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2004 Science Teachers' : A Way to Understand Beliefs and Practices Yalcin Yalaki

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COLLEGE OF

SCIENCE TEACHERS’ WORLDVIEWS: A WAY TO UNDERSTAND BELIEFS AND PRACTICES

BY

YALCIN YALAKI

A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Middle and Secondary Education in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of

Degree Awarded: Summer Semester, 2004 The members of the committee approve the dissertation of Yalcin Yalaki defended on April 27, 2004.

______Nancy T. Davis Professor Directing Dissertation

______Kenneth A. Goldsby Outside Committee Member

______Penny J. Gilmer Committee Member

______Karen Monkman Committee Member

Approved:

______David Foulk, Chairperson, Department of Middle and Secondary Education

______Richard Kunkel, Dean, College of Education

The Office of Graduate Studies has verified and approved the above named committee members.

ii Dedicated to Zahide

iii ACKNOWLEDGMENT

I would like to acknowledge my major professor Dr. Nancy T. Davis for her help and guidance during my dissertation study. I also would like to acknowledge the Republic of Turkey National Ministry of Education and the Office of Educational Attaché at Turkish Consulate General in New York for providing me the chance to pursue this doctoral degree and supporting me throughout my graduate studies at Florida State University.

iv TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of tables...... vii List of figures...... viii Abstract...... ix

1. INTRODUCTION...... 1

2. REVIEW OF THE RELATED LITERATURE...... 4

Introduction...... 4 Teacher Beliefs...... 4 The of ...... 9 Phil Washburn...... 10 Michael Kearney...... 13 William Cobern...... 17 Clare Graves, Don Beck, Christopher Cowan...... 19 So what is worldview? ...... 29 Theoretical perspective...... 30

3. ...... 40

Research problem and specific research questions...... 40 Research setting and methodology...... 40 Methods and analysis...... 42 criteria...... 47 Ethical issues...... 49

4. FINDINGS...... 52

Introduction...... 52 Suzan’s Case...... 52 Sara’s Case...... 83 Aylin’s Case...... 119 Brian’s Case...... 154

v 5. ANALYSIS...... 187

Introduction...... 187 Beliefs, Worldviews, Practices...... 193 Assertions about Suzan...... 193 Assertions about Sara...... 196 Assertions about Aylin...... 199 Assertions about Brian...... 201 Comparison of the four teachers...... 204 Changes In Worldviews...... 208

6. DISCUSSION...... 212

Conclusions...... 212 Implications...... 216 Suggestions For Research...... 218 What Have I Learned? ...... 218 Limitations...... 219

APPENDIX A...... 221

APPENDIX B...... 232

APPENDIX C...... 234

REFERENCES...... 237

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH...... 245

vi LIST OF TABLES

Table 1. Data collection matrix...... 47 Table 2. Participating teachers’ beliefs about the purpose of education...... 188 Table 3. Participating teachers’ beliefs about teaching and learning...... 188 Table 4. Participating teachers’ beliefs about the roles of teachers in learning...... 189 Table 5. Participating teachers’ beliefs about the roles of students in learning...... 189 Table 6. Participating teachers’ beliefs about assessment...... 190 Table 7. Participating teachers’ beliefs about science...... 191 Table 8. Participating teachers’ feelings about their jobs and school ...... 191 Table 9. Participating teachers’ worldviews based on Grave’s (1981) model...... 192

vii LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1. An example of the classification of the non-self...... 14 Figure 2. Clare Graves’ model of developmental levels in human psychology...... 20 Figure 3. Wilber’s four quadrants model...... 37 Figure 4. The chart used to interpret the Values Test results...... 43 Figure 5. The results of the Values Test that Suzan took two ...... 75 Figure 6. The results of the Values Test that Sara took two times...... 113 Figure 7. The results of the Values Test that Aylin took two times...... 148 Figure 8. The results of the Values Test that Brian took two times...... 180

viii ABSTRACT

Understanding science teachers’ beliefs is important for science teacher educators, because such understanding is a prerequisite for promoting change within the framework of educational reform. The worldview model developed by Graves (1981) and Beck and Cowan (1996) provides a holistic approach to understanding teachers’ beliefs and values and it also provides a framework for understanding how people’s worldviews change. In this study, worldviews of four science teachers were investigated within the framework of Beck and Cowan’s model. Two of these teachers were high school science teachers, while the other two were middle school science teachers. One of the teachers held National Board of Professional Teaching Certification and she had18 years of teaching experience. Another teacher was a relatively new teacher with three years of teaching experience. The third teacher had nine years of teaching experience, but when this study was conducted, it was her first year of teaching science. The other teacher had 26 years of experience with certification in all science areas. During this study, interpretative qualitative methods of data collection and analysis were used which included interviews, , and the use of a survey developed by Beck and Cowan (2000) called the Values Test. The results show that differing values and experiences among science teachers leads to different strategies for making sense of science teaching. The assertion that the worldview perspective provided by Beck and Cowan is a useful tool in understanding teachers’ beliefs and values is made in the conclusions. Teacher educators can utilize this tool in research about teacher beliefs, in promoting change for reform, or in developing curriculum for teacher education programs. Teachers can utilize it in self-reflective practices to better understand their own beliefs, their context, and their students and ultimately improve the teaching and learning process they engage in.

ix CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Teachers’ beliefs and the influence of beliefs on their practice have been addressed in many research studies in the science education literature (Blake, 2002; Pajares, 1992). Tobin, Tippins, and Gallard (1994) provide a review of research related to teachers’ beliefs in science education. In their review, Tobin et al. document that the research in this area include a vide variety of issues, such as, metaphor and teacher beliefs, relationship between beliefs and practice, teachers’ beliefs about teaching and learning, teacher beliefs about the of science, teachers’ beliefs about science, technology, (STS), and teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs. According to Blake (2002), there is a lack of understanding about the influences on teachers’ practice and he argues, “Investigating teacher beliefs and linking these beliefs to action in the classroom will provide insight into why and when teachers do what they do” (p. 19). Blake explains that most of the research done on teacher beliefs in science education leads to similar conclusions that what teachers believe with regard to teaching and learning will drive their practice. Pajares (1992) agrees with Blake:

Few would argue that the beliefs teachers hold influence their and judgments, which, in turn, affect their behavior in the classroom, or that understanding the structure of teachers and teacher candidates is essential to improving their professional preparation and teaching practices. (Pajares, 1992, p. 307)

The science education literature is full of philosophical discussions about the reform efforts in science education, the nature of science, how science should be taught, what learning theory should be utilized, how prospective science teachers should be prepared, and what should be the framework for research (Alters, 1997; Anderson & Mitchener, 1994; Eflin, Glennan, & Reisch, 1999; Hurd, 2002; Lederman, Abd-El-Khalic, Bell, & Schwartz, 2002; Matthews, 1997).

1 Looking at the diversity of opinions about many different issues in the science education literature, one might expect to see the same diversity in teachers’ beliefs about the same issues. Studying teachers’ diverse beliefs, how these beliefs are formed, and how they influence behavior is an important research agenda that has implications for the curriculum of the science teacher education programs. Pajares (1992) argues, “Attention to the beliefs of teachers and teacher candidates should be a focus of educational research and can inform educational practice in ways that prevailing research agendas have not and cannot” (p. 307). The purpose of this dissertation research is to understand teachers’ beliefs and the relationship between beliefs and practices from a wider perspective. This perspective utilizes the concept of worldview and this study explores the usefulness of the worldview concept as a way to study and understand beliefs and practices. Such understanding is a prerequisite for initiating desired change in teacher beliefs and worldviews within the framework of educational reform. Cobern (1991) pioneered studying worldviews in science education research. He studied teachers’ and students’ worldviews in relation to their beliefs, actions, and learning. One of the rationales for studying teachers’ beliefs from a worldview perspective is that the worldview model provides a more holistic picture of teachers’ beliefs compared to other studies in this area (Cobern, 1991, 1996). A lot of the research that focused on teacher beliefs look at the issue from a certain angle while the worldview perspective tries to capture a more complete picture of people’s belief systems, i.e. worldviews. There are different models in the literature developed to define the worldview concept. In the next chapter (literature review), I discuss three different ways of looking at people’s worldview that are suggested by Washburn (1997), Kearney (1984) and Cobern (1991), Graves (1981), and Beck and Cowan (1996). In general, worldview could be defined as the complex organization of fundamental beliefs and assumptions about the world and life in general. Worldview provides a framework for people’s behaviors and actions, how they deal with problems in their lives, and how they prioritize their beliefs. Worldviews form through life experiences during long periods of and are influenced by environment, , , education, and socio-economic background. Worldviews may change slowly during a person’s growth and as life conditions change. Specifically in this study, I studied the worldviews of four science teachers in relation to their beliefs about the purpose of education, teaching and learning, roles of teachers and students in learning, assessment, science, and their feelings about their jobs. I also investigated the

2 relationship between the worldviews of teachers and their teaching practices. Two middle school and two high school science teachers were the participants in this research. Classroom observations, interviews, and a survey called the Values Test (NVC, 2000) were the methods I used to collect data and answer the specific research questions of this study, which are:

1. How can participating teachers’ worldviews be characterized? 2. How are participating teachers’ beliefs about educational issues related to their worldviews? 3. How are participating teachers’ worldviews related to their practices? 4. How or under what conditions do science teachers modify their worldviews?

In this study I used the developmental model of worldviews developed by Graves (1981) and his students Beck and Cowan (1996). My findings show that Graves’s worldview model is a powerful tool for investigating teachers’ beliefs and how their beliefs and practices relate to their worldviews. This model also provides a framework for promoting change in worldviews that can assist those working to promote reform in education. Another conclusion of this study is that the developmental model of worldviews can be a useful utility for teachers who engage in reflective practices to improve their teaching. In the literature review section (chapter two), I present a review of research related to teacher beliefs and the concept of worldview and I also present the theoretical framework of this study. The methodology section (chapter three) contains specific research questions, research design and methodology, methods for data collection and analysis, quality criteria, and ethical issues. I present my findings and analysis in chapters four and five. Chapter six contains conclusions, implications, suggestions for future research, and limitations of this study.

3 CHAPTER 2

REVIEW OF THE RELATED LITERATURE

Introduction

In this chapter I present a review of the literature about teacher beliefs and the concept of worldview. I also present the theoretical framework of this research study. This chapter establishes the rationale for this study, how it contributes to the literature, and the framework of research.

Teacher Beliefs

The National Science Education Standards (National Research Council, 1996), Benchmarks for Science Literacy (American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1993), and Standards for Science Teacher Preparation (National Science Teachers Association, 2003) are documents resulted from reform efforts in science education that recommend inquiry-based teaching and promote the of life-long learning. These documents provide a guide for the type of behaviors expected from science teachers. Many researchers (Blake, 2003; Bybee, 1993; Nespor, 1987; Pajares, 1992) have emphasized the importance of studying teacher beliefs in educational research. The obvious for the emphasis on teacher beliefs is that beliefs mainly determine the behavior of prospective and in-service teachers and, if change is desired in their behaviors based on the reform documents, the nature of their beliefs must be understood. Lumpe, Haney, and Czerniak (2000) argue that prospective teachers and in-service teachers develop their beliefs about teaching from years of experience as students and teachers and that their beliefs appear to be stable and resistant to change. One place where change may take place in teachers’ beliefs about teaching and learning is the teacher education programs (Pajares,

4 1992). Pajares argues, “…teacher preparation programs can ill afford to ignore the entering beliefs of preservice teachers” (p. 323). He cites research that found preservice teachers having unrealistic and self-efficacy beliefs before they start teaching and when they do, they face an unexpected . To avoid this kind of problems and to achieve desired change in teacher beliefs, it is important to put emphasis on beliefs in teacher education programs, since such change may be more difficult later on. Tobin, Tippins, and Gallard (1994) argue,

Science teachers often move through 15 to 20 years of schooling without ever induced to think about their own beliefs about the nature of science and scientific and that which has shaped them. Often they are not educated to think in terms of exposing the tacit assumptions embedded in teaching practices and conventions. (p. 62)

According to Anderson and Mitchener (1994), many aspects of science teacher education programs have been criticized for their poor performance in preparing prospective science teachers in terms of content knowledge and professional knowledge. They explain that teacher education programs in the United States are built around traditional model that has remained relatively unchanged throughout the years. Despite reform efforts in science education, Anderson and Mitchener argue that most teacher education programs do not have a clearly identifiable theoretical orientation. Perhaps an emphasis on teacher beliefs can provide the needed theoretical orientation for the teacher education programs as suggested by Blake (2003) and Pajares (1992). Many see teachers as the main agent of change in educational reform and raising the standards of education (Black & Wiliam, 1998; Bybee, 1993;Tobin et al. 1994). Because of this, there are many studies related to teacher beliefs in the education literature. Most of these studies look at teacher beliefs in relation to a particular issue or a specific case. To name a few example, teacher beliefs about constructivism (Beck, Czerniak & Lumpe, 2000; Haney & McArthur, 2002), teacher beliefs about teaching and learning (Bryan, 2003; Hashweh, 1996; Laplante, 1997; Levitt, 2002; Tsai, 2002), teacher beliefs about science-technology-society (STS) (Lumpe, 1998; McGinnis & Simmons, 1999; Tsai, 2001), teacher beliefs about the nature of science (Cobern, 2000; Haidar, 1999; Lederman, 1992), teacher beliefs about cultural issues (Aikenhead & Otsuji, 2000; Bryan & Atwater, 2002), teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs (Bandura, 1994; Barnes, 2000; Haney, Lumpe, Czerniak, & Egan, 2002; Posnanski, 2002; Ramey-Gassert, Shroyer, & Staver, 1996; Roberts, Henson, Tharp, & Moreno, 2001; Tschannen-Moran, Hoy, & Hoy, 1998),

