I am, it doesnt matter
I: it doesnt matter
P: its how you get there
I: and thats what I wanted to ask, er, I wanted to say
that but I wanted to lead you to it, I mean, Ive had
students, you know, who have done GED before and
theyve been pretty successful, they go to [Local
Community College] and they find that that
environment works for them, and you might, I hope you
find the same
P: well I had planned on doing [Local Community
College] whether or not I graduated from high school or
not, its not like that wasnt already in the works, I have
a
I: it almost sounds like high school was in the way of
you accomplishing your goals, rather than
P: yeah so, and I found, now theres issue with the [GED
PROGRAM] program because, my mom says I dont
have to be, or I can do it through [PUBLIC SCHOOL
SYSTEM] and my LEA is saying that I have to, cause Im
18 I cant, so she messaged me, she emailed me, I, the
reason I didnt get your email is I was in group,
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I: yeah,
P: she e-mailed me in group and said, call me ASAP so
I go, well I cant, so and youre probably home, so just email well Ill call you tomorrow, cause I dont wanna email her, I dont, well my mom e-mailed her, saying like,
well this is, I found out I could, she could do it cause
shes 18, and so thats a switch
I: yeah it gets murky, Ive heard both, from different
people, I honestly have no answer for you there I have
heard both versions of it. Um so what about after [Local
Community College], what are you thinking?
P: I dont know. I know that I can, like, after [Local
Community College] or after college? [Local Community
College] can be college
I: [Local Community College] can be college, [Local
Community College] can also be a stepping stone
P: transfer
I: right, so is your plan to use it as a stepping stone?
P: yeah
I: and if so, what after that?
P: Transferring to any school that will take me at that
point

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I: well theres guaranteed admissions so you might get

your pick
P: well yes, yes. Um, but I need to pick one in Virginia,
cause I dont want debt up to my ears, um.
I: what would you wanna study?
P: Uh, it changes every daynot really, I dont think
about it every day, thats a lie. Um, music kind of, but
the business of it all? But then I think about business
and that makes my head hurt, and then I think about
counseling and that makes my head hurt. So I just, I
need to find what I wanna do but
I: when you, s-, what do you, can you clarify what you
mean by makes my head hurt?
P:cause I can bear, well, for,
I: I guess Im asking is that like,
P: counseling
I: an idiom for it becomes overwhelming, or is it like a
literal headache,
P:well I always have headaches
I:thats why Im asking
P:its just, its overwhelming, cause Im like, I think
about, well, I cant, well, for, like, so counseling, I can

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barely handle myself. Granted, when Im older, things

change, but at the same time I dont
I: do you see yourself as, how do you see yourself when
youre like, I dont know, 25,
P: I dont know
I: in relation to your mental health and your functioning
and your
P: better, but not amazing at the same, I dont know I
feel like I have to figure it out because I mean hopefully
Im getting it all out of the way now, which I doubt,
that[s not how it works, I know thats not how it works
I: sometimes
P: I, Ive like, gained so much knowledge from being in
therapy now
I: mhmm
P: that some people dont even know until theyre like
25 or whatever
I: or older
P:yeah, or ever,
I:yeah
P: so Im ahead of the curve in that way, but I don t
know if I wanna be a counselor in the sense of like, I
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have to,. I do that already with my friends.

[responding to my look.] yep, so thats a thing.
I: yeah
P: yeah thats not great, so I dont know if I wanna do
that. And theres always like, music therapy, but if I do
music, I wanna be, do something manageable, where I
impact peoples lives, but at the same time, if I screw up
I dont screw up their lives. Because if Im a music
therapist and something happens and I give them the
wrong like, whatever, then that happens, so thats not
great. But if its like, I messed up and I dont get like a
form in and
I: youve spent some time in therapy, as weve
discussed
P: yes
I: have you ever had had one therapy session go so
badly that it screws up your entire life?
P: no, but when I
I: does that even seem possible?
P: Yes, it does. I feel like if you in not a great state and
somebody says something to you and youre like, okay
great, that can ruin your life or ruin your like,
relationship with that person, depending on where you
are mentally. If youre really in an unstable place and
they say something thats just, and youre very
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irrational at the time Im not saying its very likely, its

probably a one in something chance but at the same
time, everything is a possibility
I: yeah. Um, can we talk a little bit about I had some
notes I just made down about ideas of things I wanted
to talk with you about. Im not questions per se, just
some ideas, and at the time, when I first started
thinking about this case I wanted to understand like,
your mornings. Like you wake up, and some days you
can make it in and some days you cant. and um, I
wanna sort of walk through a little bit of like, what that
difference is like in your mind. Cause I just know
whether you show up to third period, you know?
P: yeah
I: second..whatever.
P: do you wanna know more physical or mental or
both? cause theyre a lot of different
I: theyre a lot of different, but I think youve told me in
the past that you think theyre also connected.
P: yeah so if I wake up, its usually more so like, if Im
sad, my physical symptoms will happen, versus if my
physical symptoms are bad, Ill event-, Ill just feel
shitty. I wont be like, depressed and sad Ill just, like
I: youll just feel shitty.

382

P: um, if its something like, Ill wake up in the morning

and Im depressed, Ill immediately have a headache,
and Ill just be like, my head hurts and Im sad, so Im
just not gonna try.
I: so
P: So Ill get like, woken up, cause Ill sleep through my
alarm,
I: a just physical day, youre gonna fight through it as
best you can
P: yeah and that might be a day where I come home
early
I: or go home early
P: but
I: but thats good insight. And a day where its mental
health, and the physical follows from that, its just not
happening
P: its just like things piling on
I: yeah
P: and from, cause you know how physical symptoms,
er, even, mental symptoms can transfer into physical
symptoms
I: somatic yeah

383

P: so thats what usually happens, and I get like, or I

stood up feeling emotionally crappy, and then Ill get
like a headache, and Ill get nauseated, and then Ill feel
shaky, and then like all these symptoms will pile on,
versus, I wake up with a headache, I take an Alleve and
Im fine. Not fine, but I can manage. I can like, I can
push through and I can do things that I know would help
somewhat, and granted I might have to come home
that day, but I still would have done things I know to do
when I have a headache, versus when I have an
emotional day and my head hurts I dont even bother
trying to leave.
I: so would you say the last two weeks have been
mostly emotional?
P:well the last, okay the first week, I was like, should I
go? Then I got an e-mail from LEA saying itd be great if
you could because you could keep your placement if
you could go a couple times, I tried. Okay I was like, Im
gonna go and then I wake up the next morning, like,
nope! its been more so emotional than anything. It
hasnt been had some days where its been rainy
where its just not, cause we had a whole week where
it was raining, but
I: and weather is a thing
P: yeah definitely, but its usually, but the last three
weeks were purely emotional in a sense, like, I did not
have any inclination of going.
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I: I guess my next question about that is like, how much

is family stuff been impacting your ability to function
P: well its like, my mom made a good point, we talked
about where I wanted to do and what I wanted to do
with the IEP meeting, and Ive been out a lot, like
leaving the housetheyre aware of it, they know, its
not like Im sneaking outbut um, and the
I: taking space kind of?
P: [nodding] pushing them away. And avoiding them.
And my mom, my dad said something...my dad doesnt
have very good emotional talktalker person, he
doesnt talk through emotions very well. And he was
just like, I feel like youre pushing me away and doing it
on purpose and my mom goes, She is, but not
because we did anything, more so because-- yes my
bracelet says FUCK OFF, Im sorry
I: Sorry I just noticed that right now [laughter]
P: I dont wear it to school, so thats good!
I: Im beyond caring at this point!
P: No, I know! Im like Im not, not at school,
I: anyway, your mom responded about your dad.
P: um, she was just saying that she feels like the whole
school issue has been such a looming cloud, that
instead of talking about it I just avoid it, and avoid them,
385

because theyre kind of like you need to figure out

this so Im by avoiding that, I am avoiding that
conversation, but also avoiding like, spending time with
them, and all of that, and so thats been a thing, after
my grandma died, and that was a thing, cause its hard
to hard to think about that cause everythings been
happening.
I: I know, I wish I know this is futile, but I wish you
could have been around so we could have expressed
more support or I dont know,
P: yeah
I: I just felt really sorry for you.
P: Yeah, it was a relief for my mom, especially cause
something she said, shes like, I can actually miss her
now cause she was just taking care of her like, the last
there weeks she was just dying. Um, I mean, I found out
when I was alone at the house, so that wasnt great.
Yeah I know, um, and it was just weird cause, she is,
she was my last grandma or grandparent, I lied.
I: oh
P: cause my, all my other ones died before I was ten,
and my aunt. So I dont really know death very well, I
mean, Im aware of it, I know what happens,
I: but youve never really processed it as an adult

386

P: yeah, Ive processed loss, but like theyre still there,

theyre just not in my life anymore, but its not like, the
same. Its strange, to think about, never gonna see that
person again. But, um, that was a thing.
I: so kind of pushing family away
P: mmhm
I: and avoiding confrontation about
P: school or anything,
I: I guess what I kind of noticed was interesting you kind
of said that your dad doesnt discuss emotionally
charged things very well, and this school thing has been
so emotionally charged, and you havent
P: talked about it
I: sought out a discussion about it either, how does your
family deal with? Is it the whole family that does it? Or
is it just, Dad and I have this thing in common and mom
and brother dont?
P: uh, it depends. Well, the thing is, I was like, well, you
dont do this with my brother, but my brothers six
years older than I am and he wasnt sick ever, he didnt
need my parents support in that way, he would go out
and do whatever the hell and um when I got sick my
dad took over, cause hes an education person; he
knows a lot about it.

387

I: mmhmm
P: and my mom her job is the most, substantial at the
moment, it brings homeshes the money maker of the
family.
I: sure
P: and she feels that responsibility so she doesnt, shes
not at home as often. Um, so since my dad was a
teacher, did homebound, he was home. And so when I
was home when I was sick, he would try to help me, and
the before I went to [Treatment Facility} he would teach
me, I would, we would get in these screaming matches
cause like, getting taught by your parent isnt the best.
Getting helped by your parent with homework or a
project
I: is one thing
P: just getting taught by them every day is just
I: what do you do when you dont turn in your
homework to dad? Like?
P: yeah, you just like dont go out of your room, you
just I mean its just so then I went to [Treatment
Facility] and then they told us, you know I was thankful,
for him to just, back off on the education front, which
was hard for him. cause hes taken on me failing a
grade as his fault, which isnt, and no matter how many

388

times I tell him that, and I should reassure him that, its
just not
I: is it a fault kind of thing?
P: its not! Its I mean if its anybodys, I could say it
was my bodys fault, but even then that doesnt make
any sense.
I: Right, I just wanna make sure you werent blaming
yourself.
P: no
I: but thats like, me as a therapist more than me as an
interviewer so lets
P: yeah. But, thats, its always been a thing, its always
been like a, for him and I a power, not a power struggle
kind of cause I would try to push him away from, or
even like last year, I wouldnt really tell him what was
going on in school, I wouldnt tell him if I had something
I thought was interesting or if I had a question with it,
but other than that I kinda kept him out, cause you
dont really tell your parents a whole lot about your
schoolwork, or say, I did this in math, I did this you
dont really go through that every day with your parent.
I think thats what he was looking for, and I wasnt
doing that.
I: a way to connect maybe, some common ground?

389

P: well yeah, and he just feels bad and guilty for you
know me not passing, and again its not his fault
I: and then that manifests how?
P: into this? Into just feeling, all this fuel, and hes, he
was really quiet at the meeting, and I told Ms.
[Counselor] this and when hes quiet, its not good,
cause its like the quiet before the storm.
I: yeah
P: so he says hes okay with it and he says hes on board
with it, but at the same time theres some disconnect.
That piece, there Im not really in tune to my parents,
I can tell when something is wrong, hes just kind of
checked out, like hes here, hes functioning, hes doing
everything he needs to be doing, but education-wise,
hes just like, I donttheres nothing more to do. So
thats how he feels.
I: do you feel like hes giving up a little bit?
P: yes, but not in the giving up, like, I know I cant do
anything more like, I dont see a point in doing you
know how theres like?
I: its the DBT sort of giving up, where its like radical
acceptance
P: yeah
I: versus, like,
390

P: well
I: I guess the reason I use the words giving up is its
something you kind of said in a note to me a while ago
and it made me think about that.
P: I dont know if hes doing the radical , I feel like its
the opposite, I feel like hes not saying, this happened,
I cant do anything else to, you know, this has, this is
now and well see what happens. For me, what Im
getting off of him is theres nothing more to do so why
try? And thats what Im, cause if it was, this is what the
situations is, why not deal with it when it happens? Deal
with things as they come? Like my mom was the one
who, and this is, this is what clicked, the email today,
the one about the [GED PROGRAM] program, my dad
wasnt the one who e-mailed her, my dad wasnt the
one to call her out on it, my mom was. And that doesnt
happen ever
I: its very weird for him not to be the first, fighting?
Yeah?
P: so thats what Ive noticed, and I go, okay so Im, as
like, as this case, do I ask what I do to fix it? And at the
same time, I know that I really cant. its really up to
him.
I: well you cant fix his,
P: mm

391

I: his perspectives, and thats certainly true, and thats

exactly the acceptance that were talking about. Um. I
guess my next question was, um, well I have a bunch
more
P: thats okay
I: do you think that once you start at [Local Community
College] that that might re-energize or re-engage the
family, like, once you demonstrate to some extent that
you are invested, cause we know you are, in your
future, but you know
P: I havent shown anything to, in the past month I
havent
I: yeah its justbeing able to say this school isnt
working for me but I have another plan isnt the same
as saying Im not going to do anythingbut it looks the
same from the outside.
P: yeah. Mmmhm.
I: so I guess Im curious about, and I dont know if Im
asking you to speculate or what.
P: I know, I feel like, Im gonna need help with this,
cause I dont know how the IEP transfers and I gotta talk
to the disability people
I: thats exactly what you gotta do

392

P: yeah um. I dont know, I dont know if its gonna be

good or gonna give me more independence till the
point where Im not even home that muchmy dad also
says that, too, he says like, well, now that youre home
all the time sometimes that doesnt make sense
when Im home, Im in my room, Im not out.
I: yeah, youre not in the common spaces
P: Im not like, talking to him. Not really doing anything,
its, the only reason my mom talks to me is because
shell sit in my room and like just wont go away.
I: yeah until you have to
P: and my dad isnt like that, hes not that type of
person. So Ive been trying to have dinners with them
more often but at the same time I just I feel like, its
were always talking about issues, and school.
I: so you dont have regular family conversations,
P: no
I: and that means every time youre with your family
P: its something, its an issue, so thats why I dont, Im
not with them,
I: right
P: so thats like when [Local Community College]
happened yeah
393

I: its a feedback loop then

P: it just continues happening
I: yeah
P: but like I dont know, first thing I think I just need to
get, just get the GED done, and then do [Local
Community College], so thats first, so like after [Local
Community College], during [Local Community College],
I dont know, I think, Itll be more interesting cause Ill
classes, I mean I have to take, but also ones Im more I
dont know, you learn the informa-its just a lot of
information and they make you think more than just the
busywork you get in high school
I: sure, its about the content
P: yeah and so that might be a little bit different and
then I feel more like, and thats why also like I dont talk
about busywork cause theres nothing to talk about,
versus the concepts if I dont understand something Ill
ask for help or ask their opinions or something like that.
I: have you talked with any of yourIm just going
straight back into teacher mode, but have you talked
with any of your peers from last year that are at [LOCAL
COMMUNITY COLLEGE] now?
P: uhhhh, no. kind of. Not recently.
I: okay

394

P:um, there, there wasnt like a falling out, but it was

like, ImI actually dont know what happened, cause
we hung out like once and then I just, we hadnt talked
in a while, so it was a disconnect. Um.
I: well, I wanted, that was one of the things I wanted to
ask about cause, you had this really tight-knit group of
friends last year and you joined in and that cement
dried so quickly, and it made sense
P: yeah
I: Im not saying you didnt belong,
P: no yeah
I: um, and then you had that horrible underclassmen
problem where all of your friends graduated
P: and that happened every single year with me, cause I
always make friends with kids, not necessarily older, but
yeah seniors.
I: so, I was wondering if that, how big of an impact that
had on you and your functioning, and your school
P: I mean, at the time last year, it really helped; it
helped me get my social life back into a social life.
I: mmhm
P: now..
I: did it motivate you to come to school?
395

P: yes, definitely. Um, so that really helped last year,

and thats a big issue of what happened this year. And
during, even like summer school,
I:yeah summer schools different, theres no one to talk
to,
P: yeah. Um, and its notit really should be about
I: the work
P: but knowing that no, not a lot of kids were gonna be
coming in like, new kids come in all the time, but its not
like its the same, and you know, a tight-knit group of
friends, and they were um, really invested in Hurtfew
Abbey, so they were proud to be at Hurtfew Abbey and
they were like, um, and thats what they dont have this
year.
I: yeah.
P: yeah, so, thats part of it and also theyre not here,
and its just, I have my friend D, my friend N, and my
friend A, and Ive known
I: FYI Im gonna be changing all the names
P: yeah. Thats totally fine
I: yeah

396

P: like, Ive been close with two of them, but Im, theres
a person of significant, I dont know what he is, hes a
thing.
I: I got it.
P: but Im meeting new people, and its, one its harder
to meet new people in high school, two its harder to
meet people in high school when theres maybe 25, 30
kids max
I: yeah
P: s thats those are the, the difference and Im meeting
people through work, Im meeting people just through
friends Im just meeting people.
I: work?
P: yeah.
I: yes?
P: yes?
I:work?
P: is this a question?
I: yeah
P: Ive been working since the summer!
I: remind me?
397

P: the yogurt place?

