Being a critical researcher is a very tough but interesting assignment to do for the first time. It is tough when you are faced with diverse cultures, communities, and ideas. It is interesting because I have been dealing with different people and some of the struggles that they have faced as well. It takes much more than a pen and a notebook to be a critical researcher, it takes patience, determination, consistency, hard work, and an open mind. It is a lot easier to be a critical researcher if you are working in teams and if you divide the work among each other. Being a critical researcher is also fun when you are interested in the subject and when your group members feel comfortable with each other.
Because people are different they are going to have different ideas from you. If you contradict them, it will affect your outcome. It is important for a critical researcher to have an open-mind when he is dialoging with another person. It will make the research more accurate and it also helps you learn why that person thinks a certain way. Instead of telling a person that they are wrong and creating an argument, it is best for a researcher to be calm and smile when he or she is interviewing. It makes the person being questioned feel more comfortable and that is helpful to you as a critical researcher. As a critical researcher, you need to have the mentality that there is no wrong answer because people have certain ideas or opinions on different subjects. It was easy for me to be a critical researcher because I am also in high school and I also can relate to the problems that students are facing at this moment. However, a bad thing about that is that it is so tempting for me to talk about my problems at school. This can also play a role in the outcome of the analysis.
The process in which we did our critical research was very organized and simple, because of the patience that we had and the information that we were receiving from our teachers. Within our group, our process was to split ourselves into three groups of two. We had two interviewers, two facilitators, and two note takers. When we went to Santa Monica High and Jordan High we made focus groups and were dialoging with the students about some topics that they usually don’t talk about in school. In Santa Monica we divided ourselves into two groups and had one focus group. The next class we had one major group in which we were all united. In Jordan we had one big group, I think that one problem that we had was that there were some soon to be principals that were observing this focus group. A lot of the students did not want to talk. Another problem that we had, was that some students in that class were incoming ninth graders in summer school who did not know anything about high school. After we did the focus groups I gave students from other classes some surveys to fill out and they were surprised when another high school student was doing this. I think that they were surprised because they never expected that a high school student could do this.
We also went to South Gate Middle school, the ACLU, and the Salvation Army Youth Center to talk to different people. When we went to South Gate we spoke to some younger students, which was something different for us, we had to come up with different questions for the students because they were younger. Those students were talking a lot and were not shy whatsoever and that made it more interesting for us as critical researchers. When we went to the ACLU, we spoke to lawyers. They were telling us about some cases like Serena VS Easton and Williams VS California. When we went to the Salvation Army Youth Center we spoke to some really younger kids who also had a lot to say about their experience at school. Some of the kids were acting really immature but the other ones were taking advantage of us listening to their problems and were interested to know what we were going to do with this information.
My experience as a critical researcher was very interesting and also fun because of all of the activities that we had and the people who we worked with. It was also fun because it was actually the first time for me that I had a voice regarding school issues. I talked about these issues with peers who also go through these problems. We can relate to each other. This experience of being a critical researcher was so fun for me that I would look forward to going to school the next day and working because I felt I was giving back to my community. Being in this summer seminar has affected me so much because now I realize how blind I was about the issues that I’m seeing. One problem that I have is that when I go to the schools to talk to the students I see myself in them. I see that the problems they have are the same ones I’m experiencing. When we spoke to the students they used us as their hope. They took advantage of their chance to talk to people who would listen. It made me wish that I could’ve had this experience with someone.
Being a critical researcher is really a serious task that requires a lot of patience and time. It also requires that you be understanding and most of all calm. Being a critical researcher was a fun experience for me and I think that it was also like that for my peers because we worked as a team helping each other out. Something that was interesting about this seminar is that we came in not knowing each other and amazingly we learned so much about each other in five weeks. Something that was also amazing for me in this seminar was that there were so many people who were helping us. I had never experienced something like that before. This seminar has me taught a lot about inequality in California’s public schools and hopefully when I go back to my school I can make some changes there.
My Experience as a Critical Researcher