5 teachers beliefs about their teaching context (Lumpe, Haney, & Czerniak, 2000), and the relationship between teacher beliefs and their practice (Blake, 2002; Pajares, 1992; Laplante, 1997; Simmons, Emory, Carter, Coker, Finnegan, & Crockett, et al., 1999; Southerland, Gess- Newsome, Johnston, 2003; Sweeney, Bula, & Cornett, 2001). Looking at the previous research about teacher beliefs, it is evident that what teachers believe and what they do in their classroom is important to educators. Even though there are many studies in the literature about teacher beliefs, the concept of belief doesn’t have an agreed upon definition among science educators (or among educators in general). Tobin, Tippins, and Gallard (1994) cite the work of Oliver and Koballa (1992) who investigated the definition of belief accepted by science educators. What they found is that there is no consensus on what the concept of belief means and they came up with categories of definitions of belief. Oliver and Koballa explain that there are common elements to the definitions about beliefs:

…a relationship between belief and knowledge, the idea that beliefs are acquired through communication, the concept that beliefs prompt action, and continuum that reflects a range of beliefs from factual to evaluative. (Tobin, Tippins, & Gallard, 1994, p. 55)

Pajares (1992) argues that “belief” is a concept that has been given different meanings and people referred to it by many other words (such as, values, opinions, judgments, perceptions, conceptions, dispositions, personal theories, perspectives, etc.). However, in his review of the literature, what Pajares found is that the confusion about the concept of belief centers on the distinction between beliefs and knowledge. According to Pajares, distinguishing knowledge from beliefs, i.e. deciding where does knowledge end and where does belief begin is a difficult task. He explains that a common distinction made between belief and knowledge by many definitions is: “Belief is based on evaluation and judgment; knowledge is based on objective ” (p. 313). However, Pajares finds this distinction artificial and argues that no knowledge can exist without evaluation and judgment. This is not to say a distinction between knowledge and beliefs cannot be made, however, more care is required in such an attempt. Nespor (1987) identifies four features that are characteristic of beliefs rather than knowledge: existential presumption, alternativity, affective and evaluative aspects, and episodic storage. Existential presumption refers to “…propositions or assumptions about the or nonexistence of entities” (p. 318) (ex. belief in God). Alternativity refers to a feature of beliefs

6 that includes representations of alternative worlds or alternative . Nespor gives the example of a teacher who tried to model her classes based on what she wanted her classes to be when she was a child, namely friendly and fun, but never achieved it. This teacher never experienced a class the way she imagined in her life, but believed that it could exist. Affective and evaluative aspects of belief refer to the distinction between knowledge and feelings that are associated with knowledge. Nespor gives this example: “One’s knowledge of the rules of chess and various lines of does not depend upon whether one likes or dislikes chess, whether it excites or bores one…” (p. 319). With this , Nespor explains that beliefs differ from plain knowledge by added personal feelings to that knowledge; in other words, beliefs are knowledge with attached feelings to it. Finally, what Nespor means by episodic storage is that “…beliefs often drive their subjective power, authority, and legitimacy from particular episodes or events [stored in ]” (p. 320) while knowledge is mainly semantic in nature. Nespor (1987) identifies two more features that characterize the way beliefs are organized as systems: non-consentuality and undoubdedness. Non-consentuality means that beliefs systems (unlike knowledge systems) do not require a general or group consensus in terms of validity or appropriateness. So a person can hold a belief even if it is mostly disagreed by other people. Undoubdedness means that belief systems’ relevance to reality doesn’t necessarily follow logical rules. In other words a belief systems may defy but still be strongly held. Pajares (1992) argues that belief systems are more unchanging, inflexible, and less dynamic compared to knowledge systems. While knowledge systems are open to evaluation and critical examination, beliefs are often not. Nespor has this conclusion in his about beliefs, “beliefs are far more influential than knowledge in determining how individuals organize and define tasks and problems and are stronger predictors of behavior” (Pajares, 1992, p. 311). Pajares (1992) argues, “beliefs are created through a process of enculturation and social construction” (p. 316) and with time and use, beliefs become more robust and difficult to change even if it is based on incorrect or incomplete knowledge. He continues to say, “People grow comfortable with their beliefs, and these beliefs become their ‘self’ so that individuals come to be identified and understood by the very nature of the beliefs, the habits, they own” (p. 318). Pajares cites Rokeach (1968) who argues that beliefs also differ in intensity and power. The more central a belief, the more intensity and power it has and the less likely it changes. From Nespor’s (1987) about beliefs and other definitions of beliefs that Pajares investigates, it is

7 possible to find common elements that can guide research related to beliefs. The common elements in the definitions of belief include:

• Beliefs are personal constructs • Beliefs are held to be true inferences about self, surroundings, and circumstances • Beliefs influence behavior more than knowledge • Beliefs are not always logically related to reality • Beliefs are not consensus driven • Beliefs are less open to discussion or critical examination compared to knowledge • Beliefs are more rigid and less likely to change compared to knowledge • Beliefs may become more or less strongly held in time • Beliefs that are more central to a person are more difficult to change • Beliefs are learned through enculturation and social construction

Pajares (1992) argues a researcher, who wishes to study people’s beliefs should be clear about the definition of belief, and design his/her research accordingly. Based on the definitions of beliefs in the literature, it seems like the most important feature of belief that sets it apart from knowledge is its personalized nature. So beliefs are knowledge but they are personalized and have more meaning for individuals than knowledge. Beliefs are knowledge that has , judgment, and evaluation attached and unless challenged, they are held more strongly over time. Because of the personalized nature of beliefs, they influence behavior more than knowledge and they are less likely to change, especially if a belief is central to a person’s life. The following example may explain the difference between beliefs and knowledge better: reading in the newspaper that the theory that explains the disappearance of dinosaurs 65 million years ago was challenged may not bring much to a person, if this knowledge has no personal meaning for him/her. However, the same person may react very angrily to news about a company polluting the environment, because this may have more personal meaning for this person. In this example, “how dinosaurs disappeared” can be categorized as theoretical knowledge for this person, whereas “the why environment should be protected” is more of a practical belief. In this example, one can see that there is no clear-cut categorization between belief and knowledge, so the distinction is a of degree of personalization. Pajares (1992) argues that researchers refer to teachers’ attitudes about education, schooling, teaching, learning, and students as “teacher beliefs.” However, he warns that teachers have beliefs about matters that go beyond their profession and still influence their practice. He

8 says, “When researchers speak of teachers’ beliefs, they seldom refer to the teachers’ broader general belief system of which educational beliefs are but a part…” (p. 316). He also argues, “Seeing educational beliefs as detached from and unconnected to a broader belief system is ill advised and probably unproductive” (p. 326). Based on Pajares’s warning, the purpose of this research is to look at teacher beliefs from a broader perspective, the perspective of worldviews. The theoretical perspective of this study is based on the idea that every belief that people hold is attached to a larger belief system called worldview. Cobern (1991) argues that worldview is the fundamental beliefs a person holds which he refers to as and he makes a distinction between presuppositions and ordinary beliefs. This distinction is similar to Rokeach’s (1968, as cited in Pajares, 1992) argument that beliefs differ in intensity and power and some beliefs form the nucleus of a belief system. Therefore what Cobern calls presuppositions or what Rokeach calls central beliefs that have strong power and intensity form the belief system of a person or the worldview. Worldview is shaped by the beliefs that form the fundamental organization of the , and knowledge is filtered through worldview before it is accepted, rejected, or modified (Kagan, 1992). The following section provides a more in-depth discussion of the worldview concept.

The Concept of Worldview

Worldview is a word that is being used very often in human sciences, including science education, yet it is seldom defined. Despite its frequent usage, few theoretical frameworks are developed to understand and study it (Kearney, 1984; Cobern, 1991). In this review of the literature, I try to outline the previous efforts of defining worldview and creating a theoretical framework for understanding and studying it. I have included the works of six scholars, Phil Washburn (1997), Michael Kearney (1984), William Cobern (1991), Clare Graves (1981), and Don Beck and Christopher Cowan (1996) in this review. Washburn, a philosopher, provides a simple, yet I think a quite useful definition for understanding what worldview is. Kearney’s worldview model is built from the perspective of and it is a bit more complex, however, I think there are many commonalities between the way Washburn and the way Kearney conceptualize worldviews. Cobern, who is a science educator, studied the worldview concept and its applications in the field of science education based on Kearney’s model. Finally Graves, a

9 psychologist, and his students Beck and Cowan provide a developmental model for the concept of worldview, which emphasizes change or possibility of change in worldviews. I discuss them one by one in the following.

Phil Washburn A philosopher, Phil Washburn (1997) talks about what philosophy is, its importance and how one can change his/her worldview by studying philosophy in his book, Philosophical Dilemmas - Building a Worldview. In this book, Washburn describes philosophy as pursuit for wisdom. As Washburn puts it, wisdom is a kind of knowledge, but a different kind of knowledge that is gained as a result of studying all life as we live it and all human experience. Washburn explains that, unlike other fields, philosophy does not look for factual knowledge; instead it tries to make sense of . He gives the example of biology vs. philosophy: reading a biology book can provide us a lot of facts about what cells are made of, how organisms grow, how they process food and etc. On the other hand, about a well-known fact that we all die, philosophy asks questions such as:

What does that (death) mean for us? Is it very important, or not so important? How is this fact related to other parts of our lives? Does death mean that I do is ultimately meaningless? Biology will tell us about the physical and chemical changes that occur when a person dies, but those facts won’t answer the philosophical questions. The basic facts of human experience are already known. Philosophy tries to put the facts together in a way that makes sense. (p. 3)

Washburn points out that philosophy is closely related to many other fields including science, but the type of knowledge philosophy is looking for is different than those fields. Philosophy does not seek to discover facts, but it tries to make sense of facts and how these facts relate to life and human experience. Washburn (1997) defines worldview as: “A worldview is a of answers to questions about the most general features of the world and our experience of it” (p. 6). This definition refers to what Rokeach (1968) call central beliefs or what Cobern (1991) call presuppositions. In other words, the questions Washburn talks about address the core beliefs of people that shape their worldviews. According to Washburn, the goal of philosophy is to build a coherent, adequate worldview by trying to answer the philosophical questions such as:

10 1- What kind of being am I? What does it mean to be human? 2- What is the best way of life? What goals should I have? 3- How am I related to people around me? How should society be organized? 4- How can I find answers to these questions? What can I know with assurance? 5- Does religion provide the answers? Does God exist? (p. 6)

Washburn explains that these questions indicate the most basic, fundamental aspects of human experience (the core belief system or worldview): (1) human nature, or self and , (2) moral values and action, (3) society and one’s place in it, (4) knowledge and understanding, and (5) transcendence. There are many possible answers to these questions and the answers accepted by a person are the beliefs, assumptions, and values that make up his/her worldview. However, Washburn argues that the concept of worldview is not simple, because each of the above questions can be broken down to more specific questions. For example related to the first question (What kind of being am I?) one can ask:

Am I free, or are all my actions caused by something outside of me? Will I survive the death of my body, or am I a physical machine, which breaks down at death? Can I know myself better than others, or do other people see my real traits better than I do? Am I basically self-centered, or basically giving and self-scarifying? (p. 7)

Each of these questions can be broken down to even more specific questions and all of these questions can be answered in many different ways. According to Washburn, another thing that makes worldviews very complex is the difficulty of answering these philosophical questions. One example is “Does God exist?” People have been struggling with this question for years and there are many conflicting answers. Washburn explains that studying or thinking about worldviews also raises many questions about worldviews themselves:

How does one acquire a worldview? Does one simply adopt the worldviews of his/her parents, teachers, or friends? Does one take one part from one source and other parts from other sources? Does everybody have one? How does one judge a worldview? Does it matter what one’s worldview is? Can one change his/her worldview? (p. 7)

Washburn (1997) argues that building a coherent, mature, and consistent worldview with which one can live happily is a rewarding process that takes a long time. He views worldview as a dynamic concept, which can be purposefully changed through questioning and learning, if a

11 person has the desire. Obviously not every person may feel that their worldview needs change or maturing if they are comfortable with it or if they have no conflicts between their beliefs and life experiences. Many people do not normally think in depth about important philosophical questions about life or try to formulate answers for these questions. Nevertheless, Washburn offers some guidelines for the process of building a coherent worldview to succeed. The first guideline Washburn suggests is that a worldview should be based on human experience. Many people hold beliefs that are out of date, expected of them, or flattering to their ego, but in conflict with their day-to-day experiences. He also suggests that in the process of worldview development as we try to understand our existence and our surroundings, other people’s experiences should not be ignored since they can do things and go to places that we cannot and they may have thought about things more thoroughly and deeply. So other peoples’ experiences are a source in the process of exploring answers to philosophical questions that Washburn talks about. However, this is not to say that people should accept someone else’s answers just because they sound impressive, but rather they should have good reasons for accepting an answer, reasons that are based on experience. Another guideline that Washburn suggests is to think about how parts of our worldview fit together (the organization of our worldview). He explains that the answers we give to the philosophical questions are interconnected. For example an answer given to the question, “What kind of being am I?” is related with the answer given to the question, “What is the best way of life?” or “How should I live my life?” One may accept an answer to the first question like, “I am a combination of two things, a and a body.” This answer also assumes that bodies live a finite life while live forever and the quality of soul’s eternal life depends on how one lives now. A person who in this answer should live his/her life “the right way” now since the life on earth is very short compared to the eternal life of the soul. This answers the second question, “How should I live my life?” This example shows the interconnectedness of answers given to philosophical questions. Finally a third guideline that Washburn suggests is that one should accept answers to philosophical questions that are clear and understandable. For example one can answer the question, “How should society be organized?” as “the foundation of society is each individual’s unalterable human and should be the guiding of all government” (p. 9). The person who gives this answer should be able to clarify what human rights are and be able

12 to answer these other questions: What rights do people have? Does everyone have a right to a job? To the best medical care? To make remarks that may offend someone? Why do people have rights? What is it about people that give them certain rights? Is it , moral sense, ability to make choices, or something else? Washburn argues that if one does not know answers to these questions, then one does not know what he/she means by saying people have human rights. In brief, Washburn defines worldview from a philosophical perspective and argues that practicing philosophy (i.e. learning through searching for answers to fundamental philosophical questions) is a useful method for building a coherent worldview. This perspective suggests that worldviews can be changed in a long and complicated but rewarding process of questioning and learning, if a person has the will to do so. According to Washburn building a coherent worldview is an important process, because it helps people to get to know themselves and it provides a sense of identity.