I: did I know that?
P: every other teacher know knew that. Ms. [Counselor]
was like, Which one are you working at? and I go, Ill
tell you late cause its near here I dont wanna
I: is it a fro-yo place?
P: yes
I: I think I recall conversations about fro-yo.
P: yes
I: okay
P: I dont like frozen yogurt
I: its coming back
P: yes. Thats strange, so those three weeks, I was
working. There was one time I called off, because I was
too sad to get out of bed
I: and what that says is, its not your functioning, its the
P: environment, and what I was doing cause I mean,
granted, I know youve done this thing where, you get
paid to go to school, but the same time like, you dont
see it happening.
I: oh, like my thing
398

P: how how we make more than you guys or something

I: $142 per class, you make more than I do to be here.
P: yeah, but we dont see that as a student
I: naturally, its delayed gratification
P:versus, actual, see happening
I: a paycheck
P: so I was working and working and meeting people
that way. So it had a really big impact on me in the
beginning of the school, like last year coming to school,
cause I had not done any school to school, and that was
really helpful and after that kind of deteriorated I was
like, Im okay
I: mmhm
P: I mean its sad to lose a group of friends but at the
same time, wernt that close, we were close, um, but
they hadnt known me for that long
I: and they had known each other for years
P: and so its like, that was a pact, and its kinda just like
a flame, that kinda sparked
I: and then burnt out
P:yeah. And its not like we have horriwere not on
bad terms.
399

I: no!
P: when my grandma died, three of them reached out
and that was really nice. I appreciated that. Um, and so
they , so its still like if something bad happens youre
there, but at the same time, its theyre not really in my
radar, which is
I:thats fair
P: and its not like bad terms or anything, its just kind
of, it is what it is, people come and go out of your life
I: yeah. Um. I guess, the last thing I kind of wanted to
think about, and then I kind of want to let you lead the
discussion, is just what it, what your experience was like
in the classroom, on days that you were here? But
also, what school has been like for you, you know?
P: Hurtfew Abbey school or just school?
I: school and well, both really, but like, on days that you
do make it here, are there issues, that before things
started getting bad, like last April or last May, your
attendance was great, you were here all the time, um, I
wanna know about the good stuffwhen is it going
right? And what does it look like when school goes
right? Thats a better question.
P: um, having motivation to get to school. Like, granted
nobodys gonna wake up and go Im ready to go to
school, Im excited sometimes youll have days
400

I: but once you get here?

P: once I get here, what it looks like is not wanting to go
home every single class period and not wanting to just
sit and not do anything and not talk to anybody. A lot of
the time this year was just like, dont talk to me, dont
look at me, dont, like, just leave me alone! I wanted to
be in a bubble but I couldnt be. Um, and a lot of the
times when I put myself into the bubble, I still could
hear all the conversations that were happening it just
wasnt
I: you just werent
P: there werent really positive conversations either,
last year it was just so different. The environment and I
think Miss [Counselor] talked about this, every single
year a new , theres a new, kind of like
I: feel
P: to the school year
I: a new vibe, yeah
P: and this school year just kind of started off with a lot
of drama,
I: yeah?
P: so that

401

I: maybe more student drama than I think that the staff

were aware of
P: yeah theres that and the whole like,
I: [ realizing ] oh! Yeah that happened, too
P: right? See? Thats the thing, theres just a lot of
things have been happening.
I: you honestly a week after that happened I just like
P: forgot about it
I: well, because things of that nature happen, but thats
obviously a very big deal,
P: yeah
I: but to us it , and maybe this is a cognitive bias that we
kind of have, but like for us its not, its not business as
usual but its kind of business as usual
P: its not
I: for you guys, its not
P: its not! But for you guys its kind of like, okay we
handle it and then you kind of address it and move on
but for kid- for me it wasnt like, oh my god Im gonna
die, but it was like, this isnt normal!
I:yeah

402

P: cause we have lockdown, we have staff- I mean Jason

will flip a table, I mean, and those kinds of things
happen all the time, but being locked in a classroom for
thirty minutes or more its just not usual, and this
didnt help but that was the day I was trying to go home
early cause a migraine.
I: and youre really stuck here,
P: and I had, I did the protocol, and it was the only day I
did the protocol, and I never again maybe had bad
associations
I: yeah
P: but um, just, that kind of just not wanting to stay at
school, like last year that, when I was at school I was
looking forward to sitting, seeing the people in classes,
and looking forward to talking to them and looking
forward to the I guess, I mean, I liked all the teachers,
all the subjects this year, even gym, with Mr [Teacher], I
didnt mind it, didnt mind doing it, so it was a shame
that like, I couldnt get myself to do it, but at the same
time, there were significant changes to last year versus
this year that were a big, big impact
I: sapped your motivation.
P: yeah really.
I: Im out of questions and weve been talking for a
while. Um, weve been recording for 29 minutes, Im
403

gonna completely leave it up to you, if you have

questions for me, if theres anything you think I need to
know about you as a learner,
P: um
I: if you wanna, if, Im gonna give it over to you, to
decide how much more we go or what we talk about.
P: I think the interesting thing was when I stopped
going, like the last three weeks, my motivation to learn
just wasnt there. cause usually Ill ask questions or Ill
ask like, what are we doing in this class? What are we
doing in that class, cause this is the first time that never
happened, even when I was sick I still asked for work, at
like, [Base School] I asked for work. And I wouldnt, I
mean I wouldnt do it, but I still asked for it.
I: youd wanna know whats going on
P: and I think this is just like totally checked out, Im
done. I couldnt. And I dont know what it was, I think it
was just me being over what was happening and being
over high school and me being I dont know, a lot of
things been happening at once which isnt great. And
my detachment is getting worse, which is also a thing.
I: I noticed that in your conversation, it was something I
never really thought of before but it sounds like the
worse your mental health got the more you wanted to
isolate and then the more isolated you got, the less
connected you were so the less motivation there was
404

and the less motivation there was the worse your

mental health got and it all kind of spirals from there.
P: yeah, but like, my mental health has been, there are
moments when Im really, really sad, but most of the
time Im kind of detached.
I: yeah
P: and thats why Im still doing the basic life functions,
Im brushing my teeth and showeringkind of exerc, I
went out to the gym today, which is its been like a
month or something, but its still something. Im seeing
friends all the time, so you know there are basic life
functions. But I dont feel present; I told miss
[Counselor] yesterday, if you asked me about the
meeting in an hour or two, I wont remember it
happened, but if you ask me in three days, Ill reme- its
strange, its really strange, but I dont, and the thing is
I: time of processing?
P: and I also talked to my outside therapist about it like,
shes like, well you know DBTs a big thing for that,
cause you know mindfulness, and just grounding. Ive
done it, and Ive tried it, and shes, her and I have come
to this conclusion, and shes kind of just like, you know
when a kids like, I wanna do this, or Im not gonna do
this, and the adult is just like, okay fine, see what
happens you, you learn from your mistakes.
I: yeah
405

P: its kind of like that kind of relationship in the

moment, you know cause shes been seeing me for two
years
I: and so she said, fine, dont do DBT?
P: no, she, she was like, well Im like, Ive tried
grounding you know Im just and its just not, not
finding it useful, so Im not gonna try anymore. She
goes, okay. Youre not helping yourself, but okay.
I: mmhm
P: and shes like, it will help cause shes not just like
whatever, but shes like asking, um, what would help,
and Im telling her, and shes like will you do that? and
Im like, well probably not, and shes like, well its your
choice well it is, but at the same time, I feel so
detached that it doesnt feel like my choice anymore. So
its its a weird,
I: it is. Uh, I guess my last question, related to your
detachment and your feeling of sort of like, not knowing
um, you know, where to go next, or it sounds like you
know you wanna do [Local Community College] you
know you wanna do your GED, you know you wanna do
your four year after that, but you have kind of a vague
idea there. Do you think that if you had firmer goals
that would give you sort of a push?
P: I feel like if I had better goals, more set goals, they
would help, and at the same time, not doing well in high
406

school has impacted my brain a lot in the sense of how I

think about myself and how I think about how I can do
goals. So I can set goals all I want, but like logically, well
not logically.
I: I know it sounds cheesy, but like, self-esteem?
P: well definitely theres huge impact, I mean people
who dont pass a year theyre like great I failed. Its
technically true, but at the same time, you didnt really?
You know what I mean? Like its
I: you failed cause you were in the hospital; theres a
difference.
P: it is but its not. For me its not. I dont know, like
I: youre holding yourself accountable for like, what
your white blood cells were up do, like, thats
P: well, I told my mom this, I feel like Ive already failed
high school cause Ive passed my, I think already told
you this
I: yes you did
P: I passed my mark, so, Im already kind of failed high
school, like I know logically its not, rationally its not,
but um, setting goals for me, I seem, seems pointless to
me?
I: cause you missed one goal, and you dont wanna set
more goals
407

P: yeah? Yes. cause I missed one goal, a big goal, a huge

goal, and you know I dont see the point of making
other goals when I know Im gonna fail
I: but you have made other goals, short term ones,
right? GED, [GED PROGRAM], maybe?
P: I havent made them, havent gotten GED.
I: havent achieved them yet, but youre gonna.
P: Supposedly, but I was gonna get my, thats what Im
saying, that, and also I know goals change, so you can
set a goal, like Im going to get my high school degree
and that goal changes based on what and where I am.
And thats a better way to look at it, but thats not how I
look at it without thinking about it. When I thinking
about it, I go, yes, logically I know this is really what
happened. Emotionally, its just like, well you didnt do
it, so dont do it again. Dont make other goals. Dont
make other goals you can fail. causeBut I know
failings good. Eh...
I: But the difference youre expressing now is the, is the
CBT question, its not the DBT question. Its the, you
know, I recognize Im being irrational, I can separate
my rational thought from irrational thought, but can I
train myself to think the rational thought?
P: yeah and thats where it comes in that I can. Im not
going to, but I can. And that

408

I: motivation again?
P: And just not caring about myself, [inaudible] been
waiting for TMS to happen.
I: yeah! I heard a rumor about that. I really hope that
works out well for you, its kind of cutting edge, kind of
interesting.
P: yeah, no and Ill let you guys know if it wo- well
hopefully it happens, insurance has to
I: approve it
P: yeah thats the big thing, but Ive failed like four
medications so if they wanna say try another one Ill try
another one at this point, if it will help. But um, Im not
doing that for myself. And I told my dad that and he got
really surprised, like, why are you doing it then? and I
go, cause I know I can one, I can say I tried it, if it
works great, if not, fine. Two, because my parents really
want me to do it, and doesnt inconvenience me, to and
I: its easy enough for me to do it and itll make you
happy, so
P:yeah! Yeah! So its like, oh, you want me to have
dinner fine, and I wont go out. Stuff like that, its not
that much of an inconvenience and itll make them feel
better cause then well be I can be doing therapy and
theyll feel okay about that, but when its something like
medical, theyre on board, its I dont know
409

I: they trust the psychiatric more than the therapeutic

stuff
P: yeah, especially my dad, so um, thats a thing, still on
the back burner, but my dad butthere are things Im
not doing for myself anymore. Im just really, Im not
you know? Im on autopilot, but Im not doing things
like, I am brushing my teeth and showering for myself,
cause thats just uncomfortable when you dont
shower, but
I: so youre basic level self-managing
P: is on autopilot
I: but you recognize you could be higher level selfmanaging
P:yeah. I not really, Im eating one meal a day, which
isnt good.
I: no
P: no, cause Im sad, also cause my meds are all also
been a thing, cause I always usually eat two meals, but
theyd be two big meals and snacks, not great, not
meds, whatever. Its become like one big meal and a
few snacks, because cut down on caring and cut down
on just in being sad. And then Im not really sleeping,
Im just going to sleep, last night was the first night I
went to sleep around ten. Usually I go to sleep around

410

twelve or two. And on the weekends thats fine. But its

on like, Wednesday.
I: thats teenager style, thats not the worst,
developmentally.
P: no, but like, Ill be out until two.
I: oh thats a different story
P: yes. Im not up until two, Im out until two, and then I
go to sleep as soon as I get home, so thats nice. Um,
but those are things that are not normal, Im not doing
those basic things. I have a goal to be asleep, to be
inside around twelve at the same time.
I: is GED a big enough goal that its gonna motivate you
to start getting other pieces in line?
P: yes, because its the thing thats holding me back. If I
could start [Local Community College] I would. You can
technically, but its not, it gets stick there, because Im
not enrolled, technically Im enrolled
I: you need principal approval if youre
P: ah so there you go
I: if youre in high school.
P: ah.
I: well you should investigate it cause now that youre
technically dropped out
411

P: Im on homebound, they have to appro-they dont

just, well Hurtfew Abbeys out of the picture, private
days out of the picture, I get offered homebound. I can
either take it or leave, if I take it I can just let it sit there,
and then I can do [GED PROGRAM] if I was, I dont know
I: ohhh
P: but I have to figure that out, thats what I have to
figure out tomorrow
I: you know that youre eligible until youre 22 so
P: yeah, so if I wanna come back, not come back here,
but if I wanna come back to public school or whatever,
um, but yeah.
I: well lets wind it down. Im gonna turn this off.
P: okay
I: thank you
P: mmhm

412

Appendix S

1st Period Group

April 15, 2016
Fairfax, VA
Teens use of slurs / Its Okay if You Are One.

Interviewer: Uh, but it, its all going to be

anonymous, and then Im going to delete the
recording, and I will, well first Im gonna transcribe
it and Im gonna give you a fake name, then Im
gonna delete the recording. And so, my professors
will read this, a couple of my classmates will read
this, another professor in my program will read this,
and then it gets deleted forever. So anything you say
here is gonna be pretty much almost as confidential
as group usually is, except some people youve

413

never heard of will read what you say but not know
who you are, does that make sense?
Martin: Yeah I really dont care at all, even
vaguely.
I: Okay, cool. Um, lets go to the big part, then.
Um, I wanna have a conversation today and I think
that some of you are kind of already aware.
[noticing a new decoration in the room above the
whiteboard] this is nice! Of um
Martin: thats us!
I: What were having a conversation about. Which
is,
Martin: Was it Jared or was it Kyle?
Sally: It was Jared
Martin: Oh right, they both worked together on it.
[seeing what Interviewer is writing on the
whiteboard] Oh! Insults!
414

I: Well?
Martin: How wonderful. hahaha
Sally: [On noticing the specific of writing the n
word] Youre not gonna write that one out?
I: definitely not. uh
Martin: Really? You can write you can bring
yourself to write all the ones on the right, but you
cant bring yourself to write that?
I: Uh, Ill bring me in, if that helps? [writing
harelip on the board] Um, so are there any ones
Im missing? Anything that needs to be up there but
isnt?
Ms. Rebecca: So youre talking about anything
regarding like, race, or
I: Sure, race, what else?
Ms. Rebecca: um,
Sally: Gender
415

Ms. Rebecca: Gender!