Michael Kearney Kearney (1984) is an anthropologist who has come up with another framework for studying worldviews. His work has inspired research about worldviews in science education (Cobern, 1991). He defines human worldview as a collection of basic images and assumptions that an individual or a society has about reality, which provide a more or less coherent but not necessarily accurate way of thinking about the world. He argues that there are three problems to deal with when studying worldviews:

1- What are the universal characteristics (categories within) of human worldview? 2- How do images and assumptions (beliefs) form within these categories? 3- What are the influences of worldview on social and cultural behavior? (p. 10)

Kearney argues that in order to study worldviews, some common characteristics of worldviews should be identified and he identifies seven characteristics that are common to all worldviews. These are: self, non-self, relationship, classification, , time, and space. Kearney calls these characteristics “worldview universals.” Even though, worldview universals are common cognitive categories of human worldviews, their content (beliefs, images, assumptions) is different from person to person or society to society.

13 According to Kearney’s model, self and other are the most basic characteristics of human worldview. Self is the ultimate reference point from which everything else in the universe is viewed (Cobern, 1991). Everything that is not self is the other (non-self). Kearney explains that some people may associate self with the physical body, whereas some other people may distance themselves from the body and associate the self with unseen entities such as soul. Classification, relationship, and causality universals are the next most basic categories after self and non-self. People classify objects and into many different groups and the way people classify things is part of their worldview. The most basic classification is self and non-self, beyond that people make classifications in the non-self domain (Cobern, 1991). In Figure 1, Cobern gives the theist and atheist classification of non-self with real and unreal attributes as an example for this universal (based on Kearney, 1984).

Non-self Domains Real Unreal Natural People Dreams Theist God Ghosts

Atheist Natural People God

Figure 1. An example of the classification of the non-self (Cobern, 1991)

Relationship universal is about the relationship between self and non-self. According to Kearney, people may see non-self, or parts of it, as existing to be maintained (), obeyed (subordinancy), or acted upon (dominance). Environmental conditions may have great influence on the relationship aspect of worldviews. Depending on one’s life condition, one may see the non-self as threatening and life as a struggle, or one may see the non-self as peaceful and life as joyful. The causality universal is about how much the self and non-self aspects of a worldview are separated. Kearney bases his arguments about causality largely on Piaget’s study in which Piaget explains that there are phases of child development with respect to their reasoning of causality. Piaget argues that in the earlier stages, there is an assumed affinity of self with external objects and in later stages the division of the internal world (self) from the external world (non- self) become clearer and more in accord with classical . According to Piaget, in children’s

14 mental development, the division of self and non-self is a slow and continuous process that is never entirely complete and fragments of internal experience are still associated with the external world in adulthood (Kearney, 1984). Based on Piaget’s arguments, Kearney argues that the absence of knowledge about natural provided by positive sciences may contribute to the tendency of attributing internal experience and feelings (self) to the external world (non-self) and this may be the source of beliefs in supernatural , such as spirits. In less developed classless , people tend to believe that they have direct access to the world of spiritual beings, whereas in more complex societies, people tend to believe that the supernatural beings inhabit a realm to which ordinary human beings have no access. In brief, the causality universal is about how people explain the causes of events, which is related to how they separate self and non-self. The more self and non-self is divided, the more people tend to have notions of causality in line with science (Kearney, 1984). Finally, Kearney identifies the notions of space and time as worldview universals. He gives the example that the of space among people who live in big cities is different than people who live in rural areas. In big cities there are so many references of directions that most people do not use coordinates for finding locations, but rather they use street or building names. People who live in the rural areas, however, tend to locate places by using standard coordinates, or natural objects, such as stars. Kearney explains that the geographic locations can also influence the perception of space, such as living in a forest (in which the sight is short) vs. in a large plain (in which one can see the horizon). The problem of perception of space can easily be observed in science teaching. For example the size of atoms and the idea that they are more than 99% empty space is very difficult to understand for many students, because their experience in their day-to-day life does not include such an example. Another example that is hard for many students to understand is the enormous size of the universe. The idea that there are stars so far away that after they are formed, lived for billions of years, and died, their light is just reaching the earth where we can see them is difficult to comprehend. When it comes to the perception of time, Kearney argues that we need to look at what sector of time people are more concerned with and their image of time. Some people have a future orientation, which means that they are more concerned with the future events in their daily lives. The religious belief that one needs to live his/her life in a certain way now in order to have a better life after death, or the belief that in order to be successful in attaining educational goals

15 or in making a career, one needs to work hard now are future oriented time perceptions. Children at certain ages, and some (Kearney gives the example of Latin American cultures) have more of a present orientation. For these people future is unreal and what matters is the events and conditions that they are experiencing in the present. He argues that this is perhaps the reason for the that Hispanic people are generally late to their future appointments. Kearney gives the Chinese culture as an example of past orientation, in which past provides models for how one should live in the present life. Regarding the time universal, Kearney also talks about images of time and he identifies two different ways how people perceive time. One is an oscillating time, which means “time is seen as rhythmically swinging back and forth between recurrent markers” (p. 99). These recurrent markers may be events that are observable within the life span of an individual and that occur with a regular uniformity, such as, passage of seasons, the succession of , the annual round of festivals and etc. Kearney explains that this image of time is a common one and it occurs more in technologically simple and preliterate societies. The other image of time is linear, which means life experiences are changing irreversibly. Kearney talks about two perceptions of linear time. In the first, time is seen as moving, coming from the past, passing by us, and moving into the future. In the second perception, the time is seen as absolute and self is moving through it from past to future. Kearney argues that the accepted perception of linear time is based on how one sees the relationship between self and non-self. People who have a sense of self that is passive relative to the other tend to have a sense of time in which they are stationary and it is time that flows by them. Whereas people who have an active sense of self relative to the other have a sense of moving through time into the future. The organization of worldview universals within worldviews is what Kearney calls the logico-structural model of human worldview. According to this model, the worldview universals and the beliefs, , and actions associated with them organize to create the structure of the worldview. The organization of universals strives towards maximum logical and structural consistency within the worldview. However, Kearney argues that it is possible to see external and internal inconsistencies within worldviews. The external inconsistency in a worldview results when its beliefs, images, or assumptions are incompatible with the reality that the worldview presumably mirrors. On the other hand, internal inconsistency in a worldview results from contradictions among its assumptions or images. If inconsistencies in a worldview exist,

16 they may lead to discomfort or stress and changes in the structure of the worldview toward a more consistent and logical one may take place, which is the idea behind the logico-structural model. Washburn (1997) argues that people may consciously realize such conflicts and inconsistencies and purposefully take action to eliminate them.

William Cobern William Cobern (1991), who bases his work largely on Kearney’s (1984) worldview model, has been one of the pioneers in science education for introducing this model as a research agenda. Cobern (1991) suggests using the worldview model to try to understand how people make sense of their world may lead to improvements in teaching and learning. According to Cobern, the previous research in science education has focused on the idea of conceptual change (ex. Posner, Strike, Hewson, and Gertzog, 1982), which has some shortcomings. He argues,

Conceptual change is simple idea. If students are given an opportunity to construct scientifically orthodox conceptions, if they then come to see that these conceptions are more intelligible, plausible, and fruitful than other conceptions, the students will change their conceptions for scientific ones. This rationalistic view is embedded in a narrowly conceived notion of the role knowledge plays in an individual’s life and fails to recognize that students’ everyday conceptions differ from science because they serve a different purpose. Conceptual change instruction is intended to foster a scientific view of the world. This goal is wrong-headed. Science needs to be joined with the other school disciplines in the common goal of developing student worldviews of which science is one articulated component. (Cobern, 1996, p. 579)

According to Cobern (1996), teaching scientific concepts to students is not as simple as isolating their everyday thinking, and manipulating or replacing them in order to achieve scientific thinking. He argues that students’ understanding of what the world is like is based on long-held concepts (whether scientifically acceptable or not) that make sense to them and as long as they make sense to them, they have no reason to change these concepts. Cobern (1999) defines worldview as,

One knows from fields as diverse as , , and philosophy that a person’s thinking is based on a set of first , so to speak. This is a worldview and it is “not merely a philosophical by-product of each culture, like a shadow, but the very skeleton of concrete cognitive assumptions on which the flesh of

17 customary behavior is hung” (Wallace, 1970, p. 143). These assumptions or, more accurately presuppositions, exert a broad influence over one’s thinking… (p. 542)

Cobern (1996) suggests, “worldview provides a non-rational foundation for thought, emotion, and behavior” (p. 584). He argues that the presuppositions that constitute worldviews are subject to change with experience, however, because of their fundamental nature, presuppositions tend to be stable. Cobern (1991, 1996, 1999, 2000b) argues that understanding students’ worldview may allow us to understand the conflicts between their worldviews and the scientific knowledge being presented to them in schools. This understanding may ultimately lead to changes in curriculum and teaching methods that provide better science teaching and learning. Cobern (1991, 1996, 1999, 2000b) studied the beliefs of students and science teachers to understand their worldviews based on the logico-structural model of Kearney (1984). Interviews provide most of the data he used, in which he discussed “nature” with students and teachers. Nature is classified in the non-self domain of worldview and it is closely related to science, but it is not explicitly associated with science. From these interviews, Cobern (1996, 1999, 2000b) created concept maps that represent the conceptualizations of nature by students and teachers. He found that there are many differences between teacher and student conceptualizations of nature. Cobern (2000b) asserts that,

When compared with their ninth grade students, science teachers have much more focused and less diverse conceptualizations of the natural world. As a proportion of their total comments, students speak much more about nature as the environment, and much more of the aesthetic aspects of Nature and spiritual or religious ideas associated with Nature. In contrast, their teachers are more focused on what one can know about Nature through science. (p. 37)

Cobern (2000b) argues, the difference between students’ and teachers’ conceptualizations of nature is due to the different worldviews they have, which influence how they communicate the scientific ideas in science classrooms and often hinders students’ understanding, especially if the teachers attempt to change students conceptualization with something similar to theirs in an unwarranted way. Cobern (1996, 2000b) argues that students create comprehensive systems of meaning about the world based on the credible experiences in their lives supported by their cultural context. The meaning that they come up with may be very different than the scientific views. In this case, science offers them something like a foreign culture or language, which often

18 includes unintuitive explanations about the world. In the face of this foreign culture, students are more likely to stick with their own ideas. This is why Cobern (1996) suggests that learning about students’ worldviews could help teachers choose strategies that will allow their students to learn science in a way that science and its philosophical assumptions are more open to discussion in relation to students’ worldviews. Many scholars in science education have done similar studies to Cobern’s, especially in relation to cultural aspects of science education (Aikenhead & Jegede, 1999; Allen & Crawley, 1998; George, 1999; Kawagley, Norris-Tull, & Norris-Tull, 1999; Waldrip & Taylor, 1999). In contrast to Cobern’s work, the focus of this dissertation research is teacher education rather than implication of students’ and teachers’ worldviews on science teaching and learning.

Clare Graves, Don Beck, Christopher Cowan Clare Graves (1981), a psychologist, developed a model to describe and study worldviews that includes a developmental aspect. Beck and Cowan (2002) (Graves’s students who continued his work) explain that Graves developed his theory in an effort to depict the human nature as a whole. He collected data for decades through observations, interviews, and psychological tests that provided the basis of his model. Initially he gathered data from his students. After a semester-long course in psychology, he gave a task to his students, which was to generate a position paper describing the mature adult human being. When he analyzed the data he collected, he realized that there is a pattern in how his students defined an adult human being. These data provided the initial findings on which he based his model. He describes his model as:

The psychology of the mature human being is an unfolding, emergent, oscillating, spiraling process marked by progressive subordination of older, lower-order behavior systems to newer, higher-order systems as man’s existential problems change. (Beck and Cowen, 2002)

What this theory suggests is that, there is a structure to how humans’ worldviews develop and change. This structure is made up of developmental levels, and each level can be described based on “perceptions about life conditions” (beliefs about what the world is like) and “mind capacities” (the required to deal with the world as it is perceived) (National Values Center, 2001). Graves (1981) identified eight developmental levels of worldviews, each

19 developed as a result of changing perceptions of the world paralleled with life conditions that necessitated those changes. According to this model, every level represents a belief system or worldview and these levels provide the pattern of how humans’ worldview changes. Graves labeled each level with letters; however, later on his students Beck and Cowan (1996) used color labels. In Figure 2, each of these developmental levels is summarized.

Perception of Life Conditions: Life is… Mind capacities: Coping means based on biological urges/drives; Instinctive: as natural instincts and reflexes A Beige N physical senses dictate the state of being. direct; automatic existence. threatening and full of mysterious Animistic: according to and B powers and beings which must be Purple O ways of group; tribal; animistic. placated and appeased. like a jungle where the tough and strong Egocentric: asserting self for dominance, C prevail while the weak serve; nature is an Red P conquest, and power; exploitive; egocentric. adversary. controlled by a Higher Power that Absolutistic: obediently as higher authority D punishes evil and eventually rewards Blue Q and rules direct; conforming; . good works and right living. full of resources to develop and Multiplistic: pragmatically to achieve results E opportunities to make things better and Orange R and get ahead; test options; maneuver. bring prosperity. the habitat wherein humanity can find Relativistic: respond to human needs; F and purposes through affiliation and Green S affiliative; situational; consensual; fluid. sharing. a chaotic organism where change is the Systemic: functional; integrative; G norm and uncertainty a usual state of Yellow T interdependent; existential; flexible; being. questioning; accepting. a delicately balanced system of Holistic: experiential; transpersonal; H interlocking forces in jeopardy at Turquoise U ; collaborative; humanity’s hands. interconnected.

Figure 2. Clare Graves’ model of developmental levels in human psychology: Graves used letter labels to represent each level (AN, BO, CP, etc.). Later his students Beck and Cowen used color labels. (National Values Center, 2001).

Each level in Figure 2 represents a set of beliefs, a system, i.e. a worldview. The first column in Figure 2 shows how people perceive life in each level and the second column shows how people tend to behave to cope with their life conditions in each level. In other words, this model attempts to characterize the types of beliefs and the likely attitudes within a worldview level. These levels represent the peak states in a developmental continuum of worldviews. This means, a person may have beliefs that are consistent with one or more of these levels and the degree of how much a person’s beliefs align with the characterization of these levels may vary.

20 In other words, none of these levels are enough to describe a human’s worldview; rather humans’ worldviews can be described with a combination of these levels, some of them being more important and central than others. Throughout his lifetime a person may be in a transition state, which means his beliefs are changing from one level to the next because of changes in life conditions, or he may excel in one of the levels. Level represent a “center of gravity” for an individual. Wilber (2004) suggests that individuals usually respond approximately 25% of the time at the level proceeding, 50% at the primary level and 25% at the level following. Grave’s model further suggests that the upper levels (the turquoise level being the upper most level in Figure 2) are more sophisticated than the lower levels in terms of abilities to understand and deal with the external world. This is not to say that a person at the upper levels is more intelligent than the ones at the lower levels. Intelligence is not related to the developmental levels in this model. The model simply suggests that at the upper levels, life conditions allow people to activate capacities to better understand the external world and deal with it. In his own words, Graves explains:

I am not saying in this conception of adult behavior that one of being, one form of human existence, is inevitably and in all circumstances superior to or better than another form of human existence, another style of being. What I am saying is that when one form of being is more congruent with the realities of existence, then it is the better form of living for those realities. And what I am saying is that when one form of existence ceases to be functional for the realities of existence then some other form, either higher or lower in the hierarchy, is the better form of living. I do suggest, however, and this I deeply believe so, is that for the overall welfare of total man's existence in this world, over the long run of time, higher levels are better than lower levels and that the prime good of any society's governing figures should be to promote human movement up the levels of human existence. (Graves, 2001)

Graves suggest that if a person’s belief system (worldview) is in conflict with the reality he lives in, then he may move beyond his worldview and adopt different beliefs that will allow him to deal with the realities that surround him and reduce the possible stress he may feel. Beck and Cowan (1996) provide a more detailed of how change occurs in humans’ worldviews, which I explained below after I talked about their adaptation of Grave’s model called “Spiral Dynamics.” Grave’s students Beck and Cowan (1996) continued to use Grave’s theory for analyzing people’s worldviews. They called Grave’s theory “Spiral Dynamics” and their efforts made this

21 theory more popular. In their book, Spiral Dynamics, Beck and Cowan (1996) provide a bit more complex explanation of the nature of worldviews described in Figure 2. They cite the work of Csikszentmihalyi (1993) who uses the term , which means “a unit of cultural information such as a political , a fashion trend, language usage, musical forms, or even architectural styles” (Beck and Cowan, 1996, p. 30), as he tries to identify the origins of human behavior. He uses the “ analogy” to explain the idea of . Just like human that make up the DNA molecule, memes replicate and pass from to generation. Based on the analogy Csikszentmihalyi uses, Beck and Cowan propose the existence of what they call “values memes” which are the organizing principles for the memes. In other words, values memes represent the cultural DNA. Each values meme has its own organization that attracts and binds pieces of cultural information (memes) and other kinds of ideas in cohesive packages of thought. In other words, “the values memes encode instructions for our worldviews, assumptions about how everything works, and the rationale for decisions we make” (Beck and Cowan, 1996, p. 32). Beck and Cowan call each level in Figure 2 a values meme and they argue that humans’ worldviews are made up of these values memes. Every individual have the potential to awake different values memes as life conditions change, while maintaining all of the other values memes they value. According to the Spiral Dynamics model, the complexity of values memes increase from beige to turquoise and there is a zigzag pattern of express-self and sacrifice-self theme in the values memes shown in Figure 2. Beck and Cowan use a growing spiral analogy to describe the growth in complexity and sophistication of the values memes from beige to turquoise. Each successive level includes and transcend the previous levels hence gets larger and more complex. This is how they came up with the name “Spiral Dynamics” for their model. They talk about the following features of values memes in their explanations of what they are (p. 40-65):

1- A values meme contains the basic package of thought, motives, and instructions that determine how we make decisions and prioritize our lives. 2- Values memes are structures of thinking. They determine how people think or make decisions in contrast to what they believe or value. Graves referred to them as schemas, containers in which contents (themas and memes) could be poured.

22 3- Values memes attach themselves to those ideas, people, objects, and that allow them to reproduce and radiate their core messages. Each contains its own framework for religion, politics, life, education, mental health, work and management, social order, and . 4- Values memes express both healthy (for better) and unhealthy (for worse) qualities. Healthy memes are those that allow or even facilitate the positive expression of other values memes. However, often values memes become malignant, closed, locked-in, and repressive, imposing a guardian mentality. 5- Values memes can brighten and dim as life conditions change. They have strong cybernetic (able to read the feedback and adjust) capacities and are driven to preserve their core and proliferate their influence wherever they find open . 6- Values memes coexist within worldview profiles one of which being the dominant. Humans possess the capacity to create new values memes.

In Beck and Cowan’s (1996) approach, worldviews are described as profiles of values memes described in Figure 2. The values memes are the potentials where human beings’ worldviews may grow into or grow within. The values memes (or worldviews) described in Figure 2 are the standard descriptions of the pattern of growth or change in human worldviews. The adoption of these values memes by human beings may vary in intensity and complexity. This means that while some people may keep an open mind for growth and change, some people may radicalize in one of the values memes. Depending on the life conditions, worldviews may grow or change up the levels, from beige to turquoise, or they may grow down the levels, or they may mature within a level itself. Even if a person’s worldview develops toward more complex values memes, the previous values memes don’t disappear. They remain within the profile of the person’s worldview and in different life conditions, different parts of people’s worldviews may become active. For example during a sports activity, the red values meme within an individual’s worldview may become dominant while in family relations the green values meme may become dominant. Spiral Dynamics is a more elaborate model of worldviews than simply describing worldviews as belief systems. It is possible to argue that the difference between the terms memes, values, and beliefs or the difference between the terms values memes and belief systems

23 are not very clear-cut. However, the Spiral Dynamics model provides a vision of possibilities of change, in what directions change may occur, and how. A tool that Beck and Cowan (2000) developed to understand people’s worldviews and their potential to change is a survey called the Values Test. In this survey they included 10 questions with multiple choices, each choice representing beliefs or attitudes in one of the levels in Grave’s model (the AN (beige) level is not included, because it is considered a very primitive system and largely preverbal). People who take the survey distribute points to choices for each question. Each questions is asked twice in the survey, one with a positive root, and the other with negative to check consistency. Grave’s levels of belief systems (or values memes) are explained in more detail based on the Spiral Dynamics model (Beck and Cowan, 1996) in the following:

Purple (BO, animistic): The purple values meme is the first sacrifice-self oriented values meme, which has awakened when human beings first started to develop social relations and became curious about the world and nature. In the purple level, the world is seen as a mystical and sometimes threatening place. People find safety within the communities that they live in where people look out for each other. Spiritual beliefs, , and traditions are valued. Today, people who live in small towns, ethnic neighborhoods, or tribal communities may have values at this level. and family relations are very much valued in this level and people stay committed to home and extended family relations. Red (CP, egocentric): The red values meme is the first clearly express-self oriented values meme and an egocentric is valued in this level. The world is seen like a jungle where the strong dominate and the weak serve and therefore power is desired. People who value this values meme tend to assert themselves for dominance. The red values meme is common in street culture, crime organizations, and populations from emerging nations with a large BO (purple) subsystem. It emerges from societies in which purple values meme is dominant and when there is relative safety, allowing people to find the opportunity to express themselves and be creative. Red values meme has a present time orientation, in other words what matters is now and future is not real. Small children who seek attention from adults and expect their demands be met immediately largely operate at this level. Blue (DQ, absolutistic): The blue values meme is sacrifice-self oriented and it emerges in conditions of chaos created by conflicts, deprivation, and with a desire to bring order

24 and discipline through religion, culture, or . In this level, the world is seen as an orderly place where there is meaning and purpose under the control of a powerful authority. This is why in this level respect for authority, loyalty, patriotism, traditions, and rules are valued. A life style based on “one true way” and “going by the book” in dealing with problems or issues in life is a characteristic of the blue values meme. Strict religious communities, highly structured societies, or highly bureaucratic organizations are places where the blue values meme is common. People who value the blue values meme tend to have a future time orientation, in other words, they believe that one needs to sacrifice now by obeying the rules and authority to get rewards later. Therefore people are expected to accept the judgment of the authority (politicians, religious leaders, parents, etc.) and play their roles to maintain a healthy society. Orange (ER, multiplistic): The orange values meme is express-self oriented and in this level the world is seen as a place full of opportunities and resources. The orange values meme emerged with the Enlightment movements in Europe after the Middle Ages as a result of , formalities, and rigid social structures. People who value the orange values meme have an entrepreneur perspective in life and for them maneuvering within the rules of an organization or a system to get ahead and testing available options in life to reach a goal are common attitudes. Capitalist values, technological advancement, economic power, and are valued within this level. Business oriented communities, companies, and economically advanced or advancing nations would be places where orange value meme would be common. In this level the priority is given to self-advancement rather than the community and bureaucracy and heavily structured systems are not valued. Green (FS, relativistic): The green values meme has a sacrifice-self orientation with the goal of creating prosperous human communities. Concern for human feelings and needs, interdependence, and human relations are given priority in this level and the world is seen as a habitat where and prosperity must be achieved and maintained. Relativism, post- , multiculturalism, consensus building, human rights, equality, , and well being for all are respected ideas within this values meme. The roles of international or organizations that try to improve human rights and life conditions would be very much valued within the green values memes. Yellow (GT, systemic): The yellow values meme has an express-self orientation. People who value the yellow values meme view the world as an intriguing, complex, and interactive

25 system, which is under the threat of humans’ limited vision, namely the previous values memes that are responsible for the problems such as, , violence, terrorism, pollution, global warming, and wars. While the green values meme has the goal of reaching prosperity for all human beings and consensus and relativism are valued, people who don’t share the ideology of the green values meme are not accepted within communities where green values meme is valued. In the yellow values meme, acceptance and harmony are peripheral to in the sense that “what others think is interesting but not critical.” In this level, people tend to have a strong sense of independence, individual competence, and self-worth. If necessary, they take action to fix the world’s problems, since those problems also affect them. They are not driven by fear, compulsiveness, or loss of status. They may express discomfort at over-simplified models and failure to recognize the true complexity of issues at hand. Systemic long-range thinking, questioning, and accepting differences are common attitudes among people who value the yellow values meme. Turquoise (HU, holistic): The turquoise values meme is sacrifice-self oriented and in this level the world is viewed as a single living organism and life is valued as a whole (not only human life). People who value this values meme tend to be conceptual, value learning through experience, and search for meaning and purpose in existence. This search for meaning goes beyond survival, obedience, competition, and peace and reaches spiritual levels. This level of thinking is globalistic, extending across politics, religion, and vested interests. People who value this values meme have more of a community orientation, but they see community as the whole earth with all life in it and they tend to have more of a holistic view of issues or problems.