Martin: did you know that round-eye is actually a
thing?
I: Gender
Martin: Theres actually an insult called round-eye
Sally: Sexuality
I: mmhmm Sexuality, definitely.
Ms. Rebecca: Even like, maybe like, social class?
Sally: yeah
I: Social class, definitely. Um, white trash I think is
more of a social class than a racial thing, I think?
Maybe Im wrong.
Sally: yeah. It depends on whos saying it.
I: It depends on whos saying it?
Sally: yeah.
Martin:You know that theres actually several
different racist terms for white people, too?
416

I: Yeah, well okay, lets put em up there.

Sally: Honky.
I: Honky, sure.
Martin: Some of the Asian people
Sally: Cracker
Martin: call us round eye
I: Okay, cracker I have heard Round Eye. I
thought that one was more tongue in cheek but
maybe Im wrong.
Martin: No thats an actual thing that real people
say.
I: sure. Um, is there anything were missing on this
list of different types, though?
Martin: Oh, oh! Some people will randomly call
you privileged, just for being white or male. Or
both.
I:What about this one?
417

Martin: Never heard of it.

Ms. Rebecca: Aspie? Never heard that one, though.
Martin: Never heard of it, in my life.
I: Its short for Aspergers
Martin: Ah!
Sally: [disapproving] mmm!
I: yeah.
Martin: Quite frankly, I would more just think of
that as a cutesy term than an insult.
Sally: yeah!
I: Ive heard it both ways. Um, so we have race, we
have gender, we have sexuality, and what would be
a fourth category that would cover some of the
things that are up there?
Martin: Social class
I: Oh yeah! Right, we said that. Im sorry.
Sally: disability.
418

I: Disability, okay.
Sally: Sorry, Kyle!
Martin: you know, some people will actually insult
you for having a high social class.
I: is that what you were gonna say? [to Kyle] can
you get your voice ready so you can um,
Ms. Rebecca: He has it right there
I: He has it right there. Um, and just for the sake of
audio recording, can we get someone to read out
loud what Kyle writes?
Martin: sure
I: And that way we can have it on tape for the
transcription. Okay?
Martin: I mean, Im pretty sure that if anyones
going to have to do that its probably Sally, since
shes closest.
Ms. Rebecca: Oh yeah , you may be right.
419

I: um,
Martin: and when transcribing this, change her
name.
I: Oh, have you ever heard this one?
Martin: Oh right!
Sally: yeah
I: that ones pretty terrible too, right?
Martin: Oh and also sand- and then the n word.
I: Yeah Ive heard that one too but I was trying to
avoid that one. Um, so whats going on with these
words?
Martin: Ive heard Ive actually heard them call
themselves that one, though. [laughter]
I: So whats going with these words?
Sally: it just describes people in a negative way.
Martin: It describes something, and while that
something on its own might not be negative, for no
420

reason at all, theyre still considered insults when

said this way. [laughter]
I: Can you elaborate on that?
Martin: So for example, calling someone the n word
Ms. Rebecca: mmhm?
Martin: Everyone takes that as an insult, but if you
look at the definition in everyones head, it just
means a black person. If you call someone a black
person its not an insult, but if you call someone the
n word it is.
Sally: It just depends on how you say it though.
I: So it sounds like what youre saying is, the things
that these represent, theres nothing wrong with any
of these things.
Martin: theres nothing wrong
I: Theres nothing wrong with being here or here or
here [pointing at the board]
421

Martin: Exactly.
I: But certain words for these groups are totally
okay, and certain words are totally not. Is that what
youre saying?
Martin: thats the way everybody sees it.
Personally, I dont even see these as insults, but
apparently everybody else does.
I: cause when you hear it, you think about what the
definition is,
Martin: yeah!
I: and the definition isnt insulting?
Martin: Exactly!
I: what do you think about that, Sally?
Martin: except maybe retard, but hey
Sally: I mean you hear people call themselves that,
so some people think its not wrong, but like, others
are really offended by it.
422

I: Can you elaborate on that?

Sally: what do you mean?
I: I thought that was a really smart comment but I
wanted to hear the rest of all the things that go with
it.
Sally: Like, some people will think that its funny to
call themselves that. And then, other people think
that its okay for them to call somebody else that.
I: like if Im a member of a group, likewell um,
would it be okay for me to call myself these things,
is that what youre saying?
Martin: yeah
Sally: yeah, some people feel that its okay to call
themselves that to kind of make fun of theirselves.
Martin: generally a lot of people do that.
I: and then some people would not think its okay.

423

Sally: no, and then other people would join it

because they think its funny or they think that
thats okay.
I: okay so if I were calling myself
Martin: or they do that as an insult
If I were calling myself this, do you guys know this
word?
Martin: harelip
I: its a, its a word for people who have my like,
facial disfigurement.
Martin:Ah
I: and its considered pretty insulting so I figured
Id throw it up there. I think it would go under not
disability, maybe, disfigurement maybe? I dont
know. Its not very common, you dont hear it very
often, but whatever. So if I were calling myself that
to put myself down um, and then youre saying that
424

people who might join in who dont fit this

category, is that what youre saying?
Sally: Yeah
Martin: yeah
Sally: cause theyll think its okay cause youre
calling yourself that so they might call you that or
somebody else that cause they think its okay.
Like, oh they call themselves that, so
I: So if a person from this group calls themselves
that, then they might send the message that its okay
for that group.
Sally: yeah
I: even if they dont mean to send that message.
Sally: Yeah
I: So, what I kind of wanted to talk about today is
exactly what Sally picked up on. Is this thing that
Ive heard before [writes: Its okay if you are
425

one]the idea that if you belong to that group, its

okay for you to do it, or maybe its not okay for
other people to do it.
Sally: mm
I: and I think that theres a lot that can be said
around this idea. And I wanna see what you guys
think. I dont wanna know what I think, I wanna
know what you guys think about this.
Martin: well, for me personally, I dont even think
that any of those things in there should even be
considered insults in the first place an thus that kind
of negates whats up in the top right corner there
because its just okay always. [laughter] cause its
just an adjective.
I: Im picking up what youre putting down, right, if
theres nothing wrong with being a person from this
group that this word describes, then when someone
426

uses that word you would just say, well, yeah, I am

from that groupso what, who cares?
Martin: Exactly
I: I get what youre saying. But some of these words
definitely have a history
Martin: They have history, yeah,
I: or they also haveyeah go ahead
Martin: Im saying its history, its in the past. We
wont be making the mistakes of discrimination
again
Sally: I mean you never know that though,
Martin: And quite frankly, if its far enough in the
past, you probably didnt even live through it, so
why are you so upset?
I: Sally, what were you saying?

427

Sally: You never know, some of that might come

back. I mean, there are things coming back all the
time. So the discrimination might come back.
I: do you have any specific examples you might
want to bring up?
Sally: like segregation, people talk about
segregation again.
Martin: Yeah, theres two groups trying to segregate
again: theres the KKK and #Blacklives matter.
I: Martin.
Martin: What? Its true! Have you seen what theyre
doing?
I: So what I think youre saying is that these
tensions are not necessarily in the past
Ms. Rebecca: mhmm
Martin: yeah.
Ms. Rebecca: thats what I think Sally is saying.
428

I: Uh, I think thats what both of you are saying?

Does Kyle have thoughts? I would love to hear your
thoughts.
Ms. Rebecca: thats what I was just telling him. I
wanna hear from him. I dont know if he has any
yet, but.
I: when hes ready. I just dont want you to hold
back.
Ms. Rebecca: mmhmm.
I: Um, the aspect of this that I wanted to bring up is,
like, youre right that a lot of these words have deep
historiesreal deep histories, but I think that this is
an interesting word, because look at this part of it
[circles the trash part of white trash] So, not
every one of these words has it so obvious as that,
right?
Martin: yeah
429

Sally: mmhmm
Martin: yeah, obvious
I: So,
Martin: In fact, Im pretty sure white trash and
retard would probably be the only thing that
would stay insults if we went my way.
I: Was retard always an insult?
Sally: No, they used to describe people with
disabilities like that.
Martin: I dont know, but as far as I remember.
Sally: and it wasnt really seen as bad, then.
I: I read one time that the words moron and
idiot were once medical terms. I dont know if
thats true, though.
Martin: Oh look, Kyles writing. We should
probably pay attention to that.

430

Ms. Rebecca: We can keep discussing and hell let

us know when hes ready.
Martin: Yeah, just knock on wood when youre
done, Kyle. [beat] anything else were gonna talk
about or are we just gonna let this awkward silence
hang.
I: I mean if you guys have things you wanna say I
wanna hear them. But if Kyles writing and Kyles
ready to put it out there.
Martin: And what he says might start a discussion.
I: It probably will
Ms. Rebecca: I have lots to say but this is not about
me.
I: [laughter] Well maybe at the end of this well ask
you for some of your thoughts.
Ms. Rebecca: Ok.

431

I: just, its , thats relevant too. I dont want to

silence anyone. Kyle says, I dont think retard is an
insult. Its the least insult on here in my opinion. I
dont think its nice to call someone that since we
dont do it anymore, but theres worse words.
Sally: Yeah, that is true.
Martin: Hmm! Unique opinion. First time Ive
heard something like that.
Sally: I still dont like that word. It just doesnt
sound like a polite thing to call somebody.
Martin: then again, I always think that the
mentioning of a mental disability, not even physical
disabilities, but mental ones, is insulting. Then
again, that might just be because my only
redeeming quality is my mental faculties. I mean,
Im not the nicest person out there, Im the exact
opposite of fit.
432

Ms. Rebecca: so..

I: Oh, heres another one I just thought of. Has
anyone heard this one before to describe someone
with physical disabilities? Like um, someone with a
leg injury, or a limp, or someone with a back injury
that cant do all the things physically that other
people can do
Martin: Yeah, Ive heard the term before but never
knew what it meant.
I: You were going to say something
Ms. Rebecca: Yeah, so I was gonna say Martin it
sounds like what youre saying for you anyway, um,
the things that might be considered insults that you
personally identify with as your strength or
something unique about you are the ones that you
feel are the most insulting. Cause you said the ones

433

that are taking about mental things that kind of

your.
Martin: yeah, thats just a personal opinion and
quite frankly if someone didnt know that about me,
I really wouldnt care.
Ms. Rebecca: But I think that makes a good point is
that, I can look on here and see maybe things that I
might not consider insults because they dont
necessarily I dont identify with them, or
um
I: so it takes a degree of awareness, not just about
I think, well, okay, we all know the gold rule,
right?
Martin: yeah
I: we wanna treat others the way that we wanna be
treated,
Ms. Rebecca: mmhmm
434

I: So I think what youre saying that there are

certain ones of these that we think that we shouldnt
saying, because thats the way that you would
wanna be treated. And I think that youre saying
there are other ones up here
Ms. Rebecca: mmhm
I: thats the same things, that are just no go zones,
but for other things, maybe not that bad? But is
the golden rule enough here then? If you have one
set of standards and you have another?
Martin: No, but I think.. people in general need to
toughen up. And I think to help with that, we should
actually start using all of those more. [laughter]
Sally: well
Martin: to the point where just, nobody cares
anymore.

435

I: like, if we, if you heard it all the time, it would

stop meaning things to you?
Martin: Yeah
I: What do you think about that Sally?
Ms. Rebecca: I was gonna say, you sound like you
had an opinion
I: yeah, I heard, I heard the beginning of a thought
over there
Sally: I dont think that thats a good idea
Martin: thats sort of what happened to me with
every insult ever in the history of man.
Sally: I mean that might start like chaos or
something, cause thats people fight all the time
over words. Like, they take them really seriously.
And I think if we start using all those it will not
end well.

436

Martin: You see I think those people, the type who

get super offended by just a word, not even
necessarily insultingly, just a word, in general, are
the type of people we shouldnt have in a society,
ever.
I: can you elaborate on that idea? Im not sure Im
picking up what youre putting down. Hold on,
Kyles chiming in. Kyle says a very simple
question, a very zen question, he says: why be
mean if we can be nice?
Sally: thank you
Martin: well, its quite simple. Its not meanness in
the first place. Sure its not specifically niceness,
but why be over sensitive if you can just be normal
and not have to bother with all that extra effort.
I: I think I. I think I get what youre saying,
which is that these things shouldnt be insults.
437

Martin: exactly.
I: right, like you shouldnt be insulted if someone
says, like something about you that is obvious.
Martin: like, that Im an Aspie,
I: so
Martin: or a honky or a round eye.
I: Where I think we run into trouble is that Im not
sure what proportion of people would share your
thought on that or what proportion of people might
have a different perspective on it. Do you know
what Im saying? Like if you were in a group of
people lets do a hypothetical. Lets say we had a
group of like 20 or 30 people who were a social
group a class, a club, a team of some kind, a
family, and they had had this conversation, and they
all kind of came to the same agreement of what you
said, which is like these words are describing things
438

that arent bad in the first place, so well just say

that using these words isnt bad. And lets say that
someone new comes into that group who doesnt
share that opinion. What happens then?
Martin: well, what is that new persons opinion?
First, the first group must ask that. And then, they
try and well. From there it depends on what the
opinion is, they could do one of many many many
things, they could try to change the opinion, they
could just kick the person out, [laughter] it really
depends.
I: Um, Sally, I want a little bit more input from you,
youve been awful quiet
Sally: I have?
I: which is unusual for you, which is why Im
worried.
Sally: Oh!
439

[laughter all around]

Sally: I dont I dont know. I mean I need a
question to answer
I: lets go back to this one. [its okay if you are
one]
Sally: I dont agree. I mean, sometimes with my
friends Ill just jokinglyjokingly say the but its
not toward somebody. Heres one
Sally: Ive been called that many times
I: its not towards someone, right?
Sally: right.
I: So would you say its okay to use some of these
words if its an in general kind of deal, instead of if
youre saying them in the direction of a person or
about a person
Sally: sometimes, yeah, it depends on the situation

440

Martin: I just noticed something. Can I borrow that

marker real quick?
I: Sure! . cause I think that were trying to find
out if and when its okay to say these words, right.
Sally: I mean, its usually never okay.
I: [In response to Martin writing religion on the
board with other categories] thats a fair point.
Martin: oh, and also we can write devil-worshipper
and black heart on the list.
I: Probably yeah, right? Or um, maybe this old
fashioned one [writes heathen on the board]
Ms. Rebecca: That is old fashioned [laughter]
Martin: Seriously, put devil-worshipper and
blackheart. Ive been called both of those before.
I: So Im hearing a couple of different things
about... the question is maybe the question is
bigger. Maybe the question is, is it ever okay? And
441

some people, Ive heard, and you guys know I did a

survey, right? And a lot of people said they agreed
with this: its okay if you are one, and it sounds
like Martin is saying its okay if a community can
decide theyre going to take the power out of those
words and just make those words meaningless.
Martin: Or just make the words meaning their actual
meaning.
I: um, and it looks like what youre saying is um,
maybe, and it looks like youre sort of, correct me if
Im wrong, tossing the ideas around, and maybe
playing with the idea, maybe its okay to say these
words sometimes as long as youre not pointing
them at a person. Do you have a thought? Kyle
says, by keeping people out of a group by if
theyre offended by certain words, well just create
more words and discrimination.
442

Sally: that is true.