Beck and Cowan (1996) and Graves (1981) explain that there is a historical basis for the development of the values memes. As existential needs of human beings changed, so did their understanding of the world, the problems they dealt with, and the solutions they produced. Throughout their , as humans solved one set of problems, another set of problems appeared. In the earliest periods of human development, what was important was survival. Therefore, the beige values meme is the earliest form of human worldview in which natural instincts and reflexes direct individuals to satisfy their biological needs and urges. As people started to live together in groups and social relations started to emerge, the purple values meme awakened which views the world as a physically challenging place to live. Therefore sticking

26 together within a group and sacrificing for each other is valued as a way to survive. At this level spiritual beliefs start to emerge as the world appears mystical and magical to individuals. When people achieve relative safety within their communities and resolve their security-based problems, they create new problems for themselves. At this stage humans want to explore the world, be independent, and assert themselves as individuals. This is also the level where egocentrism, desire for power and dominance become important. As a result, chaos created by humans with conflicts of power, and this is when the blue values meme emerged. At the blue level, people seek to bring order through religion, culture, or nationality and hence what becomes important is to protect the values, traditions, and beliefs within a society. Orange values meme emerges when people want to free themselves from the constraints of society. At this stage, entrepreneurship, technological advancement, success, material gains, self-interest, and competition are valued. When societies reach economic success, the green values meme emerges out of concern for the well being of the whole humanity. At this level relativism, consensus, and equality are valued and priority shifts to protecting human needs in general. After the green values meme, the yellow values meme emerged recently in human . Yellow worldview values broad perspective views and trying to understand the complexities within systems. So, instead of maneuvering within the existing system, fixing the system itself is the attitude for the yellow worldview. A person at this level may take action to change the environment for the better with a “self” focus. Strong sense of self-confidence and self-efficacy are characteristics of the yellow thinking. At this level, belief systems of others are better understood and respected as long as they don’t appear harmful. The turquoise values meme is most the recently appeared system that goes beyond previous values memes and values all life as a whole without geographic, cultural, or any other form of separation. The world is seen as a single living organism at this level. Beck and Cowan (1996) argue that there is a big difference between the green values meme and the yellow values meme in terms of abilities to make decisions and understand the complexities of the world and other values memes. Therefore they label the first six values memes (from beige up to green) as first-tier, while yellow and turquoise values memes are labeled as second-tier. Beck and Cowan explain that the first-tier memes represent the evolution of human beings from their animalistic nature to 20th century societies, with the green values meme being the capstone of that evolution. They argue that today those humans, whose most

27 needs are met and who solved most of their existential problems are now able to look at world and life with more capable and sophisticated eyes that represent the yellow and turquoise thinking. According to Spiral Dynamics model, changes in life conditions such as, growing up, important life events, education, change in socioeconomic status, or changes in society are some of the causes that help change worldviews. Beck and Cowan (1996) explain the conditions in which changes happen in people’s worldviews, which is the strength of the Spiral Dynamics model they propose. They argue that the following conditions has to exist for change to occur (pp. 76,85):

1- Potential: All people or not equally open to, capable of, or prepared for change. A person or group’s capacity to change in the intended direction has to be evaluated before taking an initiative to change. People vary in terms of their change potentials along a continuum from open to arrested to closed. Open people have the most potential for change and adopt more complex level functioning. Open thinking is usually displayed in good listening skills, a non-judgmental approach to life, tolerance of differences, and a lack of closed-mindedness. Arrested people have the possibility for change if barriers are overcome. A person in an arrested state tries to live within the barriers life has imposed and come to grips with the status quo. Closed people may have no potential to change. Alternative perspectives are rejected, even cursed and demonized in closed thinking. 2- Solutions: For change to happen, people need to resolve their immediate problems within their existing context, so that they can have a chance to consider change into more complex thinking systems. 3- Dissonance: Inconsistency between beliefs, expectations, and experiences and the uncertainty that comes with it are the driving forces for change. 4- Barriers: Barriers (such as, physical context, time, available resources, beliefs, lack of knowledge) that make change difficult has to be recognized, eliminated, bypassed, neutralized, or reframed into something else. 5- Insight: For change to happen, there has to be an understanding of what went wrong that caused dissonance and what sources are available for handling the problems better. 6- Consolidation: Support during the change process.

28 Back and Cowan’s argument about how change occurs can be a guide for the change efforts in science education reform. As they argue, one has to decide first change “from what to what” is desired, and then the current status of individuals or groups has to be determined before attempts to change are taken. As they explain, not everyone or every group of people may be open to change and efforts to change such closed people may be futile. The main goal of this study was to investigate the usefulness of the worldview concept in understanding teachers’ beliefs and helping them change to become better practitioners. Therefore the above argument for change provides the framework for analyzing the findings of this study and for the suggested implications.

So what is worldview? Many agree that worldview is a belief system whether it is defined as a collection of beliefs or profiles of values memes. Worldviews have a structure with internal and external consistencies or inconsistencies. Beliefs that are central to a person’s life organize to form the worldview of that person. Beck and Cowan (1996) provide a model of the types of organizations (values memes) that exist within humans’ worldviews. Each of the values memes that they talk about represent a belief system and they argue that worldviews are composed of these belief systems with a profile like structure. The beliefs that form the worldview provide meaning for life, a means to cope with life conditions and problems, and a guide for behavior and action. The core beliefs of a worldview may be acquired in the form of knowledge through family, culture, social interactions, religion, or education and generally they become more rigid and resistant to change in time, as feelings, emotions, or judgments are being attached to them. This is not to say people’s worldview do not change; they do change as life conditions change or conflicts between the worldview and the external world arise or people may consciously choose to explore their beliefs, other worldviews and decide to change. Each of the worldview models I explained above provides one way of looking at this concept. All of the authors (Beck and Cowan, 1996; Graves, 1981; Kearney, 1984; Washburn, 1997) have different perspectives about worldviews; however, there are many similarities among their models. The models presented above agree that

29 • Worldviews are compositions of beliefs • Worldviews can be investigated within categories • Worldviews have internal and external consistency (or inconsistency) • Worldviews change throughout time based on external influences • Worldviews are complex but understandable constructs

Since environment, culture, and social interactions play a role in the formation of worldviews, the following analogy may be useful in understanding the relationship between beliefs, worldview, and culture: If worldview is the tree, beliefs are the branches and the forest is culture. In brief, the rationale for this research is that investigating people’s beliefs from a worldview perspective is a more holistic approach for research in this area. As I mentioned earlier, there are many studies in the education literature about teacher beliefs, but most of these studies focus on certain beliefs about education, students, teaching and learning, schooling, or other specific issues. As Pajares (1992) argues, teachers have other beliefs outside their professions that influence their behaviors. Studying teachers’ beliefs from the worldview perspective attempts to capture a bigger picture of their beliefs systems. Understanding teachers’ worldviews better qualifies researchers and educators to promote change. Beck and Cowan’s (1996) Spiral Dynamics model provides a framework for how changes occur within worldviews. Combined with methods such as action research and reflective practices, this model can provide a framework for desired changes in teacher beliefs and behaviors that would serve the reform efforts in science education. If I use the tree analogy, the assertion being made in this study is “To understand the branches, we need to be able to see the tree and even the forest as a whole.”

Theoretical perspective

The purpose of this research is to investigate the use of Graves’s (1981) and Beck and Cowan’s (1996) model as a way to understand teacher beliefs from a worldview perspective. This model is chosen because of the framework it provides for development and change, which allows an understanding of teachers’ beliefs and values structures and it also envisages their potential to change. This study was limited to understanding teachers’ worldviews and assessing their potential to change, and, because of the limited time, it did not attempted to initiate and

30 supervise change within participating teachers’ worldviews. The main goal of this study was to assert the usefulness of researching teachers’ worldviews as a prerequisite for helping change to occur. Researching worldviews means developing an understanding of how individuals make sense of the world around them, how their beliefs are organized in a way that affects their behaviors. Beliefs or worldviews are not observable and they are internally held constructs. Therefore inferences about individuals’ belief, values, and worldviews have to be made based on what they say, and how they behave. This creates difficulties in gathering data about people’s beliefs because people are often unable to describe their beliefs or unwilling to talk about their beliefs (Kagan, 1992; Pajares, 1992). Because of this, interpretive qualitative research seems to be the most appropriate methodology for this research. Defining theoretical perspective is not an easy task for a qualitative study because of the relatively immature and complex nature of the field. Schwandt (2000) explains,

Current struggles over departmental organization, interdisciplinary alliances, what constitutes “legitimate” research, who controls the editorship of key journals, and so forth, …in part, reflect the turmoil over what constitute the appropriate goals and means of human inquiry. (p. 190)

One can easily see the different meanings associated with terms and perspectives in qualitative research when reading different authors’ contributions. For example Guba and Lincoln (1994) use a certain language, while Crotty (1998) uses somewhat different language in explaining main aspects of qualitative inquiry. There are no conflicts among these languages; however, there is some room for confusion, which requires familiarity with different authors’ terminology about qualitative research. Guba and Lincoln (1994) argue that there are three questions that need to be asked before conducting a qualitative research. The answers given to these questions guide the research design and allow researchers to choose the most appropriate methods for the study they want to do:

1. Ontological question: What is the form and nature of reality? 2. Epistemological question: What is the relationship between the knower and what can be known about the perceived reality? 3. Methodological question: How should one learn about the perceived reality?

31 Crotty (1998) offers a somewhat different perspective for designing a qualitative research. He asks the following questions to guide research design:

1- What methods do we propose to use? 2- What methodology governs our choice and use of methods? 3- What theoretical perspective lies behind the methodology in question? 4- What informs this theoretical perspective?

Crotty explains that the type of research questions that a researcher asks will dictate the methods appropriate to use to answer them. In light of epistemological assumptions, methods are determined; theoretical perspective based on epistemology and methodology that reflects the theoretical perspective is developed. A researcher needs to be able to give consistent answers to the above questions when designing a research project based on available research traditions. Guba and Lincoln (1994) talk about four major in qualitative research that have dominated the discussions for the last few decades. These are , post-positivism, , and constructivism. Each of these paradigms is associated with certain ontological and epistemological assumptions. They provide theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches for researchers. Crotty’s (1998) terminology for classifying research paradigms is somewhat different than Guba and Lincoln’s. Crotty classifies qualitative research traditions based on their epistemological stances. According to Crotty, there are mainly three epistemological perspectives: objectivism, constructionism, and subjectivism. Theoretical frameworks, such as, positivism, post-positivism, symbolic interactionism, phenomenology, , critical theory, , and are based on one of these epistemological perspectives. For example, Crotty explains that some of the theoretical frameworks that are based on the constructionist epistemology include symbolic interactionism, phenomenology, and hermeneutics. Different authors classify research paradigms in qualitative inquiry in yet still different ways. As confusing as terminologies or classifications may be, research paradigms in qualitative inquiry have important similarities that allow for classifying them as qualitative research and these similarities are more important than terminology. Schwandt (2000) explains that what is common in all these classifications is the distinction between the traditional scientific paradigms and the newly emerging interpretive

32 paradigms. This distinction denotes the departure from the epistemological stance of discovering objective knowledge that exist independently from human consciousness, from the method of experimental design, collecting empirical, descriptive, value free, culture free, context free , and from the role of disinterested, disengaged, and distanced researcher. The common trend in interpretive paradigms is the purpose of understanding rather than discovering and paying more attention to culture and context and how they may influence our understanding. Schwandt explains, “The qualitative inquiry movement is built on a profound concern with understanding what other human beings are doing or saying” (p. 200). The interpretive research arena is very diverse in terms of philosophy, theory, and methods. Looking at this diversity, Schwandt argues,

These different ways of framing the interpretive project reveal that, internally at least, qualitative inquiry is a broadly contentious movement. It is a loose coalition of inquirers seemingly united only in their general opposition to what was earlier called the foundationalist-empiricist-representationalist nexus of beliefs. (p. 203)

This diversity also creates important dilemmas in interpretive research, one of which is the unclear nature of understanding. As the purpose of interpretive research is to understand, asking questions such as, “What does understanding mean?” “Can we compare one form of understanding with another?” “How much understanding is sufficient?” “How can understanding be justified?” is quite relevant. Schwandt explains that there are two positions related to unresolved debate about understanding. One is, what Schwandt calls, “strong ” which is a skeptical view of knowledge. People who defend this view argue that all knowledge is gained through interpretation and therefore “…knowledge is perspectival and contextual, …it is impossible to distinguish any particular interpretation as more correct, or better or worse, than any other” (p. 201). The other position is “weak holism” which is a non-skeptical view of knowledge. Schwandt explains,

Weak or skeptical holism argues that it is neither necessary nor desirable to draw such relativistic, suspicious (or, worse, nihilistic) conclusions from the fact that knowledge of others is always dependent on a background of understanding. … Weak holism seeks to explicate a rational basis for deciding whether an interpretation is “valid” or justified. (p. 202)

33 My position in this dissertation research complies with weak holism. I believe that interpretations and knowledge can be judged and justified based on their viability in relation to lived experiences. Schwandt explains that there are different ways of justifying knowledge. Internal coherence, practical reasoning, moral stance, compliance with experience, and sophistication can all be used as rationale for this purpose. My assumptions about worldview also comply with the view of weak holism, since I have an interpretive, rather than relativistic or suspicious, approach to study them. Among the diverse philosophical perspectives of interpretive research paradigms, I think constructionism fits well with my research interests. Constructionism is generally described in relation to constructivism in the qualitative research literature. According to constructivism, an observed object or phenomena has no meaning without a mind (Tobin & Tippins, 1993), and objects or phenomena are not the only sources of knowledge (Crotty, 1998). A researcher observing an object or a phenomenon is actively engaged in constructing knowledge about what is being observed. Schwandt (2000) explains, “We invent concepts, models, and schemes to make sense of experience, and we continually test and modify these constructions in the light of new experience” (p. 197). However, the researcher cannot construct meaning about a phenomenon without interacting with it. Therefore, the interaction between the observer and observed is the process in which knowledge is produced. The produced knowledge by the researcher is not accepted as a representation of reality, but rather as constructions (or interpretations) of the researcher (Tobin & Tippins, 1993). During this process the researcher uses available socially constructed meaning and knowledge resources to make sense of his/her observations. In other words, a researcher does not construct his/her interpretations in isolation, but rather uses socially constructed meaning, shared understandings and practices, and language to start with when interacting with the observed phenomena and constructing knowledge about it (Schwandt, 2000). on constructing knowledge is referred to as social constructivism (Tobin & Tippins, 1993; von Glaserfeld, 1993), (social) constructionism, or perspectivism (Crotty, 1998; Schwandt, 2000). Besides constructionism, hermeneutics also provides a useful perspective for this research. Crotty (1998) classifies hermeneutics as a theoretical perspective, which is based on the constructivist epistemology. Somewhat differently, Schwandt (2000) sees hermeneutics and constructivism as two interpretive that share the same epistemological perspective.

34 Schwandt argues that the view of hermeneutics is different than constructivism in that, according to hermeneutics, meaning is not constructed, but negotiated. Crotty (1998), Patton (2002), and Schwandt (2000) explain that traditionally hermeneutics comes from the studies for interpreting texts, especially biblical and legal texts. The method of hermeneutic understanding involves the use of the hermeneutic circle. This means to understand a text (or some human action), one needs to understand the meaning in its separate parts by considering the global meaning of the text. One needs to move back and forth dialectically between the parts and the whole to come up with a justified understanding (Patton, 2002; Schwandt, 2000). This process requires an interpreter to learn about the cultural and historical context of people and their standpoint to interpret the meaning of their actions, speeches, or written texts. Patton (2002) explains that hermeneutics is a theoretical orientation, which “reminds us that what something means depends on the cultural context in which it was originally created as well as the cultural context within which it is subsequently interpreted” (p. 113). Crotty (1998) cites the work of Dilthey, Heidegger, and Gadamer who contributed to the development of the philosophy of hermeneutics. According to Crotty, this development started from a desire of reaching an objective understanding of observed phenomena and continues towards acknowledging the influence of culture, context, tradition, history, prejudgments and prejudice in our interpretations. Crotty explains that Dilthey believed in the possibility of reaching an objective, valid, reliable understanding, if an interpreter learns about the historical context of the phenomena he/she is interpreting and in the meantime tries to put aside his/her beliefs, prejudices, and values. Heidegger’s interest in hermeneutics was to focus on and he wanted to understand the meaning of ‘being’ in a way that is free from culturally influenced meaning. To achieve this purpose, Heidegger developed his version of hermeneutic circle. Crotty calls the hermeneutic tradition developed by Heidegger as “phenomenological hermeneutics.” Citing Gadamer’s work, Schwandt (2000) makes the distinction between what he calls philosophical hermeneutics and other perspectives of hermeneutics. According to Schwandt, a researcher should not try to put his/her beliefs, values, judgments, and prejudices away when he/she is trying to interpret in order to reach a justified understanding. Doing so is impossible, Schwandt argues, instead a researcher needs to examine his/her prejudices and alter those that prevent understanding others. He suggests that only with a dialogic process with what

35 is being investigated, “can we open ourselves to risking and testing our preconceptions and prejudices” (Bernstein, 1983, p. 195). Patton (2002) explains:

Hermeneutic researchers use qualitative methods to establish context and meaning for what people do. Hermeneutists are much clearer about the fact that they are constructing the ‘reality’ on the basis of their interpretations of data with the help of the participants who provided data in the study. (p. 68)

Guba and Lincoln (1989) explain their method of hermeneutic dialectic circle in which meaning is negotiated between the researcher and research subjects. This process is a useful one, which provides the opportunity to examine the cultural context in which the researcher and the research subjects operate and by forming a dialectic circle to negotiate meaning which also provides the researchers with an opportunity to become aware of their prejudgments and prejudices. Operating from an interpretive qualitative research perspective and choosing qualitative methods for my study is an indication of my research interest and how I approach the issue of “coming to know” in this research. However, this does not mean that I do not value other ways of knowing or other assumptions about knowledge. My research interest and design could be put in perspective based on Wilber’s (1997) integral model of human quest for knowledge. Wilber makes a major distinction between the interior (subjective) world of human beings versus the exterior (objective) world and he argues that knowledge quest of humans takes place in these two worlds in many different fields. Wilber explains that the interior world is also referred to as consciousness, awareness, mind, psyche, idea, and whereas the exterior world is referred to as material, biophysical, brain, nature, empirical, and . This dualism is similar to the dualism between positivism and interpretivism in the qualitative research literature (Schwandt, 2000) as I explained above. Wilber takes an integral attitude towards this dualism by arguing that the human knowledge quest in both of these two different worlds should be honored and valued. In an effort to do so he creates a map of how humans have approached producing knowledge. He argues that both the interior and exterior approaches can be subdivided into individual and collective sections. As a result, he comes up with the “four quadrants” model shown in Figure 3.

36 I IT Upper Left Upper Right

Interior (subjective) Exterior (objective) Individual (Intentional) Individual (Behavioral) Quality criterion: Truthfulness Quality criterion: WE ITS Lower Left Lower Right

Interior (inter-subjective) Exterior (inter-objective) Collective (Cultural) Collective (Social) Quality criterion: Justness Quality criterion: Functional fit

Figure 3. Wilber’s four quadrants model (based on Wilber, 2000, p. 62)

In this model, the quadrants on the left belong to the interior world and the quadrants on the right belong to the external world. According to Wilber (1997) a phenomenon can be approached from each of these quadrants. He gives a simple example of “the thought of going to the grocery store” which can be investigated differently within different quadrants. (1) When thinking about going to the grocery store, one experiences this thought in the form of and images created in mind (upper left quadrant). (2) There are observable aspects of this thought, such as, brain activity in the form of chemical changes that can be observed (upper right quadrant). (3) The thought of going to a grocery store only makes sense in terms of a cultural background. Since different languages consist of different symbols and meanings, different images may appear in mind in different cultures about going to a grocery store. Some cultures do not even have the notion of a grocery store and this thought does not make sense in such a culture at all. So the culture gives the texture, meaning and context to the individual thoughts (lower left quadrant). (4) Finally, all cultural events in which individual thinking is shaped have social correlates such as, technology, forces of production, concrete institutions, written codes and patterns, and geopolitical locations. So the thought of going to a grocery store can also be investigated in relation to these aspects of a society (lower right quadrant). Wilber explains that each of these quadrants is a different way of looking at phenomena. In these quadrants, humans’ quest for knowledge is based on different foci and assumptions and therefore the quality criteria for validity of knowledge is different in each of them. In the upper right quadrant, the quality criteria is based on how well an explanation fits with the observations

37 and when an explanation fits well with observations it is considered to be true. So the search for truth is the quality criterion in this quadrant. In the upper left quadrant, the focus shifts from exterior (observable behavior) to interior states. The only way to get at others’ interior is dialogue and interpretation. Wilber explains that if we want to know how someone feels, then we must talk to him and interpret what he says. However, we cannot be sure if the person is lying to

us, moreover he may be lying to himself. So the quality criterion in this quadrant is truthfulness, in other words, whether or not if one can truthfully report on others’ inner status. In the lower right quadrant, the focus is the communal form, from an exterior and objective stance to explain the status of individual members in terms of their functional fit with the objective whole. So the quality criterion in this quadrant is the functional fit, in other words, each proposition must be tied to the intermeshing of the total system and network. Systems theory is an example that operates from this quadrant. In the lower left quadrant, rather than focusing on how objects fit together in a physical space, the focus is how subjects fit together in the same cultural, moral and ethical space. The quality criterion in this quadrant is justness, rightness, goodness, and fairness. In other words, are all the participants provided an opportunity to voice their opinions? Wilber (1997) believes that research studies can be placed predominantly in one of these quadrants depending on the type of understanding one seeks. The pursuit of knowledge in these quadrants is a developmental process that may change in time. It is also possible that a particular research may be informed from more than one quadrant. Wilber argues that, none of these quadrants can be reduced to another quadrant. He is against denying any of the validity claims for knowledge by radicalizing in one of the quadrants. He suggests an integral all level, all quadrant approach to human quest for knowledge honoring the entire spectrum of consciousness, as he puts it. According to Wilber, all of these approaches contribute to our learning by filling in gaps. He does not see the fundamentally different assumptions being made in each quadrant as a reason for privileging one approach over another. While many researchers who try to specialize in their field and research perspectives and who generally operate from one of the quadrants may not see Wilber’s point and disagree with his holistic approach, I think this integral vision is a better way of understanding and valuing human endeavors for pursuing knowledge. Wilber’s integral model provides a perspective for the theoretical orientation of this research. Based on Wilber’s model, my research largely lies in the left quadrants, as I am interested in the interior: worldviews of teachers. This study is also informed by the right hand

38 quadrants since I used observations as a descriptive method of data collection. While studying teachers’ worldviews through dialogue fits within the upper left quadrant, my interpretation of them is dependent on my and teachers’ cultural context which may have implications in the lower left quadrant. As I explained above, constructionism and hermeneutics provide the theoretical framework for my research, and both operate from the left quadrants. In the next chapter, I discussed the specific research questions, Guba and Lincoln’s (1989) hermeneutic process as part of the research design and methodology of this research, specific methods that I used for collecting and analyzing data, the quality criteria for my research based on Guba and Lincoln (which also fits with the quality criteria suggested in Wilber’s model), and ethical issues about my research design.

39 CHAPTER 3

METHODOLOGY

Research Problem and Specific Research Questions

The research focus for this dissertation is about exploring how the worldview model contributes to the research about teacher beliefs, especially in relation to science teaching and learning. How teachers’ worldviews influence their perceptions of education, teaching and learning, their roles as teachers and how worldviews affect teachers’ practice, and also the conditions in which their worldviews may change were the focus of investigation in this study. Worldviews are belief systems that influence people’s behaviors and actions. Because of this, studying worldviews is possible through studying peoples’ beliefs and that is possible by talking to them, observing their behaviors and actions, and making inferences from the obtained data. Specifically my research questions are:

1. How can participating teachers’ worldviews be characterized? 2. How are participating teachers’ beliefs about educational issues related to their worldviews? 3. How are participating teachers’ worldviews related to their practices? 4. How or under what conditions do science teachers modify their worldviews?

Research Setting and Methodology

The research sites for this study were two middle and two high schools in a southeastern state in the United States. The research participants were four science teachers (one male and three females) teaching in these schools, and their names were Suzan, Sara, Aylin, and Brian (all pseudonyms). I knew the participants before they participated in this study through various

40 academic and social events. The participating teachers had varying degrees of teaching experience and different teaching styles, which increased the diversity of data I collected. This diversity was necessary to observe the influence of different worldviews on different practices. The number of participants chosen for this study was balanced by the need for multiple participants to have variety in data, limited hours of the school days, and the need for prolonged engagement with each teacher to obtain the necessary amount of data. To reflect this balance, I have chosen to work with four teachers. I adapted the methodology proposed by Guba and Lincoln (1989) in this research for data collection. Guba and Lincoln suggest a hermeneutic dialectic circle as a method for the purposes of evaluation and inquiry, which is a process based on constructivist philosophy. In this process, initially knowledge is constructed through interpretation during the first contact with one of the research subjects. Then this interpretation is negotiated with another research subject, which leads to the modification of the first constructed knowledge. Guba and Lincoln explain that, “This process is repeated with new respondents being added until the information being received either becomes redundant or falls into two or more constructions that remain at odds in some way” (p. 152). In this study, the hermeneutic dialectic circle was used to ensure participants’ agreement about the research findings about their beliefs rather than reaching a consensus among the participants. This method empowered the participants by allowing them to contribute their input to the research findings. Specifically in this study, I wrote a case study for each teacher based on my observations and interviews with them. I gave the case studies to the teachers to allow them to respond to my interpretations and assertions about their beliefs and practices. This way, I reached an agreement between my interpretations of the participants’ beliefs and practices and their perceptions of their own beliefs and practices. Throughout this process, I tried to have as much dialog as I could with the participating teachers in the form of casual talks or interviews to better understand their beliefs. I asked them questions based on my observations and my casual dialogs with them. The interviews and dialogs that I had with the teachers generated further questions that contributed to the construction of meaning in the hermeneutic dialectic process with each teacher.