Martin: Well the thing is, I dont think that there
should even be people who are offended by words.
Sally: I mean, everybody gets offended by some
word, and makes you speak up at something. And
you can say youre not offended but, you kinda are,
youre kind of bothered by it.
I: do you have a story to tell?
Martin: Ive never been offended by words, have
you been offended by words?
Sally: I mean Ive been offended by words many
times.
Martin: Really, what?
I: If you wanna tell a story, were welcome to hear
it. I mean, were interested.
Martin: Im pretty sure weve got time. Weve got
time, its
443

Sally: Usually, its, when I would get offended

when its about my weight. I mean thats something
thats kind obvious.
I: Wow. Okay
Martin: health, okay, just put that up there.
I: Im gonna put physical features, and so that
would include the one that means me, and I think
that we could probably think of a bunch that would
fit what you were talking about if we wanted to. Go
ahead, keep going.
Sally: I mean people would call me a fatass, or a
pig. And like that would offend me. But that was
like, when I was in seventh grade, but now Im
kinda like, yeah, Im a fatty, its okay. Im fluffy.
Like, Im kinda okay with it. But sometimes it just
depends on how they say it to me. Like, if its an

444

angry tone, yeah Ill get up and Ill defend myself,

but
I: so tone of voice definitely matters?
Sally: mmhmm
I: lets get that idea up here, tone matters. And I
think you said something else that I dont think you
realized how brilliant it was.
Martin: I think that needs to be in another box
there you go.
I: yeah its in another box. cause we had pig and
we had fatass, but you also said fluffy! And Ive
heard one of your other Kellar students say
huggable
[giggles]
I: and to Martins point, these two words, generally
mean the same the same group of people as these
two words. Whats the difference?
445

Sally: The fluffy and the huggable sound like, more

nice..
I: more positive?
Martin: I think the difference here youre pointing
out is intention.
Sally: yeah
Martin: if you intend to be negative, its going to
sound negative
I: so what about..
Martin: if you intend to be positive, then its going
to be positive. And I think thats actually part of
where most people get the idea that most people get
that its okay if you are one actually comes from,
because the people who are one dont mean it as an
insult.
Sally: yeah

446

Martin: In fact, sometimes they mean it as a

possible thing, so really, intention is the only part
that matters.
I: well I
Martin: Unless of course youre over sensitive, in
which case just go cry in a corner you wimp
[laughs].
I: so what if, what if we had a word, like fluffy or
huggable that went with each one of these groups.
Like Im thinking of words like queer and fag
but going alongside them would be the wordwow
this marker is terrible..
Sally: gay
I: but Gay
Martin: or Fabulous.
I: [laughs] Fabulous, okay Martin.
Sally: Well yeah, fabulous
447

Ms. Rebecca: yeah, that marker

Martin: it means that now, fabulous used to just
mean fancy, but now it does, it means that.
I: well thats the same of the worm gay, or the word
queer, or even the word faggot, those words had
other meanings in a time before, right?
Sally: yeah
I: are there other words that, maybe, Im thinking of
like heathen for example,
Martin: Genius
I: meaning, like a non-religious person
Martin: yeah, genius!
I: But some atheists will call themselves Brights
Martin: Scientistsgenerally intelligent.
I: there are plenty of so Martin youre directing a
whole of positives toward this word, and I think by

448

extension youre directing a whole long of

negatives towards religious and-Martin: generally I dont like religious people,
I: I know, but do you see where that might fit up
here, then?
Martin: yeah, I know.
I: Um, so,
Martin: But thats more of a personal thing; I just
have personal beef with super religious people.
I: So, I mean, we have just regular white folk, and
black folk, or I was told
Sally: they call themselves dark skinned
I: last year that were not black, were brown so
Ill put both up there. Are there positive ones that
go with every one of these? Is there a good side and
a bad side words
Martin: I dont think that theres.
449

I: for each different category up here?

Martin: or we could just change the meaning in
general
Sally: I mean you could call someone sassy
instead of a bitch. And like, it kind of sounds
better
I: Is is sassy a synonym for bitch?
Sally: well, yeah.
I: I call people sassy all the time I dont mean that
theyre bitches.
[general laughter]
I: I need to watch my words.
Martin: or you could just hang around people like
the group Ive described before. They dont care.
I: So where are we landing on this? So is it okay if
we use the right tone? Is it okay if we mean it a
certain way?
450

Martin: yeah, that makes sense?

I: is it more, is it okay, if we use positive words or
phrases for these groups?
Martin: I think everything in that box. Is
I: well thats really complicated, isnt it? cause you
gotta watch out for a couple of different rules
Martin: I didnt say you had to use all of them at the
same time, I mean you could use any one of those
and youll do well.
Ms. Rebecca: So youre saying, I just wanna make
sure Im understanding, so Martin youre saying, if
youre saying it in a pleasant tone, but youre still
using more the negative words, then positive
Martin: then they arent negative words
I: youre not using them negatively?
Martin: for example, [in bright tone] sup nigga?
thats not an insult, thats clearly not an insult.
451

I: thats not intended as an insult?

Sally: yeah?
I: are there people who are going to find that, going
to hear that, and think some
Martin: only if theyre hypersensitive, and
hypersensitive peoples opinions dont matter
Ms. Rebecca: I disagree strongly
I: Im gonna let you take over here
Ms. Rebecca: I strongly disagree
Martin: oh! So your opinion doesnt matter is what
youre saying [laughing]
Ms. Rebecca: well, to you, perhaps, but that very
specific word
I: educate us
Ms. Rebecca: that is a very large
Martin: unless you lived through slavery, you
shouldnt care
452

I: hold on Martin, let her talk

Ms. Rebecca: so see thats where, for, Im gonna
call myself a black folk or a brown folk, [lots of
laughter] for myself, and maybe my circle of
people, maybe people that I know that are more
educated, I guess, Ill say, its not about that word,
so I agree in that its the power of the word, but its
the history behind the word, so Martin even..
Martin: well did you live through slavery
I: okay pause-Ms. Rebecca: Okay Martin Ive let you talk the
whole time, so I would like to be able tos peak. So
for me, personally, that no, I did not live through
slavery at all
Martin: then why do you care?
I: let her finish
Ms. Rebecca: but that still has a direct impact on
453

my life now, as all of our history, I mean we dont

just exist in our current time without having the
connections of the past thats not how it is.
I: I think put another way, I think what youre
saying is that the differences and the problems
between race in this country did not suddenly poof
out of existence in 1865.
Ms. Rebecca: Right. Right, right. And so,
Martin: and what Im saying take
Ms. Rebecca: hold on, hold on, hold on
Martin: maybe they didnt poof out of existence in
1865
I: well give you a chance, well
Martin: but by now theyre dead
I: well give you a chance for rebuttal
Martin: or at least they should be.

454

I: well give you a chance for rebuttal in a second

but lets let her finish one more thought.
Ms. Rebecca: so, and um, Ive heard the
misconception out there, at least for that word, that
its okay if you are one, but even within the brown
folk, brown, black folk community
I: whatever you wanna say!
Ms. Rebecca: whatever we are! That is not the case,
to the point that feel that its okay if you are one,
and there are others , that are like, no, I dont care
who you are, thats not okay, so I think thats the
whole point of this is that, its not, you cant
categorize an entire group, based off of this one
thing, and know if its going to be okay to say that
to me or if Im gonna get really offended.
I: I have a question.
Ms. Rebecca: I have a question,
455

I: as a follow up to that,
Ms. Rebecca: yes
I: because Im not one, within the community of
black and brown folk, how do you know if the
person youre talking to is a person whos going to
think its okay if you are one or not? So if Im a
member of that community and I think it is okay if I
am one, and Im used to saying it on a fairly regular
basis, how do I know if the person Im saying to is
going to be okay with me saying it or not.
Ms. Rebecca: you you likely may not, but if you
say it you will get a reaction that will let you know.
It .. it promptly gets shut down, very quickly. So
like how Sally was saying, if somebody calls me a
pig or a fatass, Im gonna shut that down to let you
know that its not okay. So if I dont say something,
then that does give the permission like you were
456

saying at the beginning, for someone else to think

that its okay for someone else to say that word and
to use that word.
I: You said that this really bothered you when you
were younger, like, middle school era,
Sally: mmhmm
I: if someone said those things to you then, would
you always have the, would you always respond,
hey thats not okay or would you sometimes just,
like
Sally: Sometimes I would just like, hold it in,
Ms. Rebecca; mmhm
Sally: and not say anything, and then other people
are like, oh, well shes okay with that, and that
kind of made it worse
I: Okay, so like, some people have the comfort level
to shut it down
457

Ms. Rebecca: mmhm!

I: and some people dont have the comfort level to
speak out
Ms. Rebecca: right
I: So again my question comes back to, how do I
know for sure if Im hanging out with other
people with cleft lip and palate, how do I know for
sure whether its okay to be like, whats up my
harelips? how do I know whether there are going
to be some people who are super offended by that,
or other people who are going to think its a
meaningless word.
Sally: you dont.
I: I cant know?
Ms. Rebecca: mmhm

458

Martin: okay. Back to my question, though, why do

you care?
Ms. Rebecca: I just explained to you
Martin: in your particular scenario
Ms. Rebecca: for me, because of all that that I said,
I am one that
Martin: so
Ms. Rebecca: gets very, very offended, I dont care
who you are or what the color of your skin is that
says that, because there is a history that is attached
to it.
Martin: So you, so you care because history?
Ms. Rebecca: yep, absolutely.
Martin: so, but unless you lived through it, why?
Why does that matter to you?
Sally: It means cause her familys lived through it.

459

Ms. Rebecca: Right, I dont think it necessarily has

anything to do with me, pI mean, I personally
have been called that. In, especially if you go
I: In a rude way? Or in a, were hangin out/ friends
way
Ms. Rebecca: I probably have it written on my face
that I you dont call me that in a hanging out
friends way
I: so were talking only in a rude way
Ms. Rebecca: yeah, I mean, probwell, maybe
when I was younger someone might have tried to
saybut again, I shut that train down so quickly
that its, but maybe like, maybe in more southern
states where it is more okay, and you know, things
like that, yeah.
I: Oh! I never would have thought of that [writes
geography on the board}
460

Ms. Rebecca: mmhmm

Martin: you know, quite frankly, a lot of people
actually Ive heard, havent even been using that
particular one, to mean black people anymore.
Sally: yeah, white people say it to white people and
thats not okay either
Ms. Rebecca: Right, like, for me,
Martin: quite frankly, Ive been called that in both
insulting and non-insulting ways.
Sally: I mean, some
I: Yes, there is a moment in freshman year of high
school a guy used that word when talking to me,
asking if I had a geometry textbook he could
borrow, I was very confused
Sally: I mean, some people say that, thinking that it
means lazy. Like, Ive been called that,
meaning that I was lazy.
461

I: whoa. Okay, you just opened up a whole new

box. Sub meanings.
Ms. Rebecca: mmhmm
I so for the n-word, the sub meaning is lazy? What
about hmmm? Hmm, you ever heard this one?
Martin: Some people just use it as a person
I: you ever hear this word?
Sally: yeah.
I: You know who that is talking about? Usually this
is related to Latino people..
Sally: yeah
I: and do you know if theres a sub-meaning for that
word? So poor and uneducated that they have to
work for a living? Like, theyre working so hard,
that they have to get all sweaty out in the sun all day
because theyre not educated enough to have an
indoor job, or so theyre so poor that they work
462

these bad jobs. SO are there sub-meanings that go

with all of these?
Martin: I supposed there could be at least with some
of them?
I: What are we at? [student shows wristwatch] Oh
god, um, I have to go. Weve had a really good
discussion, but I have to go back to my class. Um, I
wanted to say thank you for the ideas that youve
helped me get going. Im going to take a picture of
the board, and then Im gonna shut down our
recording. And Im gonna ask that you guys not
discuss this with the other kids at school, at least for
the rest of today, just because Im doing this with
all the groups and I wanna I wanna have
everyone have a fresh start at the conversation,
okay?

463

Sally: mmhmm
Ms. Rebecca: Ill erase the board, dont worry about
it
I: yeah, Im going to get back to my class and
relieve Ms. Alice,
34:02

464

Appendix T
Second Period Group
April 15, 2016
Fairfax, VA
Its Okay if you Are One

Interviewer: Im gonna start recording now, and Im

gonna explain to you guys how the recording works. Im
gonna put this in the middle on the floor, and itll pick
up what we say. Then what happens is I spent six to
eight hours typing up everything you guys sayyes
reallyand any time a name is said, I will change that
name. So for example, last year, last October, I recorded
someone named Mary Anne. Does anyone know who

465

Mary Anne is?

Craig: No
I: Its a fake made up name, you guys have no idea who
it was that I interviewed. And Im gonna do the same for
here, Im gonna change all the proper nouns, its just
gonna pick up our discussion. Then whos gonna read
the transcript? A couple of my classmates in my team,
my professor, and maybe one or two other professors
in my program. The recording originally gets deleted
forever, then I delete the app from my [iPad] cause Ill
be done by then, and the transcript gets hidden away
on my computer and no one ever sees it again. Do we
feel like we have an ability to say and speak freely
without anyone ever finding out what it was that was
said in group?
Ben?: Can I see you delete in when youre done?
I: can you watch me delete it?
466

Ben: yeah
I: No guarantee that thatll happen any time in May,
probably around June, but yeah, you can watch me
delete it if you want to. Im fine with that. Any other
questions about that? Your parents all know, with
maybe one exception, the new starting students, um,
your parents all know that were having this discussion.
This is just a discussion about something that Ive been
curious about, some of you kind of know where this is
going, especially if you have me as a teacher. It might
make you guys uncomfortable. You guys are always
welcome to ask for breaks, just like youre always
welcome to ask for breaks, but Im gonna start by
making you guys uncomfortable.
Craig: Yay!
I: So Im gonna put some things up on the board

467

Ms. Angela: bring it on!

I: lets just do this.
Ms. Angela: can you scoot over that way a little bit, just
a little bit, so you can still see.
I: Im gonna put myself up here, Im gonna throw myself
out. Anyone see where Im going with this?
David: yep.
Craig: You werent lying.
I: Yeah. Whats going on with these words?
Craig: theyre words
Ahmed: Theyre not appropriate.
Carol: judgments.
Unknown: Theyre labels.
I: theyre labels. Did you say theyre judgments.
468

Carol: Yes.
I: what do you mean by judgments
Carol: theyre negative labels for what people are.
I: okay. What are some other ones that might need to
go up here? We thought of a lot last class. Has anyone
heard this one before?
David: yeah.
Ben: no
Craig: Yeah
Ahmed: no.
I: you can kind of imagine what it means, though.
Ahmed: yeah.
I: so what kind of categories are fitting in here?
Craig: races.
469

I: we definitely have race, what else do we have?

Phillip: Sexuality.
I: sexuality. What else is going on here?
Craig: Lifestyle? Kind of maybe?
Phillip: Facial structure
I: expand upon that?
Craig: culture?
I: Culture yeah, thats probably what you meant, yeah?
Someone else said something else?
Phillip: Body structure because the one right there?
I: Body,
Carol: your intellect, like with the retard.
I: Intellect. Is there a chance these two go together?
Maybe its not the intellect, maybe its something
bigger.

470

Ben(?): I dont know what the a one is.

I: this is a term for, uh, people with autism or Asperger
disorder. Its a short version
Carol: mental disabilities?
I: disabilities, yeah.
Ahmed: why have I heard that?
I: And I would argue, though youre free to disagree
with me, that this is also about disability, as well.
Carol: yeah.
Craig: well, it kind of like, any one kind of disability
Phillip: there is a disability called that, but people use it
in the wrong definition.
I: hold on, thats an interesting idea. Right and wrong?
Anything else that were missing? Any ones that I

471

should put on the board? These two probably go

together.
Craig: the uh, the f one? Not the
I: yeahunfortunately, yeah, youre right. And probably
we can put this up there also, unfortunately. Im not
happy about writing these words, words on the board.
Craig: I would put the full,
Phillip: the h word.
I: you want me to put the
David: yeah just put that up there.
Craig: yeah
I: Ill put it in the parenthesis cause you can go with or
without.
Craig: yeah. For some reason I just kind of feel like that

472

goes with the r one, just because, it like, its changed for
some reason. It used to be centered on one, like one
type of people, now, you just sometimes, now people
use it in casual conversations, like, oh you blank! Oh
youre such a blank!
David: I agree that people use it in a broad way. But I
still think Id tie it in with the two others.
Craig: no, no I would as well.
I: well I
Craig: Im just saying that, like, definitions just.
I: well I think if we take the two things that you just
said, what were describing is a change through time.
Craig: yeah.
I: would you agree with that also?
David: yeah

473

I: and were in the middle of that change right now. Fair

enough?
Craig: Like any of these words could change, in like, ten,
twenty years.
I: yeah. Maybe.
Phillip: the b word for a woman.
I: yeah,
Phillip: you know what I mean
I: its basically the same thing, right?
David: Same thing, yeah.
I: what about, um,
David: Cracker, honky
I: last period they told me this one
David: Yup
474

I: yeah. So, we have race, we have sexuality, we have

culture, we have bodyor disfigurement?
Ahmed: what about like, physical appearance and stuff.
I: physical appearance, sure. Yeah. Uh, has anyone
heard this one?
David: yeah.
Craig: yeah.
I: whats up?
Ben: yeah I was just raising my hand that I heard that
one.
I: youve heard that one.
Ben: Yeah
Craig: I think Ive heard it but I dont know necessarily
what it means.