41 Methods and Analysis

In this study, the data collection methods I used were open-ended interviews, classroom observations, casual dialogs, and a questionnaire about peoples’ beliefs called the Values Test (Beck and Cowan, 2000) (Appendix A). The Values Test is designed to provide information about people’s worldviews based on the developmental levels suggested by Clare Graves (1981) and Beck and Cowan (1996). It includes 20 items and each item has seven choices representing the belief system of the developmental levels in Grave’s model. In the Values Test, 10 items are asked with a positive question root representing acceptance scores and the same 10 items are asked again with a negative question root representing rejection scores for the seven belief systems.15 points are distributed to the choices for each question and at the end of the test addition of the rejection scores and acceptance scores for each developmental level provides the results. An example test item is in the following:

I LIKE A JOB WHERE . . . a. loyalty earns greater job security and we are treated fairly. b. I make lots of cash, people stay off of my back, and I can do what I want. c. our primary concern is the health of the planetary living system. d. our circle is stronger as we work together and sacrifice for each other. e. successful performance advances my career and I can get ahead. f. human feelings and needs come first as we all share equally in a caring community. g. systemic and long-range thinking count more than people, money, traditions, or quick fixes.

In this item, the choices are associated with the following belief systems: a. blue b. red c. turquoise d. purple e. orange f. green g. yellow

42 This item has a positive root and points given to choices represents acceptance scores for a particular worldview. For example if a person gives 8 points to choice f and 7 points to choice g for this item (the points should add up to 15) this means that the person is giving acceptance scores to green and yellow worldviews. In the test, the same item is asked again with same choices but with a negative root, which is “In my job, it is less important that...” The points given to this item constitute the rejection points given to worldviews. For example, if a person gives 10 pints to choice a and 5 points to choice e for this item, that means this person is giving rejection points to blue and orange worldviews. The total acceptance and rejection points are interpreted within a chart that provides average acceptance and rejection points of the American population within percentage intervals. This chart is provided in Figure 4:

% Yellow Orange Red Purple Blue Green Turquoise 99 59 74 41 29 61 50 33 90 51 63 39 28 60 49 32 80 40 51 27 19 45 37 23 70 36 46 23 16 40 33 19 60 33 41 19 13 35 29 16 50 29 37 15 10 31 25 13 40 28 35 13 9 28 23 12 30 24 31 9 6 24 20 8 20 21 26 5 3 19 15 5 10 16 21 0 0 12 10 1 Acceptance 35 Rejection 5 10 5 1 19 15 1 5 14 20 8 6 26 22 7 8 19 30 10 9 32 27 11 10 24 40 12 12 38 32 15 12 28 50 13 14 40 34 17 13 30 60 15 17 46 39 21 15 34 70 18 20 51 44 26 18 39 80 20 24 58 50 31 21 44 90 27 33 75 65 43 29 55 99 29 34 81 69 44 31 60

Figure 4. The chart used to interpret the Values Test results.

43 For example if a person’s total acceptance scores for the green worldview is 35 (as marked in Figure 4), than this person gave more acceptance scores for this worldview than 70% (this value located at the left end of the row where 35 acceptance points for the green worldview is) of the population. If the person’s acceptance score were consistent with his rejection score for the same worldview, a low rejection score for the green worldview would be expected (for example 5 as marked in Figure 4). This is how the chart in Figure 4 allows interpreting a person’s Values Test results relative to the population of the chart. The participating teachers took the Values Test two times with an eight months interval to check for consistency of the results and also through an interview they were asked to comment on the changes in their scoring and the reasons for those changes. The part of this research was completed during the Spring 2003 semester. This time frame proved to be enough to collect the data that I needed for this research since data saturated after one to two months. Interviews and conversations with teachers (through meetings and e-mails) continued until early 2004. In the interviews, I asked the teachers questions about their beliefs in relation to purpose of education, teaching and learning, teachers’ and students’ roles in the teaching and learning process, assessment, science, school context, challenges, frustrations, and conflicts that they face, which are issues widely studied in the science education literature. Observations were recorded in the form of written notes and expanded and typed later as field notes and interviews were audio taped and transcribed. The interviews and the Values Test provided an understanding of the participants’ worldviews based on Graves’ (1981) and Beck and Cowan’s (1996) model of developmental levels. I compared these data with the observation data of teachers’ teaching practices. This comparison helped me to construct a relationship between the teachers’ worldviews and their practices. As Cobern (1996) explains, worldviews are composed of non-rationally held presuppositions about the world and the only way to reach these presuppositions is to learn about beliefs and behaviors. Kearney (1984), Cobern (1991, 1996, 1999, 2000b), and Graves (1981) studied worldviews through interviews, observations, and essays written by research subjects. The data they collected ultimately showed patterns of beliefs and behaviors associated with the participants’ worldviews. Similarly in this study, I tried to learn about participants’ worldviews through their beliefs and how these beliefs related to their behavior. I also tried to learn how the participants dealt with the conflicts between their beliefs and their life conditions.

44 I have considered the suggestions provided in the literature about the methods I used during this study. For example, Angrosino and Mays de Pérez (2000) explain that the tradition of observation has changed in social sciences. They argue that in contemporary social research, there is a tendency on the part of researchers towards developing a membership in the communities that are being studied, because they recognize that it is not possible to harmonize observer and insider perspectives to achieve “ethnographic truth” and to transform erstwhile subjects into collaborative research partners. Bogdan and Biklen (1998) talk about two extreme roles that a researcher can adopt in a research setting. One is a distant observer who does not participate in any activity with the subjects at the research site and the other is a “complete involvement in the research site with little discernible difference between the observers’ and the subjects’ behaviors” (p. 81). They suggest a place somewhere in between these extremes based on the research setting and purposes. In my case, I participated to the classroom activities in the research settings when appropriate situations occurred. For example, I gave a small lecture in one Suzan’s classroom and Sara occasionally asked me questions about science. Other than these moments, I was mostly seen as a visitor in the classrooms I observed. Occasionally, students asked me what I was doing in their classroom or other questions about me and my nationality; however, their curiosity subsided in time. When it comes to interviews, Fontana and Frey (2000) explain that open-ended interviews provide more in depth data free from the limitations of structured interviews, which is why they are more suitable for the interpretive qualitative studies. However, they point out some of the important issues a researcher needs to consider when doing open-ended interviews. They argue that presentation of self as a researcher is a very important issue, because it may influence participants’ responses and behaviors. Fontana and Frey explain that a researcher can be perceived in a variety of ways, such as a friend, someone who represents the academy, or someone who is there to judge them. In my case, I knew all of the participants before their participation and therefore I was not a total stranger for them, which may helped eliminate some of the concerns they may have felt otherwise. However, one of the participants, Sara, did seem a bit concerned about being judged by me, while others were more comfortable. I believe my conversations with Sara helped decrease this concern she had initially. Another issue that Fontana and Frey (2000) discuss is the notion of establishing rapport. They explain that, as the goal of unstructured interviews is understanding, “researchers must be

45 able to take the role of the respondents and attempt to see the situation from their viewpoint, rather than superimpose their world of academia and preconceptions upon them” (p. 655). However, Fontana and Frey caution about carefully establishing rapport with the respondents, and they suggest a balance between becoming a naïve spokesperson of the respondents and being very distant to the respondents. I tried to address this suggestion during my data analysis. Specifically, during the interviews, I had a list of issues that I addressed based on other studies about teacher beliefs in the literature. I asked participants questions to understand their beliefs about issues that included the purpose of education, teaching and learning, teachers’ and students’ roles in the teaching and learning process, assessment, science, school context, challenges, frustrations, and conflicts they faced. I tried to encourage the participants to express their beliefs and feelings by asking more questions that came up during the interviews. In Appendix B, there is a list of example questions that I asked during the interviews. After collecting the data, I used data analysis procedures suggested by Bogdan and Biklen (1998) and Miles and Huberman (1994). A common procedure of data analysis suggested by these authors is developing coding categories. In this procedure, coding categories are developed during and after data collection. The collected data involve patterns in the form of repeated words and phrases that stand out (Bogdan and Biklen, 1998). Each of these pieces of data can be labeled with codes developed by the researcher. These codes can be categorized to organize the data during the analysis process. The codes and categories constructed by the researcher are based on the research questions he is asking and the research perspectives that he is holding (Bogdan and Biklen, 1998). Miles and Huberman (1994) argue that the developed codes and categories could be descriptive, interpretive or inferential based on researchers’ perspectives. In this study, previous studies about teacher beliefs in the literature helped me determine some of the coding categories during data analysis. I used colors to represent each code that I came up with and marked the pieces of relevant data on field notes and interview transcripts. After the data was coded this way, I organized the data based on the coding categories. I used these categories (which are the subtitles in the case studies presented in the next chapter) to write the findings of my research. Table 1 is a data collection matrix (adopted from Schram, 2002) that shows the type of data that I collected and how the data collection procedures related to the research questions.

46 Table 1. Data collection matrix

Research Questions Purpose Kind of data used Rationale

Values test provided information about the How can teachers’ worldviews based participating 1- on the developmental levels teachers’ worldviews To learn about of Spiral Dynamics. The best way to learn about be characterized? teachers’ people’s worldview is talking worldviews in Interviews with teachers with them. Interviews relation to their provided information about provided the necessary beliefs about their worldviews and beliefs understanding about the education, teaching about education, teaching worldviews of teachers and context, teaching How are participating context, teaching and how their beliefs fit within and learning, and teachers’ beliefs learning, and science. their worldviews. science 2- about educational issues related to their The Values Test and worldviews? observation data informed interview questions.

The information that I got To understand the about teachers’ beliefs and How are participating relationship Observation of teacher worldviews from the first two teachers’ worldviews between teachers’ 3- behaviors and teaching questions is linked to their related to their worldviews and practices in their classrooms. behaviors and teaching practices? their behaviors and practices through teaching practices observations. Second application of the How or under what To understand Values Test after eight The changes in the Values conditions do science what causes months period followed by Test results can only be 4- teachers modify their worldviews to interviews about the changes investigated through worldviews? change that occurred in the test interviews. results.

Quality criteria

Reliability and validity are two aspects of quality criteria that are developed within the positivist research . Janesick (2000) explain that interpretive researchers try to avoid using these conceptualizations and rather develop their own terminology and methods for quality criteria because of the fundamentally different assumptions being made about how much confidence one can has in establishing truth in research. Following this trend, as this research is intended to be an interpretive research, I used the quality criteria suggested by Guba and Lincoln (1989).

47 The quality criteria for research suggested by Guba and Lincoln (1989) conceptually parallels the criteria suggested in the positivist paradigm, but they are adapted for constructivist inquiry. They call these parallel criteria “trustworthiness,” which are:

1. Credibility: This criterion is parallel to the internal validity criterion of positivist paradigm, which means isomorphism between findings and an objective reality. For the constructivist paradigm, this criterion is replaced by isomorphism between constructed realities of respondents and the reconstructions attributed to them. Guba and Lincoln suggest several techniques to ensure meeting this criterion, such as, prolonged engagement, persistent observation, peer debriefing, negative case analysis, and progressive subjectivity.

2. Transferability: This criterion is parallel to external validity or generalizability criterion of positivist paradigm. It is adjusted to constructivism as a process for checking the degree of similarity between researchers’ and readers’ conceptualizations. The suggested technique for this criterion is generating a “” of the data and of time, place, context, and culture in which the researchers starts developing understanding to help the readers assess transferability based on their experience in familiar settings.

3. Dependability: This criterion is parallel to reliability, which concerns establishing stability of the data over time. Guba and Lincoln explain that alteration in methodology, hypothesis, and constructs in a research process decrease the reliability of a study. However, shifts in constructions are expected in favor of more sophisticated constructions as long as these changes are tracked and reported. Guba and Lincoln argue that dependability relies on the thorough recording of the actual research process (how data was actually collected and analyzed), which could be tracked back to its source. This recording enables a dependability audit.

4. Confirmability: This criterion is parallel to the objective criterion of positivist paradigm. Confirmability “is concerned with assuring that data, interpretations, and outcomes of inquiries are rooted in contexts and personas apart from the researcher and are not simply figments of the evaluator’s [(researchers’)] imagination” (p. 243). Guba and Lincoln explain

48 that the assurance for confirmability of an inquiry rests in data, which means that data can be tracked back to its source.

I addressed these criteria by using the techniques that Guba and Lincoln suggest. I negotiated constructed meanings with the research participants, I kept timely records of the data I collected, and I spend as much time as I could at the research sites with the research subjects. I used different sources and methods to collect my data that included observations, interviews, conversations, and the Values Test questionnaire.