475

David: its um, people will use it to describe someone

who has like,
Phillip: Like, disabilities
David: got MS or likecrippled.
Craig: Oh yeah thats what I thought like I thought it was
someone who was missing like,
David: like, in a wheelchair
Craig: or thought it was someone who was missing a
limb or some, a limb or something
I: yeah.
David: Yeah you could use that to describe like, an
amputee.
I: So, the reason were here today is cause I wanted to
address an idea. Um, that I heard a lot of ssome of you

476

guys know I put a survey out right? And some students,

not every student, but some students agreed with this.
[writes its okay if you are one. On the board]. So
were talking about when is it okay to say these words,
and a lot of students agreed with that thing I just wrote
in red: its okay if you are one. And I wanted to have a
discussion about when its okay to use these words,
when its not okay to use these words, is it okay if you
are one? Or is there a different reason its okay or not
okay? I wanted to hear what people thought about
those kinds of things? Are you raising your hand to talk
or just scratching your head?
Phillip: yeah, um, for the r word thats up there, Ive
actually met a person that has that mentally, and I they
dont take offensive if you dont mean it offensive, in an
offensive way, so like, in my family, my mom taught me
if there if they dont mind you saying it and you ask

477

them what they have and theyre explaining it to you,

its okay, but if youre just doing it just to make them
feel bad, its wrong.
I: I think there were actually two different ideas in
there. One of them is, the kind of tone, or how you say
it? And the other is, if the person who hears it is gonna
be okay with it.
Rosie: I have something to say.
Carol: if youre
I: yeah! I wanna hear what you have to say, youve been
really quiet. Sorry to cut you off, Ill call on you next, but
youve been quiet, so.
Rosie: its like its uh, Im all about race, okay, so there
race the n word, and the white stuff, I kinda get both,
get both of it, both of them.
I: wow.
478

Rosie: So to me, I think both of them are very, very

disrespectful, but I know like, like, that sounds weird,
the black side that I hang out with and stuff, some of
them call theirself the n word and they will call themself
that, they wont say like,
I: so they would agree with this, its okay to say it if you
are one.
Rosie: yeah.
I: yeah.
Rosie: And the same thing with the white people. The,
if, as long, like it all depends on who the person is.
I:mmhmm
Rosie: but sometimes they do call themselves those
names.

479

I: okay, so were kind of mixing the idea now. Youre

saying that, if theyre okay with it, theyre okay with it
because its okay if you are one. Thats a little
complicated.
Rosie: honestly it all depends.
David: well, um
I: Okay, it all depends.
Craig: its one of the more trickier situations in society
as a whole right now.
Rosie: I just think its very disrespectful to say it about
yourself.
I: You think its very disrespectful, even if you are one.
Rosie: yeah.
I: yeah. Carol you were gonna say something, then Im
gonna call on David.

480

Carol: I think nothis doesnt apply to all the words,

but if youre stating something as a fact, like he said,
just respectfully as a fact, like if youre mentally
retarded, and you say, they are mentally retarded.
I: yeah
Carol: thats not disrespectful. But
I: what would be the opposite of using it as a fact?
David: if youre trying to use it as an insult
I: like if someone has mental retardation, and were
gonna use that as our term for that thing?
Carol: maybe like a stereotype?
I: fact versus stereotype, maybe?
Carol: or just, label?
David: well if youre using it

481

Carol: insult [chuckles] but I think with the other words,

that cant always be used as like, valid labels, like,
I: right like
Carol: people, uh, people just wanna laugh and they
dont always mean it insultingly, but they arent always
aware, you know? They arent really processing the full
meaning of the word. And sometimes people will go
along with it and laugh and it will be casual, but then
occasionally there will be that person who practices not
saying it intentionally because they know that
Ben: its wrong
Carol: they know that its its not quite funny when
you really think about it.
I: lets dig into this idea of the full meaning. What is the
full meaning entail? is that a hint?
Phillip: Like, what the word actually means, like the f
482

word, actually means a cigarette, but it comes from

Europe
Rosie: and the n word doesnt mean nothing
Phillip: and the b word means female dog. What is
actually means.
I: some of them are like, shortened?
Carol: most of them are degradations.
I: degradegrading?
Carol: however you say it
I: took me a minute to get there so most of these
words were created to be insults is what youre saying?
Carol: well
David: hmm

483

Carol: they are insulting, whether they were created to

be insults or not.
I: cause I think we can say that this one wasnt created
to be an insult
David: no.
I: this one is from a term, thats just named after a guy
who discovered it and then they shortened his name.
this one is short for a medical term.
Craig: yeah.
I: Right.
Craig: is that really medical?
I: eh? It was
Craig: I gueyeah, yeah.
David: I mean, its the same, like saying heterosexual
Craig: yeah, yeah.
484

David: homosexual is not used as an insult generally.

I: but I dont know of any doctor whos gonna say like,
the patient is a 41 year old male homo like
Carol: [laughing] yeah
David: I wouldnt call it a medical term, but I would say
that thats a socially acceptable way to refer to
someone whos gay.
Craig: yes.
Carol: yeah I
I: alright hold on.
Carol: I really think it depends, um, just the persons
regard towards the other person influences the
meaning of what theyre saying.

485

I: I think that Im interested in both of the things that

David and Carol just said. David said, depending on how
you use it, it could be a term for someone whos gay.
Does gay fit with the rest of these words?
David: No. in my opinion, no.
I: do we have a genuine disagreement? Are you gonna
disagree?
Ahmed: it does fit with it a little bit, like people use it as
insults and everything, like they call people gay,
I:yeah
Ahmed; just to make a joke out of whatever, so to me
thats why I think it does.
I: but some people are gonna say gay like, gay
marriage or you know..
David: gay rights.
486

I: gay rights. And some people are gonna be, say gay
like, aw man, I took a test last period and it was so
gay. Like, those are two different things, right? Or are
they the same thing?
Rosie: different. I think theyre different.
David: same word but theyre different things.
I: so that goes back to
David: it goes back to tone and how you say it.
I: tone and how you say it, yeah. Thats interesting.
Craig: people just wanna relieve, like, anger or
frustration, and they use words that are insults, but
really they dont really sometimes use them as, the
insthe that the insult was intended for, because like,
like, for uh, the r one, if some, like, like, you meet some
guy like, oh he has a lisp, and you call him, oh youre
such a blank, but hes not really that. The people just
487

kinda look for words in their mind. Or like, you know

what, thats an insult, or thats like, or thats like
something thats like, thats not okay vocabulary-wise, I
guess, so Im gonna use that, just to express, what, how
Im feeling, like, you said, oh man that test was so gay,
that was kind of like, that test, I did not like, but they
just u-, they just find other words, for some reason.
I: whats a, whats a word that means another words
that means the same thing.
Ben: synonym
I: yeah, so when we say man that test was so gay.
Were using this whole area, to mean that test was bad.
Craig: yeah it doesnt make sense.
I: well what does that mean about this whole area.

488

David: it means that the people that are using it to

describe something bad are tying in being homosexual
with bad.
Carol: yeah its
Craig: thats a good point David.
Carol: its where, its where youre coming from. Yeah. I
think a lot of it is determined by the underlying feeling
that that person holds towards what theyre saying. Or
who theyre speaking about.
Craig: hm yeah.
Carol: if you, if you have a prejudice, then it chance,
chance is, when you say it, it will come off as insulting.
Craig: mmhm
Carol: but if you are inherently respectful, then people
might not be so offended.
489

I: could I write a red word for each one of these black

categories that wasnt? Do you know what I mean by
that? Like, gay generally, and I think we hit on not
always, but generally, oftentimes we use the word gay
to be a positive word for these. Are there positive
words that go with a lot of the rest of these?
Rosie: mmhmm
David: positive, maybe not, but theres euphemisms.
I: I mean, I I could just say white folk, right?
David: yeah
Craig: huh.
Carol: um
Phillip: or Caucasian
David: black people

490

Carol: in the, in the

David: you can say disabled, you can say mentally
challenged, I dont know what the actually politically
correct term is, but theres euphemisms for all of these.
Craig: mentally disabled.
I: ooh, euphemisms.
David: theres a way to
I: can you tell people who might not know what a
euphemism is.
David: yeah, somewhen you use a word that comes
across as less insulting to describe the same thing, so if
youre usingsaying that someone is mentally
challenged instead of retarded is what a euphemism is.
Or calling someone, saying like I donits like saying

491

crap instead of shit. Excuse my language, but thats

thats
I: I think that were having a discussion where were
just
Carol: I think over there with the words about women,
you could say feminist cause if someone is
I: Im worried with the implication that feminist and this
are synonyms,
Carol: but you could! If you think about pop stars who
wear very little clothes on stage
David: I dont know if Im
Carol: some people call them sluts
I: okay
Carol: and some people call them feminists.

492

I: Im question marking that one, but Im picking up

what youre putting down.
Carol: but also thought of a better way of saying what I
thought. I think its where youre coming from
emotionally determines the effect of what youre
saying.
I: so the emotional source of it.
Carol: yeah.
Craig: very well said.
David: right, intent. The way that you intend something.
I: has anyone had a moment where you intend to be
really nice or just make a joke and youve accidentally
crossed a line

493

Carol: yeah
I: and youre, oh god I didnt know where that line
was. like the time I made fun of Ms. Angelas hair.
Phillip: haaa! Can you repeat it?
I: Nope!
Phillip: when she took your puzzle and you got so mad
that day.
I: so Im picking up what youre putting down, right?
You wanna come at it from an intent that is positive. Is
it possible to cross the line even when youre trying to
be positive?
Ben: yeah.
David: is it possible? Yes. But its also a question of who
defines where the lines are. Itstheres a Depending on
who youre talking to and who you are there are gray
areas for them. Thatstheres no cut and dry.
494

Carol: but intent and emotional source arent exactly

the same thing. Because intent is what youre trying to
do and emotional source is how you feel about it.
I: Craig had his hand raised a second ago, I wanna call
on him.
Craig: I cant tell if this is related to the topic were
talking about right this second, but I just kind of feel like
I need to say it, like I have a friend, hes a great friend
to me, hes very, extremely nice, he uh, is very, uh,
intellectual, very funny, hes very kind of, he kind of like,
goes with the flow. But unfortunately he uses the r
word when he means that movie, like, the stupid.
I: like hell say, like, wow that movie was so retarded.
Craig: yes.
I: yeah.

495

Craig: and he says that. And now, I hear that, and since
Im coming from a different background, hes thinks
thats okay, so his, he goes to a different school, its
very more public, its very more, its not as
Phillip: confined.
Craig: [John Mosby High] is not a good school, Im
gonna sthrow it out there. Um. And doesnt have
great people. Um. So, I dont know, its not that hes not
a good person, its just that he uses that and he thinks
its okay. And I just I feel like we dont, if someone
says one of these words, unless its like,
Rosie: another persons gonna start picking up
Craig; yeah its just so tricky. I dont judge him as a
whole for saying that, but yet I still feel like its not the
right word to use. But its kind of his thing. I dont say
anything.
496

Rosie: But.
I: I heard a lot of really good ideas coming around. Um
Carol: I think thats a really great point, your
environment definitely determines.
Craig: yeah.
I: so environment is one thing, but you said pick it up
from friends? And does that mean peer pressure? I hate
using that word ca use its such a clich but like peer
pressure or peer group? Peer environment.
Craig: hes not that type of guy.
Rosie: but sometimes you do it without realizing it.
Craig: yeah.
I: Oh!
Craig: thats a good, thats a very good point.

497

I: not realizing. David whats up?

David: nothing.
I: you had your hand raised!
David: I lost it.
I: Oh, Im sorry. Um, I think these are all really
interesting ideas. Um, so one, one final thing I wanna
bring in before we go is, this idea of like, its okay and
I dont know where you guys fall on the its okay if you
are one thing, but it sounded like you guys were hitting
a consensus there. Yes, no?
Carol: I feel a little uncomfortable with that, like when I
hear black people call themselves the n word, I dont
necessarily feel like its totally okay, its like, why would
you say that about yourself? So Im not in consensus.
I: okay.

498

David: Im gonna use Im gonna use the n word

example just to try to kind of clarify my point here
cause a lot of the people I hang out with use that word
all the time to describe themselves as just happens
thats just how they act. And Im not gonna say that I
agree with its okay if you are one but what I am
gonna say is I agree with the original logic of what I
heard of, taking the power out of the word by using it.
I: yeah?
David: to take away the power of prejudice.
I: can we draw a connection between, whered it put it?
Here the power that goes with that word and the
power that goes with this word? Was this word
originally meant to be a word of insult?
David: No, not at all.
I: but power came into it.
499

David: yeah. It was used initially to describe how you

would describe how someone has a mental disability
not.
Carol: history has a lot to do with it.
I: yeah, history is right here, yeah. Craig.
Craig: uh, quick story related to the n word.
I: sure.
Craig: I was uhwatching star wars force awakens
the night of its release, and I was in New Town, uh, the
New Town film center, and uh we were in the middle of
the movie and an African American is injured in the
movie and falls down, and this is a bunch of young kids
and they allow drinks there so theyre probably not the
most sober. And someone yells out in the middle of the
movie, that n-word is dead. Just yelled it out
immediately and I felt like, it just, hearing that in
500

public and just in like in the middle of something and

some people laughed and some people were like, what
did he just say? and then he made another comment
earlier and then someone told him to shut up. But it just
I: so someone in his peer group shut down his use of
that word? Or just told him to shut up, dont talk during
movies?
Craig: no, someone, just some random guy was like, he
was sayin, he didn, he was, he didnt, I dont, I didnt
hear the second thing he said but he told him to shut
the eff up.
I: fair enough.
Craig: but that, when, just when he yelled that, and
when I was trying to like, I dont know, it just felt so, it it
made me feel, I dont , I dont know why it had such an
effect on me, cause like,

501

Rosie: I think it was wrong.

Craig: Ive heard it, I know, I mean, its wrong but Ive
heard it before, Im not like, inno, like I listen to a lot o,
um, Im gonna be, I listen to a lot of gangster rap. Im
not, its not like a new word for me or anything. Its..
just hearing that in public and hearing people laugh
about it, it just didnt feel right.
Rosie: its also wrong because
I: hearing it on a rap cd versus hearing it in real life,
where its actually a real thing, is a very different
experience for you.
Craig: Yeah. Yeah.
David: Im gonna talk on to that real quick. For me, it
people use this justification all the time, Im not trying
to use this justification, Im just trying to say it makes
sense to me, when I hear, tying it back into to tone,
502

when Im hanging out with my black friends, they say it

every other word. They end it with an a. Thats their
justification for it. Theyre not using the hard r, is their
justification for it.
I: yeah. Yeah.
David: And I have to say, though, it hits the ear a certain
way when you hear somebody say it like theyre trying
to say whats up dude and they say whats up with the
n-word, it soundsit hits the ear different than if you
hear someone who you feel is genuinely racist and is
calling someone that just for the sake of
Craig: I didnt think it was racist, it just, I in, it felt like, it
felt I felt it was just like an uncomfortable thing
Rosie; there is a big difference
Craig: in public
Rosie: with the a
503

David: yup
Rosie: and the er.
I: you think so too?
Rosie: I know so, its a big difference.
Huge difference.
I: um. Fair enough, tell me more.
Rosie: Like he said with the a, thats what he said
thats basically saying buddy, like, whats up, with the
er, I find it more with in older white people say it with
the er. If a younger white person said it with the a,
how would that go down?
Rosie: just saying buddy.
David: it it depends on the crowd.

504

I: it depends on the crowd?

David: it depends on the crowd. Ive met some black
people that are totally okay with it, dont give a shit
who says it.
I: yeah.
David: Ive met, Im sorry, Ive met some people who
would hear a white person say it and theyll, theyll steel
them right there.
I: yeah.
David: cause theyre not tolerating that.
I: So how do you know if the person that youre talking
to is gonna give a shit? Whether you say it.
David: if youre cool with them.
Ahmed: this is the mo, the most thing depends on. If
youre like, if youve known em for a while and you
505

know how they are, and how they react to things, then
thats not okay, then thats kind of okay in that kind of
crowd, but if you just meet the person, and you just say
that, then theyre gonna think youre some type of way
cause they dont know you and theyve just met you
and youre already saying that.
I: So you know them well enough to know that theyre
okay with it.
Ahmed: yeah.
David: its also background too, like where youre from.
Like where I grow up for most of that, that was used all
the time.
Rosie: Mhmm
I: I lost geography. Geography was over here
somewhere.

506

David: well, background kind of ties into that. But you

had
I: Yeah, background, right? Phillip?
Phillip: where I come from, like, the n word, we din,
where I was born, when I was born I grew up in a black
neighborhood, thats what everybody called it where I
come from, and I was the only white family, but I was
used to other people usin it, but they didnt mean it in
racist terms or buddies, because technically where that
word came from, it meant ignorant, lack of knowledge,
rudeness, disrespectful.
I: okay. Yeah, so sothis is an idea that Im interested
in. Sub-meanings.
Phillip: and growingmoving over here, and watching
people use it in a different way that I wasnt grew up
with and introduced, kind of made me, iffly, iffy around

507

the people Im I hang out around cause theyre

basically using it in a whole different context.
I: so for for this word, theres some things that go with
it, and one of those things is ignorant, right?
Phillip: yeah.
I: and for this word, maybe theres something that goes
with it that means like, poor?
Phillip: yeah!
I: And has anyone heard this one before? I hate writing
these on the board so much. Has anyone heard this one
before?
David: Yeah.
Craig: I was about to say youre missing uh
David: not for a while and not very often but Ive heard
that.

508

Craig: you were missing a kind of um.

I: whats the sub meaning for this word?
Craig: youre miss.. yeah I was gonna say you were
missing a racial group and so.
I: is it maybe poor or uneducated? Do you guys know
where this comes from, the idea that they work hard all
day in the sun so theyre sweaty? Well why do you work
outside in the sun, cause youre not educated or rich
enough to have an indoor job?
Craig: Also the s one. The s one. s.
I: yeah Im not gonna put that on the board.
Phillip: the Y. the y. The y word.
I: I dont even know which one youre talking about.
Phillip: yellow.

509

I: oh. Okay. Oh Im almost out of time, but I want to get

to an idea and I want to see what you guys think of this
idea, whether you agree with it or whether you think
its not really right. So some people are gonna hear it,
and theyre gonna hear the word and think of what it
refers to and maybe they dont have a problem with
what it refers to, and some people are gonna hear the
word and theyre maybe gonna hear these sub
meanings, right? So if some people are gonna hear this,
especially with the a ending, and theyre gonna think it
means buddy. And some people are gonna hear this and
maybe they think, is that person calling me this? Is that
what theyre saying? Whats up, ignorant person? What
do you guys think of that idea? Or that problem?
Ahmed: it goes back to like, how well you know,
basically, you cant just go up to someone you dont

510

know and just call them that, or any of these words,

cause
Carol: to
Ahmed: theres like, different reactions to like, different
people, some people might take it, like, not well, other
people would, really dont care, but like if you like, it
also goes back to like how you use it, too, like you could
like, have like, different tests, to doing it, you could be
like, saying this one time and then like using it again in a
different way. So it all goes back to those.
I: Carol?
Carol: yeah, like different socializations and different,
yeah, different backgrounds kind of clashing with each
other.
I: I have to go soon. Does anyone have any final
thoughts on this that they wanna share on this?
511

Anything that we didnt get to that needs to go on the

record?
Craig: Um. I know I had something.
I: Ms. Ms. Angela, youve been really quiet, is there
anything you wanna bring in? Im interested in your
opinions, too. No? Okay. Thats it?
Ahmed: wait, like, one more thing, like, all those, they
like, categorize people basically, like, for like, Hispanic
people they be like talking about like, gardening or
construction or stuff, or Asian people, so like
I: I think thats what that means, yeah.
Ahmed: so like, really like really disrespectful, though,
theyre not like, theyre actually like putting hard work
into like what theyre doing and youre just making fun
of them.

512

I: right, youre taking something thats really noble,

thats like, working hard for a living, and turning into
Ahmed: and they categorize like, everything, like the
place you live in, how you live, how your background is,
and everything like that.
I: neighborhood
Rosie: its not even then names, too, its the little
comments that they make, too.
Ahmed: like, do we try to like be all slick and stuff like,
its stupid.
I: so its not just the names, its the commentary that
goes with it, thats a good observation. I have another
hand over there, right?
David: yeah
I: go ahead.
David: Um. God, I keep losing everything Im gonna say,
513

but um, someone can make anything insulting if they

want to. If someone wants to insult you no matter what
they say theyre gonna find a way to insult you, they
dont have to use one of these words just like, someone
can use one of these words without trying to be
insulting.
I: um.
David: I feel like it goes both ways.
I: like this one,
David: yeah
I: yeah.
David: thats a word that people use to actually refer to
people that actually are Jewish but people could use
that in an insulting way at the same time, just like the n
word, or just like gay, cause that like, goes both ways.

514

I: yeah, so if youre a person whos gay positive, and you

say gay, you just mean, my friend.
David: just someone that is.
I: my friend joseph or whatever but if youre gay
negative, youre saying
Craig: that class was so gay.
I: yeah.
Craig: Um, it now it, Im gonna say it. Is Jew a technical
term? Yes,
I: yeah its just a name for the people.
Craig: like technically you could say that.
I: sure, the Jewish people.
Craig: like I mean, how do I say this? Like, people will
say this, like, on the news

515

I: yeah.
Craig: okay.
Phillip: people call me the Jew all the time. Because I am
Jewish?
I: has anyone ever heard this applied to a person who
isnt Jewish in an insulting way?
Craig: Oh yeah
Phillip: yeah
David: yup. Anyone thats ever seen an episode of South
Park has heard that used a little, too, lately.
I: wow, I didnt know that. Um.
Craig: You dont watch South Park?
I: um. No. I really have to go; Ive taken up too much of
your group time. Um, so I really wanted to thank you

516

guys again for being cool about this, for leading a really
interesting discussion, for being okay with being
recorded. I want to reiterate that your privacy is
completely protected, no ones gonna know who said
what. Im gonna give you all fake names, and Im going
to delete the original. But I wanted to say thank you for
letting me come into your group and for letting me have
this discussion, which for me is so interesting. Yeah
Craig?
Craig: can my fake name be mary sue?
I: Your fake name can be mary sue, but its gonna be
really hard for me to say a Caucasian male teenager
named Mary Sue.
Craig: yeah. No. please.
I: yeah. Ill do that for you, okay.
Ms. Angela: Alright.
517

I: alright, thank you guys.

Ms. Angela: thank you!.
32:04

518

Appendix U
Group 3
April 15, 2016
Fairfax, Virginia
Its okay if you are one.

Interviewer: Okay, well I dont want anyone to be

nervous, so the first thing Im gonna do is explain how
the recording works, so that everyone can be
comfortable with, with how this works. So what I do is, I
make a recording [Audio cuts off]. Okay, were going. So
I can call you anything you want, but Im only gonna
type that up, you arent gonna hear me say those
words. So I wanted to have a discussion, and I think you
already know what the discussion is about. And the
519

reason he knows what its about is that I e-mailed your

parents and I said were gonna have a discussion about
some of these things in group okay? And also, you
guys, most of you dont have me as a teacher, so most
of you arent aware of this, but Ive been doing a project
on this for most of this semester, and this is part of my
project. Its something Im interested in and something I
want to know more about. And the reason Im coming
here to group is cause I want your guys opinions on
things. Okay? I wanna hear what you have to say.
Ready?
Stephen: no, not really.
I: Does, anydo you have a question first?
Stephen: no.
I: you just nervous?
Stephen: Im just eating.

520

James: I have a question

I: you have a question
James: its not related to this, though.
I: do you wanna write it down so you dont forget it for
later?
James:uhhh yeah
I: okay do you have a pen?
James: No,
I: Ms. Sarah did you have a question?
Ms. Sarah: I just wanted to make sure that no one had
any other questions or things like that, that were just
clear.
I: alright.
Ms. Sarah: and everyone feels good to go.

521

I: So I also want to say that this might make people feel

uncomfortable, so if you wanna take a break, miss Ms.
Sarah or Iwell, not me, but miss Ms. Sarah can take
you for a break or we can call another staff to talk you
for a time out. I know that this might make you a little
bit uncomfortable, thats why Im getting you guys
ready for it. So Im gonna put some words up on the
board, ready? Has anyone heard this?]
Stephen: yes
I: has anyone heard this word? Or someone say this?
Has anyone heard someone say this stuff before?
Ioana: mmhmm
James: yeah
I: um, what about, maybe some other things? Like,
yeah?

522

Ioana: um, lesbian, gay, um, dang. LGB, bi, transgender,

T, and they just added Queer.
I: yeah, so queer, lets hold that thought. I want you to
raise your hand again and say that again in a few
minutes, okay? Marcus?
Marcus: punk.
I: okay, punk? What else?
James: Puff,
I: what?
James: Puff.
I: Puffwould that go here? With this group?
James: yeah. Puff.
I: puff, okay. What about some other groups, cause we
have we have sexuality, right?
Marcus: you got stupid

523

I: What?
Marcus: stupid?
I: Sure. What about, um, a word like this?
James: wait
Marcus: white trash, I heard that before
I: hats not about sexuality anymore, whats that about
now?
Marcus: racism
I: Race, okay? What do you think?
Stephen: the n word
I: yeah, the n word.
James: I heard that [unintelligible]
I: Im going to write the n word okay?

524

James: I heard that just means ignorant

I: oh, hold that thought!
Marcus: No!
I: So, some people have heard that it means something
else? Not just what people use it as, right?
James: Yeah
I: thats interesting. What do you think, Marcus?
Marcus: I heard another word. Cunt.
I: Okay, Im not gonna put that one up on the board, but
Ill put c word right here, okay? Are there any other
words that are specific to that group of people? Like
maybe this?
James: The P word.
Stephen: yeah

525

I: oh, this is
Stephen: Oh! H o E
Marcus: H-O-E I heard trailer trash.
I: Trailer trash is an interesting one.
KI: that doesnt really mean race though
Stephen: Redneck
I: or redneck
Marcus: thats not really, thats not
I: thats good thoughwere not just talking about race,
were not just talking about sexuality, now we have
gender, right?
Ioana: bi!
I: yeah that would go under sexuality, right?
Ioana: oh. Im dumb
526

I: And then what would. no youre not! and then

what would trailer trash mean? Thats not really race, is
it?
James: yeah, that could go to anyone.
I: whats that? Whats that about?
James: Trailer trash? Uh,
I: what are we talkwhats whatthats not race, thats
not gender,
Marcus: like, people dont, dont have a lot of money.
I: so, do you know the words social class?
Marcus: like poor people
Ioana: yeah, social class.
I: social class is like, rich or poor.
Ioana: yeah.
527

I: Yeah, okay. So we have some words that just refer to

people that just dont have a whole lot of money. Is
there anything were missing up here?
Ioana: Just names in general?
I: how about how about? Has anyone heard this
before?
Ioana: No, What is that word?
James: No. how do you pronounce it?
I: does anyone know what Asperger is?
Stephen: oh yeah!
James: Todd last year?
Stephen: I have that.
I: this is sometimes a word that people use in a funny
way, but its also something that sometimes people use
528

in a rude way, just like people sometimes use these in

rude ways, to refer to that. How would we
Stephen: theyre all pretty much discriminative
I: Yeah, so, its about discrimination is what youre
saying?
Stephen: yeah, its like discriminative. Its like, its, its
um, we call it um, let me [unintelligible] real quick. Its
I: does the right word start with a p?
Stephen: let me think real quick. No.
I: okay.
Stephen: I think I got it, I think I know: its um I know
the word, I just cant think of it.
I: okay, Im gonna give you a pen, you have some paper
next to you, if you think of the right word, you write it
down, okay?
529

Stephen: Okay
I: So is there anything else that goes up here?
Ioana: no
I: cause this and this dont really fit with any of these,
do they?
James: no.
Marcus: Name calling, thats what that is.
I: well, its all name calling, right? All of it is
Ioana: Whore?
James: we already have that.
I: yeah we kinda have
Ioana: yeah
I: A w / H word.

530

Ioana: oh.
I: but what Kind of name calling is this?
James: thats just
Ioana: like, dumbing someone down.
Ki: thats like, someone did something really dumb, you
call them a retard for saying it
I: Do these two have anything in common
Stephen: yes they do
I: what do they have in common?
Stephen: Theyre theyre re re um, retarded is actually
called intellectually disabled
I: disabled. Yeah, these are words for disabilities
James: my uncle has downs syndrome.

531

I: Down Syndrome, that would be a disability right? And

sometimes people with Down Syndrome get called this,
yeah, sometimes?
Stephen: I get called that.
I: youve been called that before? How did it make you
feel?
Stephen: terrible
I: terrible?
Stephen: and sad.
I: has anyone else been called a word that might fit on
the board?
James: Im Im pretty sure
Ioana: Yeah.
James: Ive gotten called everything on this board.

532

Ioana: Ive been called the n ignorant.

I: so how does it feel when you get called one of these?
Marcus: I got called the word right there.
James: it doesnt bother me much
I: this one
Marcus: no
I: This one?
Marcus: No
Marcus: that one right n
I: this one
Marcus: no
I: this one
Marcus: no, under it

533

I: this one
Marcus: no! the stupid!
I: yeah, stupid. Im gonna take stupid off the board,
though. Okay? And is punk one of these categories?
Marcus: I got called a punk.
I: yeah what is?
Marcus: I got in a fight with the punk word.
Stephen: categories, race
Marcus: I got called the n word and a punk.
I: I think Im gonna take punk off the board because I
dont think it fits with this, does it?
Ioana: no.
I: a punk is just a person whos a meanie, right?
Stephen: yeah.
534

I: what did you say?

Stephen: well, I , I mean , I was gonna say that, I didnt
see you erase, so I thought I didnt see it, so I was like
I: yeah, yeah. But that means youre thinking really hard
about it, and youre coming to the same thing, that
means youre on the right page.
Stephen: mmhm
I: okay. I m gonna take punk off I think. If anyone wants
me to put it back on, let me know.
Ms. Sarah: I just wanna clarify, Stephen, I thought what
you were saying is that you felt like punk was under the
race category
Stephen: no no
Ms. Sarah: no its not?

535

I: punk isnt used for people of a certain race?

Stephen: no no no
Ms. Sarah: Gotcha. Okay
I: Um, hmm are there other words for disabilities?
Ioana: umm
Marcus: Ive heard handicapped
I: Hold that thought Im gonna ask you again in couple
of minutes? Has anyone heard this one before?
Marcus: yeah, its a Kid that they call gimp cause he
has like a limp cause he walks like, yeah
Ioana: yeah
I: thats another Kind of disability, right?
Marcus: yeah.

536

I: yeah. And we have social class, we have things like

trailer trash we have white trash and redneck those
are race, right/ we have sexuality here, we havejust
being a woman, thats gender right?
Ioana: mmhmm
I: yeah.
Stephen: [unintelligible]
James: well I thought whore went both ways
I: you thought what?
James: I thought whore went both ways.
I: maybe it does!
Marcus: yeah cause they be like, you know a man-hoe.
I: a man hoe? Okay.
Stephen: wait um, but um, like,
537

I: thats still gender, though, its just not women.

Stephen: something that like, really like, is offensive to
my family, is redneck,
I: yeah?
Stephen: cause my great grandparents were cotton
farmers
I: Cotton farmers?
Stephen: and they called them rednecks.
I: yeah my grand, my great grandparents were cow
farmers. And I used to use this word and just thought I
was talking about my family and I never really thought
about what that word means. Has anyone used one of
these words before they thought about what it means?
Marcus: yeah.
James: uhh,
538

Marcus: yeah, you should put the b word up there

Ioana: yeah
I: Totally.
Stephen: yeah.
Ioana: It can go both ways, too.
I: You think so? Yeah? So like, when a girl gets called this
Marcus: I been called, I been called a punk be
Ioana: its more like thats what it was made for, its
what it was made for
I: this is an interesting idea, does everyone know that
this means girl and this means guy, these two symbols?
James: what does?
Ioana: yes

539

I: this means girl, this means guy

Ioana: yes
Stephen: yes.
I: So if I call a girl this, what does it mean about that
girl?
Marcus: but thats a fem
Stephen: its a female dog
Marcus: its a female dog.
I: okay, so thats where it comes from? Thats its
history?
Ioana: yeah
I: were gonna talk about history, totally. So, if I call a
girl this, what does it mean about that girl? What am I
saying about that girl? Whats the it means part?

540

Ioana: her gender?

James: I never
I: what kind of girls get called this, as opposed to other
kinds of girls?
James: um
I: is there a kind of girl? Maybe thats a wrong
[all talking at once]
Stephen: oh yeah yeah yeah I know
James: the word [unintelligible] they complain. They
complain a lot.
Stephen: like, like, strippers.
James: what. Strippers? Wow?

541

I: well maybe this has to do with, maybe these words

have to do with like, jobs?
Ms. Sarah; you were saying Marcus
Marcus: thats what I was saying about the
I: what does it mean if a guy gets called this? Has any of
the, have any of the guys been called this?
Stephen: yes
James: I have
I: what does that mean
Stephen: I have no idea but [unintelligible]
James: [laughing loudly] I dont know
I: Does it mean like, maybe theyre not masculine
enough?
James: Yes!

542

Stephen: I think
Marcus: its like a balike a sissy.
I: a sissy, thats so good. Im gonna put that up there
instead. A guy who gets called a sissy which is sissy,
wheres that from?
Marcus: you should put, you should put
I: sister, right?
Ioana: girl, yeah
Marcus: You should put the m-f word up there. I been
called that
I: I I hear you, but does it fit this category?
Ioana: yeah! Um
Stephen: kind of , because it says mother, and then f
Marcus: its like, its like
543

I: but is there, is there? These are all groups of people

right? Races are groups of people, genders are groups
of people. Is there a group of people that that m-f word
means specifically?
Stephen: no
I: No, I dont think it really fits with this.
James: I guess thatsthats just what people say when
theyre angry.
Marcus: you should put there words and thats what
you put under.
I: maybe for my next thing thats; what Ill have to
study.
Marcus: What about handicap?
I: what about handicapOh! Yeah, that would be
disability, right? Disability slash handicap

544

Marcus: they call, yeah, my uncle gets that a lot. He

paralyzed and they call him handicapped.
I:so
Marcus: and they make fun of him, so
I: so the reason Im asking this, is, and you guys didnt
take part in this part, so this might be news to you, but I
gave a survey to my students a couple of weeks ago and
the survey had a lot of questions that were kind of
about all this stuff and one of the question was, is it
okay to use these words if you are one?
James: yes
Stephen: uh
Ioana: no!
Marcus: No!
Ioana: Cause thats basically saying like

545

Stephen: Its basically going against your own self

Ioana: no, no, its also like,
Marcus: Dude did you just say yes? What the heck?!
I: hold on! Hold on! One at a time. Ioana, Im going to
call on Ioana. If were gonna have a disagreement and a
discussion, thats okay, but were gonna have a
respectful disagreement and discussion, okay? So Ioana,
you were gonna say something?
Ioana: like, thats basically saying like if someone got
mad and theyre taking their anger out on someone
else, thats basically what it is. Like, its giving them a
right to do something and effect someone else.
I: So, how it affects others?
Ioana; yeah
I: actually, I think that goes in this box. Uh, Marcus:

546

Marcus: uh, itsI think its not okay because like, you, if
you say it to someone, and they say it back to you, you
gonna be upset, so I feel like, if you gonna say it to
them, how you think they gonna feel?
I: so youre saying its not okay, because the golden
rule, right?
Marcus: yeah
I: Does everyone know the golden rule?
Ioana: whats that?
Marcus: treat people something, I forgot it.
I: treat people the way you want to be treated, right?
Marcus: yeah
I: And youre saying, Im digging deep inside into
Marcus and I know that if anyone called me any of

547

these words, I would be angry, so Im just not gonna say

that about other people, right?
Ioana: mmhm
I: Has anyone ever used these words to talk about
themselves?
Marcus: no
I: Has anyone ever been like, Im a total redneck?
group: no
I: no, okay?
James: uhhh,
I: You have your hand raised
Marcus: James you said that word
Stephen: I remember the word

548

I: whats that?
Stephen: derogatory
I: Whoa!
Ms. Sarah: Mmm!
I: good for you
James: what about clichs?
Marcus: what?
James: clichs?
I: yeah clich is definitely relevant here too, but I am
really impressed. Does everyone know the word
derogatory?
Marcus: no, what is that?
I: can you tell us?
Stephen: yeah its like, how do I say this? Its hard to
explain.
549

Marcus: The art{?}

I: Do you want me to help?
Stephen yeah
I: so certain words are derogatory when theyre words
that are used for what?
James: like, rudeness
Ioana: offensive?
Stephen: to be mean to people, racism,
I: to offend people, to be offensive, to be rude,
sometimes racism,
Ioana: on purpose
I: Sometimes races but not always, right?
Stephen: good word
Marcus: Good word Stephen

550

Stephen: my mom told me what it was.

I: So, we have a disagreement, and some people are
saying its not okay, even if yu are one
Marcus: James said yes
I: but James said yes, and were gonna respectfully let
James tell us why he thinks that is, and then if we
disagree we can respectfully disagree.
Marcus: Im gonna disagree with you
I: James what do you think?
James: Well, if if you are one, like, then, I mean, its not,
I guess its not nice, to use the word, but you cant just
like, lie about you not being one, uh, like, there could be
some other word for any of these, that youd rather be
called

551

Marcus: but that had nothing to do with you calling

somebody else something like,
I: well I was gonna talk about this idea anyway, so why
dont we take a side step, and talk about some other
words, because Ioana, when we were doing this, Ioana
said, LGBT.
Ioana: yeah, it goes on.
I: Yeah, Q I A, right? Well, A doesnt really count
Ioana: no, Q is last!
I: you never heard I? [funny voice] it goes on even
further!
Ms. Sarah: I was gonna say that theres two Qs and two
Is at this point.
Ioana: okay, lesbian gay, bi, transgender, queer, I dont
know the I
552

I: Sometimes the Q means questioning, they dont know

yet, and I can mean
Marcus: bi, I, queer?
I: Intersex, whats the other one?
Ms. Sarah: I dont remember the other I?
Marcus: wait what is it?
Ioana: Lesbian gay bi transgender, question or queer,
thats always been like kind of a thing like they dont
know exactly whats what
I: Yeah?
Ioana: and then I dont know what I is.
I:I, sometimes people use I for intersex, which is
people who have a genetic difference that makes them
a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Its not that rare,
its actually about 1% of people.

553

Ioana: thats a lot

I: So if you think about it, if you know 100 people, you
know at least one person who has that,
James: whoa
I: yeah. SO
James: Does Tom?
I: are there, is this offensive, that I wrote in red,
though?
Ioana: nooo
I: a re there not offensive terms that I can use for
groups of people
Marcus: what about tomboy,
I: Tomboy
James: Tomboy tomgirl, yeah.
554

I: Tomboys interesting, whats up with tomboy?

Marcus: Tomboy is a female who acts as a male.
I: is that meant as an insult?
Marcus: I feel like it is.
Stephen: I think it is.
James: I dont, I dont, no
Marcus: I think it is sometimes,
I: I want, I want a girls opinion on tomboy.
Marcus: I feel like its better, I feel like theres better
words to say that
Ioana: I feel like they have a right to be whatever they
want to be, and if they wanna be a tomboy, maybe they
dont feel like wearing pink all the time or bright colors
and hair-bows,

555

Marcus: Ki has been called a tomgirl

James: No I havent
Marcus: Yes you have, you told me
I: PAUSE. Yeah?
Stephen: Ioana just reminded me what I wanted to say
also after is aid the word derogatory, but um, you know
how like, when people call people gay and that stuff
I: uhhuh
Stephen: yeah, um, its not, Its really not good at all to
call people that, because I mean, there are people in
this world who are gay and they deserve to love who
they wanna love. Thats what I think
I: so if I call someone gay and mean it as an insult, what
am I saying about the people who actually are gay
Stephen: youre saying theyre nobodies.

556

Ioana: its offensive

I: Im saying that what I think about them is that its a
bad thing. Whats whats a word that means the same
as another word? Has anyone heard this in an English
class?
Stephen: Synonym
Ioana: yeah
I: yeah, so if I use the word gay like, if I say, man I took
a test last class period, Mr. _______ gave me a really
hard test
Ioana: that is so gay!
I: it was so gay! what am I saying gay as a synonym
for?
Ioana: Gay can be thats kind of hard to use cause gay
can be used for a lot of things. It can be , like, Marcus
and I keep talking about this
557

Stephen: Yeah yeah

Ioana: I keep saying gay as in happy
I: yeah, yeah?
Marcus: Like the gay flag
I: Sure or like,
Ioana: or like rainbows.
I: theres a song that people at UVA sing, where they
say, Virginia, all is bright and gay. And they mean,
everything is bright and happy in Virginia
Ioana; like, happy, yeah!
I: that song is over 100 years old before people started
using the word gay for that, but that song is now, for a
while was a problem at UVA.

558

Ioana: I could see how they could turn it into, like, gay
though
I: yeah
Ioana: Cause gay isnt happy, not everybody is happy,
theyre like oh my gosh, no
I: Stephen
Stephen: with like, you know that Christmas song,
called, I cant think of it. Where its like
I: Don we now our gay apparel, thats what youre
thinking of, right?
Stephen: yeah
I: so these often have lots of different meanings, right?
Marcus: I dont like the word, I dont like the

559

I: are there positive words that can mean, like this is

positive, right?
Marcus: Gay is positive
I: yeah, are there positive words for some of these
other groups?
Marcus: Redneck
I: is there a positive word for that?
Marcus: Hillbilly
I: what if we just said, white folks?
Marcus: no cause black peoples rednecks too
I: you think so?
Marcus: Yeah
I: So maybe I should draw a circle thats like this and
another circle thats like this?
Ioana: but theres this one time, Mr. _________, there
560

was this one time where they went to the Reston town
center and there were these uh, a group of men, a
group of dudes, sitting on the little thing, I was sitting
with Hope on, and the other dude said, hey block boy
how you doin?
Marcus: who said that? Ill kill him.
Ioana: one of the friends
James: my uncles name is black {?}
I: I like that you said, dude? Dude is that, for me thats
funny.
Ioana: what?
I: I feel like, a positive word for a guy, right?
James: Dude
Ioana: I said that?

561

James: Dude
I: you were like, these
James: Dude
I: two dudes and I thought that was funny cause it fits
our theme if its like a name for a group right, its a
name for guys,
James: bro
I: but its like a positive word for guys. Or bro. but I think
girls can be bros, I dont know about you.
Ioana: yeah we say bro
Marcus: Yeah girls are bros.
I: uh, are there positive words for women like that?
Ioana: um, chick?
I: Chick is positive?
562

Marcus: yeah
James: it can be.
Ioana: I mean, I dont know.
I: so I think that talks to the idea of history, right? These
words change over time. So,
Ioana: yeah
I: so it used to be that this word, was a word that
doctors would use, right?
Ioana: if they were trying to find a cure of some sort.
But theyre not using that offensive
I: but doctors dont use this word anymore.
Marcus: No
I: And thats funny to me because when I
Marcus: what about slow?
563

I: was growing up, this was considered like, not very

nice, but
Ioana: yeah
I: youre telling me that now, its like a positive thing,
James: yeah, guys
I: and I think thats very interesting. Whats up?
Marcus: what about slow?
I: what about slow?
James: slow the
Marcus: that could go under disableded.
I: so instead of that we use this word now.
Marcus: yup, youre slow
I: so is that word positive or is that word negative?

564

Marcus: I think its positive than retarded

I: its more positive than retarded?
Ioana: Like if someone didnt. I get that a lot, honestly,
I: It
Stephen: [unintelligible] mentally disabled like
Ioana: like, like I have a conversation I dont understand
and Im like ohhh now I understanding theyre like
youre so slow, catch up!
I: but they dont mean that youre that, do they? Do
they?
Ioana: No! I dont think they intend, I dont think they
always see that retard and slow kinda connect. I think
they think its two separate things and so thats why
they said.
I: Stephen, were you gonna say something?

565

Stephen: No, cu, like, I remember, cause like, intellect,

intellectually disabled is like, for all intellectual
disabilities, its all like, that
Marcus: eeeeeeee
Stephen: that involve like,
I: yeah! So intellectually disabled is the thing we say
now instead of thisdoctors dont say this. Right?>
they would say this.
Ioana: yeah I hear that a lot
I: and then for this, that would just be what doctors
would say for here, right? Autistic.
Marcus: Ausso what is that, ass pie?
I: Aspie?
Marcus: oh

566

I: thats sometimes, Ive heard people sometimes use it

in a nice way and Ive heard people use it in a mean
way.
Marcus: Whats aspie?
I: For for, it comes from Asperger, which is a type of
Autism. Asperger is the name of the scientist who
discovered autism, so they named it after him for a
while but they dont call it that anymore, and then
some people took his name and they shortened it to
aspie.
James: really
I: Hans Asperger, from the 1940s.
James: Todd had that.
Stephen: I have a really mild version of autism but its
really mild

567

Marcus: Whos Todd?

Ioana: I know many people
I: Lots of people at Kellar do.
Marcus: What?
I: lots of people at Kellar do
Stephen: but I think Im very fortunate that
I: Autism
Ioana: I know some
Stephen: I have a very mild version of Autism.
Ioana that you guys dont even know.
I: So it looks like for every group here we kind of have a
positive setoff words and a negative set of words. SO
when is it okay when is it okay to use any of these sets
of words, how do we determine
568

Marcus: I feel like

I: which word are okay and which words arent?
Marcus: On the black folks and white folks, you can only
say those words if youre white and black.
I: so you say, its okay if you are one?
Marcus: No. for the black folks.
James: yeah, I agree.
I: So if a white person like me said thisblack folks
you might still be offended?
Marcus: Yeah thats pretty
I: So how should we call black folks, oops, I just said it
again, how should we call this group of people?
Stephen: African Americans.
I: African American, okay.
569

James: or just, the n word

Ioana: well you dont just up and say, hey African
American how you doin?
Marcus: just say the name! How you doin sir?
I: What about this, then? What would you say instead?
Marcus: Caucasian.
I: what about European American?
Marcus: oh you cant
Ioana: oh, no, cause Im European and Im not
American so, no, I dont like that.
I: okay, so scratch that out, Caucasian American.
James: Were all black on the inside.
Stephen: what?
I: Im not sure I know what that I means.
570

James: we all have blackness in us.

Marcus: yeah
James: we all came from the Africas.
Marcus: Everybody has a set of black. Thats why I dont
understand why people dont like black people.
James: were all the same
Marcus: everybody got black inside them.
I: So, what youre saying is that there are some words
that no one uses, then there are some words that are
medium, where its okay if you are one, and there are
some words that are okay that anyone can so.
Marcus: I mean,
James: Like broooooo
I: hold on Im listening, go ahead
571

Marcus: I got a white friend, and we like, we like, been

friends since like, preschool, and he
I: yeah
Marcus: and like, he, his mo-, his dads black, but his
skin is white, and he says the word. And its not
offensive
I: he says this word? [points at the n word]
Marcus: yeah.
I: okay. And whats your reaction to that?
Marcus: I dont get offended.
I: You dont get offended
Marcus: yeah
I: Cause he has a right somehow?
Marcus: yeah cause he was raised by black people

572

I: So for you, its not only okay if you are one, but if
youre part of a community.
Marcus: yeah.
I: Okay. So Im a little confused, though can you help me
understand?
Marcus: who me?
I: yeah
Marcus: About what?
I: cause it sounded like at the beginning you were
saying that this is not right, and now it sound s like
youre saying it is right.
Marcus: The only thing Im saying is, if youre African,
and youre talking to an African person, you should be
able to say words like that.
James: What if youre mixed?
573

Marcus: Again, thats what he is. If youve got black in

you, you should be able to say that word.
Ioana: no
I: has anyone seen the movie
Marcus: I mean Im not gonna say you have to have
black in you, but you have be like a lot of black.
I: So has anyone seen the movie mean girls?
Stephen: yeah. No.
Marcus: Nope. That sounds like a girl movie.
Ioana: Yes!
I: its a, its a really
Ioana: Many times!
I: very funny movie and we should watch it sometime

574

Ioana: yes! Yes!

I: Theres a thing that happens in that movie and that
happened when I was in middle school, too, there was a
girl who came to our school from Africa, thats where
she had lived, and she was white. cause she was from
South Africa and there are a lot of white people who
live in South Africa.
James: really?
Marcus: I dont even understand that one but I can
[unintelligible]
I: So but she grew up there, right? Thats where she was
born. So was she an African American?
Ioana: no.
Stephen Yes!
Marcus: I mean she would be in the category.

575

Ioana: She would

I: But does she fit with, what most people think of the
word African American?
Stephen: no, but she deserves to be.
James: Shes not African. Thats why they have
Caucasian American.
Stephen: she deserves to be cause she is from Africa
and she came to America.
Marcus: Aint everybody [unintelligible] from Africa?
I: so there are
Ioana: question!
I: Yeah?

576

Ioana: Ive always wondered this in life. Lets say like,

for example, the mean girls, um, whats her name,
Casey?
I: Cady.
Ioana: Cady.
I: Love it.
Ioana: Cady, um, her parents were researchers and
kinda did stuff in Africa
I: Sure.
Ioana: and they had their baby there and thats what
Cady is.
I: Uhhuh
Ioana: and they came to the U.S.
I: Uhhuh.

577

Ioana so she was born there and were raised thereI

dont know.
I: So I think what youre getting at is, a really really short
way.
Marcus: Were not from Africa, so why do they call us
Africans?
James: Because were black.
I: Is this what youre saying Ioana?
Marcus: SO if thats the case, Im from Maurtus (sic) so
Ioana: yeah
Marcus: would they call
Ioana: Yeah
Marcus: me Maurtan American

578

I: Hey, would you guys all agree with what Ioana was
basically just trying to say
James: Its complicated
I: Its complicated. So are there, are any rules are there
any rules that we know for sure?
James: yeah!
I: What do we know for sure?
Stephen: wait.
James: that you
Stephen: are you sure?
Marcus: okay, I dont think that we should be called
Africans.
I: what do you think?
Stephen: well I was
579

Marcus: thats what I think

Stephen: gonna say something;
Marcus: And yall shouldnt be called Caucasian.
Stephen: about my opinion, Im gonna respectfully say
my opinion, on the n word.
I: Okay whats your opinion on it?
Stephen: Is that I think its not right for anybody to say
it.
I: Okay.
Stephen: no matter what race you are.
Ioana: I agree with that.
I: why do you think that
Stephen: because like, basically, I think that youre
pretty much like saying that about your own race. Like,
580

lets say youre white and you say it, thats

unacceptable, but same with um, if youre black or
African American whatever you call it, I dont know. I
mean. Its just not right.
Marcus: thats like greeting somebody, like for real for
real.
James: yeah it is.
Stephen but its no it..
I: thats like whating somebody
Marcus: greeting someone
James: like greeting
I: greeting someone? What you would say when saying
hi to someone?
James: yeah

581

Marcus: like what up my . ?

James: Yeah
I: But I think what hes saying is when you say that, does
there,
Stephen: youre offending your race
I: is there anything that comes with it?
Stephen: I think youre
I: lets say you have two friends, who are both
Marcus: actually, some Caucasian people dont get
offensive when you say that
James: yeah
I: so what if you have two friends who are
James: boondocks

582

I: both African American and when they great each

other, they say that word,
Marcus: what up my?
I: Sure. Does that mean that theyre saying this, though,
also? Cause doesnt this, didnt we say that this goes
along with that somehow?
Marcus; I dont, I dont, I dont know about that
James: if you use it in the right context
Marcus: if you add the -igg-, -igga
I: oh! Someone said that in my last group too, so if it
ends in an a versus if it ends in an -er?
Marcus: yeah!
James: yeah
Ioana: I dont get that
583

Marcus: I dont mess with the -er I mess with the -a.
I: So what about the history that goes with it?
Stephen: oh yeah.
I: when you hear this word do you think of the history
of that word?
Marcus: Its not, no! Because that word, the -a word
James: the -er was the one that was used the most
Marcus: is just that, yeah, thats..thats the used in race.
I: are you telling me
Marcus: thats what they call slavery.
I: alright Im gonna try o summarize what I think Im
hearing. Are you telling me that theyre two different
words?
Marcus: yes!

584

I: alright!
Marcus: They got the na and they ner
I: thatsthats kind of interesting, I dont think I knew
that before. Stephen?
Stephen: I actually know [unintelligible] I kind of do
think that the with the a at the end its it technically a
different word ;cause the er, the one with the er was
made to be short for the other one. At least back in the
day.
I: mmhm? So, heres ath
Stephen: not that its right, bu Im saying that it make it
a little
I: Were almost running out of time but I have a couple
more questions then Im gonna wrap up, okay?
Marcus: running out of time with group?
Ms. Sarah: Hmm?
585

I: well, running out of my time, I have to go back to my

class. Im supposed to be teaching government right
now. Um, so it sounds like what youre saying is, for
this, its okay if you are one, and for this, its never okay.
Marcus: yeah, cross an X on it
I: Okay so Im gonna put an x over the er but Im gonna
say that a Im gonna join it up with this bubble that
says its okay if you are one.
Marcus: no cause then what
Ioana: yeah
Marcus: with the a one, people, like, caucasian people
like, actually
I: that was my next question,
Marcus: thats fine

586

I: is if a Caucasian person said, this with the a

Marcus: what up my .? But you gotta have, it depends
however you say it.
I: yeah?
Marcus: like if you greetin em like, what up my. ?
thats fine. But if you saying what up my the er one?
Then thats a problem
James: yeah its a problem.
I: what about this? Does anyonedoes anyone know
about this?
Marcus: Im hittin the folks on
I: we talk about this in my government class.
James: UnitedNegro
Marcus: I dont know
587

I: this is an organization, that exists

Marcus: I dont like the name. I dont like negro.
I: I, so this is because of history, it was called this back
in a time when this wasnt considered rude
Marcus: I dont like that word.
I: what this does
Marcus: I dont like that word
I: Okay but listen
Ioana: I feel like negro is how everything started.
James: is it
I: but listen
Marcus [screeching]: I dont like that word!
James: is it

588

I: I know! Im uncomfortable too! Can you hang out for

a second though?
James: is it negro to the
Stephen: Im uncomfortable too cause I asked to
I: Hold on, pause, let me finish. This started out at a
time when that was okay, and what this group does is
they get money together and they give that money to
African American students who wanna go to college. So
why havent they changed their name? Im gonna erase
it now, cause Im uncomfortable, too. Why havent
they changed their name?
Ioana: cause its hist
James: cause its true I guess, I dont know.
Ioana: theyre an honest community.
I: honest? Is it honest to use that word?
589

James: they dont ever use it derogatory, Im guessing?

Ioana: its not. Its offensive. Like. Make them look like
theyre doing something right, but in a sleazy way.
Marcus: but theyretheyre helping negroes for
college?
I: what they do is they collect money and they find
African American students who cant afford it
Marcus: I feel like thats wrong. Thats wrong.
Ioana: thats so wrong.
I: its wrong for them to call it that or its wrong for
them to give ki-people money?
Marcus: its wrong for both of them
Ioana: its wrong for them to specifically give black
people money.

590

Marcus: because theyre helpIts its theyre helping,

like thats not right! Thats basically saying that black
people cant pay for their own college funds.
I: Well Im certain that there are lots of black people
who can, but maybe theyre looking for the ones who
cant.
Marcus: but still
I: so you think the whole organization what theyre
doing
Marcus: they need to change their
I: is just kind of
Stephen: I think the whole organization should be
I: like, a type of discrimination.
James: thats like the black lives matter thing

591

Marcus: it should be like, united American.

Stephen: like for anybody who cant afford college. For
anybody who cant afford college.
James: thats kind of like the black lives matter
Stephen: for anybody who cant afford college.
I: So Im gonna go ahead and say that were almost out
of time. So what Im gonna do is, Im gonna give each
person a chance to say one final thing, and then were
gonna close it down, okay?
Stephen: yes
I: so you have your hand raised, Im gonna call on you
first, this si gonna be your final thing to say, oaky?
Stephen: okay, yes. Um, its like, the the, you know the
one that you just put on the board, what its called
when, um,

592

I: uhhuh
Stephen: They, uh, see, my um, Im very offended by
that word
I: yeah?
Stephen: just because my, um. My uncle married an
African American lady.
I: so for you its part of your family.
Stephen: yeah its part of my family.
I: does anyone, Ioana do you have closing thoughts?
Ioana: Yeah I think this is really good. I think that it kind
of opens us up to thinking about what we say and how
it could be used with certain people.
I: So youre thinkyoure saying youre gonna think
more about these word when you talk in the future.
Ioana: its just helpful- I feel like more people need to
hear this.
593

I: Alright. Marcus, then James.

Marcus: I dont think none of these words should be
said.
I: None of them?
Marcus: yeah.
I: Alright.
James: I thought negro
Stephen: not even with doctors?
James: I thought negro was the Spanish word for black?
I: it is the Spanish word for black. I think thats where
that came from.
James: then hows?
I: its actually kind of funny, I used to tutor a woman in
Spanish and she used to have a problem with that word.
594

Marcus: I dont like the word I dont like the word

white trash,
I: I dont like it either.
Marcus: I got a lot of white people in my family.
I: So I think what youre saying is, we have these, this
community we live in now, and were all connected and
any one of these words we use might not mean me, but
it might be someone I love and care about.
Marcus: yup.
I: And so were just not gonna use all of them?
Marcus: mmhmm.
I: I think thats a pretty good place to end with.
Marcus: the n word, then n word
I: were completely out of time in fact.
33:34
595

596

Appendix V
Observations, group therapy 4/15 fifth period (11:4012:15am)
Due to failed recording, observations made
asynchronously at 7:40 pm

Carlos doesnt care if I use his real name. Why

do I have to maintain his privacy just because
others may want their privacy to be respected
(an early challenge to authority of facilitator?)
Words brought up by kids in this group
definitely more diverse and mature than in
other groups: chink, thot, beaner, dyke,
downie,
What is the difference when you call a girl a
bitch and when you call a boy a bitch? For girls,
it means shes a dog, a mutt, or shes
annoying. For guys, a punk, A guy you
dont. If I call a guy a bitch, am I saying hes not
masculine enough? No, youre just putting him
down.
One student actually used the term colored
but I wrote down as POC, which is what I
think he meant?
This is the only group where they had heard the
word gimp before
is it okay to say if you are one? Endorsed
loudly by Carlos and Ari
597

Later, softened to it depends on the person

Ari booted for yelling at Jazmin to cover her
mouth when coughing. Then fuck you, Mr.
McCartney Also DSTO for being too energetic
with his negativity and disrupting the
conversation.
derogatory terms.
Maybe it has to do with how you say it?
Saying its only okay if you are one isnt that
hypocritical? (Carlos) youre saying you dont
want anyone else to do it, but you can.
Maybe its okay when its satire or if youre
clearly joking? (Carlos again)
Maybe its oaky if the other person is okay with
it. Has anyone ever been called something that
might go on this board? (Ari, yeah its funny)
(Jazmin, yeah I didnt like it) Fatimah (they
called me stupid)
Did you respond when they did it? Something
to the effect of: I ignored it.
So if people ignore it even if they are hurt, how
do we know if the other person is okay when
we say it?
What if after hearing the word fag so many
times, one of your friends figures out hes gay?
Now he may not be able to come out because
he is afraid of what you will think (from Ms.
Sarah. Point did not land home, because they
misinterpreted the question to mean he turned
gay because of being called a fag)
598

599

Appendix W
Observations, group therapy 4/15 fifth period (11:4012:15am)
This set of observations written by clinical intern, who
was observing.

Boys seemed amused that they could say

bad words, kept trying to add more to list
Agreed that you could say it if you are one
Felt that if you are too sensitive about
something, that is your problem and they
can say it anyways
Disagreed that trailer trash was connected
to white trash (anyone can live in a trailer)
Felt that words were okay to use in certain
friendgroups because no one in the group
would get offended. When asked how one
of their friends would feel about coming out
to the group if they knew the group used
derogatory words for homosexuals, student
did not appear to understand the concept.
Were able to identify term derogatory
Were able to identify categories
Identified that many of the words in the
gender category mean different things for
men and women but denied that calling a
man a bitch meant that he was like a
woman.

600

Stated that they really enjoyed this activity

and thinking through these terms
Two primary contributors, girls were silent
Everyone agreed that they had been called
these names before and most agreed that
they had used the names before
When asked how they feel about being
called these names, boys said that it did not
bother them but clinician got impression
that this was not entirely true. Boys later
said that they brush it off implying that
the words are hurtful and they then need to
deflect those feelings
When discussing words related to
intellectual disability, students seemed to
feel that line between appropriate and
derogatory words was blurred (where does
stupid, slow etc fall?)

601

Appendix X
Survey Results

Question
1) I am well liked by my peers.
2) I change the kind of words I use when adults are around.
3) Its better in general if people stick to socializing with their own kind.
4) I have lost friends because of words that I have said.
5) My parents and I talk about race, gender, or sexuality.
6) I sometimes use slang words to describe different races of people neg
7) I sometimes use slang words to describe gay or straight people negat
8) I sometimes use slang words to describe men or women negatively.
9) My friends and I talk about race.
10) My friends and I talk about gender.
11) My friends and I talk about different sexualities.
12) I like to make jokes about race.
13) I like to make jokes about gender or sexuality.
14) Its okay to make jokes or talk negatively about a group of people if
belong to that group.

602

Appendix Y
Correlations between questions
Question
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14

2
0.17

3
-0.10
0.63

4
-0.53
0.48
0.50

5
0.65
-0.38
-0.60
-0.62

6
-0.38
0.03
0.12
0.12
0.27

7
0.36
-0.28
0.07
-0.34
0.44
0.63

603

8
0.53
-0.27
-0.58
-0.55
0.88
0.51
0.56

9
0.72
0.55
0.38
0.13
0.39
0.71
0.75
0.37

Appendix Z
Quotations collected from staff members prior to
groups, 3/28 4/5
(when reading the survey questions) I like to do all
these things, Im pretty sure all guys talk about
women. I like to make jokes about race. Carlos Im
pretty sure this is all stuff you do.
Thats how ghetto black girls say it, accriate.
Ive got a whole bag full of you! (beans)
girl push-ups
men dont do yoga, sweet frog!
You look like trailer trash.
Whos to blame? The Jews are!
Hitler did nothing wrong, he had the right idea!
I like watching cops harass black people.
You have cancer, faggots!

604

Appendix AA
Quotations collected from staff members post groups,
4/20
Why? Hitler was my idol!
If Ari called me the most racist thing, I wouldnt care.
(student given time out for giving Sieg Heil motion in
hallway, see appendix K)
(upon an argument about whether a yarmulke is a hat
or a covering) We dont need a Jew fight!

605