Ethical Issues

The literature I reviewed (Punch, 1994, Bogdan and Biklen, 1998, Miles and Huberman, 1994, Christian, 2000) agrees that the ethical codes vary from to institution for doing qualitative research. Several institutions, such as American Psychological Association, American Educational Research Association, American Sociological Association, and American Anthropological Association developed their own set of codes but there is no unanimity across these institutions on this issue (Miles and Huberman, 1994). Miles and Huberman explain the reasons for the lack of consensus about this issue with the uniqueness and unpredictability of each qualitative study. However, despite the lack of consensus on a certain ethical code, there are generally accepted traditions that every qualitative researcher needs to consider. According to Bogdan and Biklen (1998), two issues dominate traditional guidelines of in research with human subjects: informed and the protection of subjects from harm. Informed consent ensures that subjects are participating in a study voluntarily and they understand the nature of the study and the dangers and involved. Researchers must also make sure that subjects are not exposed to risks that are greater than the gains they might desire. Bogdan and Biklen (1998) and Christian (2000) make the following important suggestions about ethics in qualitative research:

49 1- Informed consent: When negotiating participation in a study, researchers and participants should be clear about the terms and conditions of the informed consent. These include voluntary participation, honoring “off the record” divulgences, confidentiality, right to withdraw from participation without any penalty, and no harm to the participant policy. 2- Privacy and confidentiality: Unless otherwise agreed, the subjects’ identities should be protected so the information collected does not embarrass or harm them in any way. 3- Deception: The researcher should treat subjects with respect and should seek their cooperation without using any deception, even when working with children or mentally ill. 4- Accuracy: Researcher must always tell the truth when reporting their findings despite pressures that may exist to do otherwise.

Bogdan and Biklen (1998) acknowledge that there maybe exceptions to and complications about these guidelines and they argue that each researcher has the ultimate responsibility in deciding what is ethical and what is not. Punch (1994) also agrees that every researcher has to trace his/her own path when it comes to making ethical decisions based on the traditionally accepted guidelines. To address these ethical issues I obtained permission from the Human Subjects Committee located at Florida State University to conduct my study (Appendix C). I asked the participants of my study to fill out and an informed consent form and as best as I could I explained what my study was all about and what the risks they were taking by participating in my study. I used pseudonyms for names and locations so that their identities will not be revealed to anybody at anytime in any of the produced documents related to this study. I tried to gain their and cooperation during my study and respected their schedules and suggestions about their participation. During this study, the main ethical issues that I faced with were the participants’ concern about being judged by an outsider and the discomfort they may have felt about revealing their personal beliefs. As I knew the participants prior to this study, I was not a total stranger for them. They also knew my major professor Dr. Nancy Davis, which provided additional trust and that is why I believe discomforts that they could have had about reveling their personal beliefs were diminished. Perhaps the bigger ethical issue was that one of the teachers, Sara, was openly

50 concerned for the possibility of being judged by me as the researcher and she initially seemed a bit uncomfortable with my presence in her classroom. To avoid this concern, I talked with Sara and explained her that I was not there to judge her in any way and also I told her (and others) that all of the research documents that I produce will be confidential and their identities will never be revealed. I think giving the participating teachers a chance to comment on the case studies I wrote about them addressed another ethical issue, which is giving participants a voice in a study that was about their beliefs and practices. Participants made comments, suggestions, changes, or explanations in their case studies. This may helped them feel better about the findings of this study. In the following chapter, I presented all of the case studies I wrote about the participating teachers based on my observations and interviews with them including their comments and changes as well as the results of the Values Test that they took.

51 CHAPTER 4

FINDINGS

Introduction

In this chapter I present the case studies that I wrote for each of the four teachers that participated in this study. The teachers, Suzan, Sara, Aylin, and Brian, had a chance to read their case study and express their suggestions or concerns. So the case studies I present in this chapter include the changes that I made based on the participating teacher’s responses and also the results of the Values Test for each teacher. All cases are written in past tense for consistency.

Suzan’s Case

I met Suzan at a graduation party for the first time. My first impression of her was that she is an outgoing and friendly person. I remember asking her if I could visit her in her classroom for a possible research study (even though I didn’t have a planned research at the time). She reacted very positively and told me that she would welcome me into her classroom any time. Before I met Suzan, I heard about her from my professor, Dr. Nancy Davis, who suggested that it would be nice for me to work with Suzan for my dissertation research. She told me that Suzan is an extraordinary teacher and she uses inquiry often in her teaching. Suzan had 18 years of teaching experience and a Ph.D. degree in science education. Her dissertation was about a reflective research study of her own teaching. Suzan also held National Board of Professional Teaching Certification. Before I started working with her I felt that she was a very good teacher who knew a lot about teaching and learning and chemistry from whom I could learn. Therefore, I asked Suzan to participate in my dissertation study and she was kind enough

52 to accept my request. I visited Suzan at her school approximately once a week from February 5th to May 6th 2003 for observing her classes and interviewing her.

School Context During this study, Suzan was teaching general chemistry, honors chemistry, and advanced placement (AP) chemistry classes at City Town High School with more than 2000 students in the southeastern United States. One could easily see how big the City Town High School was as soon as you walk through the front door. The first thing you would see was the big and busy front office behind a glass wall with two reception desks. The administration offices covered a large area around the front office. The secretaries had earphones to answer phone calls, which made the place look like a large company. The school was built in the energy- economizing era of the 1970’s, thus the original structure had no windows; however, more modern additions have windows. The hallways in the school seemed very complicated to me when I walked through them for the first time. The school even had a small TV station and a closed broadcasting system. Everyday, during the second period that Suzan taught, the national anthem and the pledge of allegiance was played on the Suzan’s classroom TV. Once I was surprised to see that after the national anthem, there was another anthem played on the TV, which I later learned that it was the anthem of the school. It was interesting to me to see the sense of community created in this school, such that the school even had its own anthem. After the national anthem and the pledge of allegiance, there was always a short bulletin about announcements of school events and activities broadcasted on the classroom TV. Sometimes the principal of the school was one of the speakers in these bulletins. During one discussion that I had with Suzan, she explained that the new principal of the school valued the community and social activities very much and that was why he encouraged students and teachers to participate in social events that took place at the school, in the community, or in the nation even at the expense of class time. For example, the first day I visited Suzan, the classroom TV was showing United States Secretary of State Collin Powell’s speech at the United Nations Security Council about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. I was surprised to see that the TV was on during the class. Suzan told me that the principal encouraged students to witness this historic event and that is why she allowed the TV to stay on during the class. But she did not seem happy about it.

53 When I asked Suzan how she liked the school that she worked at, her response was that she was happy to work in this school and she liked the people with whom she worked. I asked her if the resources of the school were adequate and she said, “Oh they’re, yes. I like where I work. I think it’s fine. I have everything I need given what I am trying to accomplish. I mean - yes it is fine. There is more technology than I need.” Although she liked where she worked, when I asked Suzan how the school environment was influencing her teaching, her response was somewhat negative,

It makes me less regimented and more ‘well whatever happens, happens.’ There are so many interruptions, so much loving [and caring] going on instead of [teaching]. I think it keeps it from being too rigid. I think if the school was very rigid, I would be more rigid and I think I have come to this lack of rigidity not only for my own book personality but to survive and not go crazy. So then I have had to develop curriculum so that I can survive as well. The curriculum model I use has to be - if kids are coming and going all the time - it has to be where they can do it. So my tests even come out of the textbook, the questions are out of the textbook because every time you make a test you got to remake it. I have absences galore, if I hold them to a makeup day they don’t come and nobody backs me up. So all those kinds of decisions are based on the structure of the school. (Interview with Suzan, 5-6-2003, p.22)

Suzan’s school was also demanding sometimes in terms of procedures. For example one day a lady (who I understood to be someone from the administration) called and asked Suzan if she had a safety guidebook that shows what to do in case of emergencies, which every science classroom had to have. Suzan had the book but she could not remember where she put it so she started to look for it. She looked for it for a long time, and when she could not find it she said (jokingly), “I think I’m about to get in trouble.” While she was looking for it, I asked Suzan if they could give her a new safety guidebook. She said (jokingly), “You would think so, but they’ll humiliate you first.” On another occasion, someone from the administration asked Suzan and another teacher to make an inventory of the chemicals in the stock room and they wanted it in a very short time. So Suzan had to take time out of her classes to complete the inventory. Suzan seemed to have good relationships with her colleagues. One day, a teacher next door asked Suzan for the chemical formula of sucrose. She could not remember it and asked me. I could not remember it either, so she spent some time searching for it in the books that she had in her classroom. She eventually found it and gave it to her colleague. She could have easily said, “I don’t know” but she did not, which indicated that she cared about her colleagues. Similarly

54 her colleagues seemed to be helpful people as well. I have seen some of them coming by Suzan’s classroom and have little chats with Suzan. In brief, Suzan was apparently satisfied with the school that she worked at even though she thought that the school had negative effects on her teaching sometimes. She thought she had sufficient resources for her teaching. She had good relationships with her colleagues and I did not hear her complaining about the administration other than some general policies that the school has.

Classroom Context Suzan’s classroom was a big, clean, well-equipped laboratory classroom with six lab benches, cabinets for glassware and other laboratory equipment, a hood, bookshelves, student desks, a computer with a smart board system, and a TV. Suzan’s classroom was in an area where there was another similar science classroom, a stockroom for chemicals, and a computer laboratory. The room was part of a new addition that was added in the past five years and thus the room had windows and a back door that opened to the school’s parking lot. There was also a speaker system in the classroom, which was used for announcements and also for bell ringing (which actually is a very annoying tone). Suzan taught three 90-minute periods every day when I observed her classes. Her first period was general chemistry with 20 students, second period was honors chemistry with 10 students, and the third period was AP chemistry with 14 students. The first period class had students that were more mixed in terms of race and . The second and third period students were mostly white males. The third period (AP chemistry) had only one female student while there were more female students in the second period. I could not always observe the first period because of its early schedule, so most of my observations in Suzan’s classroom came from the second and third periods that she was teaching (honors and AP chemistry classes). Suzan’s students were generally well-behaved students who seemed to care about learning chemistry (they were also hand picked honors or AP students). I was impressed to see that even when Suzan was not in the classroom, her students were working on their own without any inappropriate behavior. I have seen them collaborating in solving problems or doing homework without any supervision. From what I observed, Suzan’s relationship with her students was based on mutual respect for each other. Students called Suzan as “Dr. Suzan”

55 because of her doctoral degree, which made me think that they had extra respect for her. This may had an influence on her relationship with her students; however, I cannot really make this claim since I have not talked to Suzan’s students about it. Suzan had a relaxed environment in her classroom for her students. They could leave the classroom to go to bathroom or to get a drink or walk around the classroom to talk to their peers. However, these behaviors never seemed disturbing to Suzan. I later learned that there was an agreement between Suzan and her students about how they should behave in her classroom. Suzan explained this agreement with her students as,

We have an agreement that they take the pass - usually they are supposed to - and they can go and they can eat and drink in my classroom. They can - in the first five minutes of the class - get themselves situated, get their books, go to bathroom, they are all supposed to do that before they get there but that is what works. Because they don’t do that and if you give them zero for not bringing their books, they won’t let you do that so I give them about a five-minute window and allow them go get a drink or food as long as they don’t leave it behind or make a mess. So it is part of this attitude I have, you know, ‘you are at this academic level, I am going to treat you like you are mature until you act irresponsible and I’ll do anything to make an environment where you can learn and you are comfortable in learning if that means eating or getting up going to bathroom when you want to or getting up and moving around and visiting for a while.’ You know, [it’s an] 80-minute periods and so that is why I allow them to do that. (Interview with Suzan, 5-6- 2003, p. 22)

An example of the relaxed environment that Suzan created in her classroom was, once she allowed her students to bring a popcorn machine to the classroom and make popcorn during the class. She allowed it with the condition that they would not leave a mess behind. From my observations, this relaxed environment was working for most of the students she had, however, not for all of them. Suzan had this to say about it,

Now if somebody is usually off task all the time and isn’t performing, then I nag them a lot. Then it becomes a problem for me, it is not the kids who perform that I have a problem with using this model, it’s the kids who don’t perform. Because, usually they are not performing because they require more structure than I am giving them. So without the discipline being enforced by me ‘do this now,’ take up a paper every 30 minutes and grade it or whatever, they don’t have self-control. I give them options, ‘get out if you can’t handle it, go to another room.’ But I think it is worth the benefit, worth that loss to have them realize, because when they go to college, this is a college level course they have got to control their time and make a decision to sit down and study when the time is

56 available. It is difficult to do some days; I am not as able to let it happen. So I always joke with them; they say, “Naggy Suzan is coming out!” Because I kind of let it go so far and then I do nag them and then threaten them (laughing). (Interview with Suzan, 5-6- 2003, p. 22)

When it comes to discipline, I never observed Suzan having a big problem with her students, even with those who she said needed more control. When students were off task or there was noise in the classroom, she generally warned students jokingly. For example the first day I was observing her, when the classroom got noisy she said, “Ssssh, ssssh! Order in the court room!” Another time when she was giving a lecture, a student was not paying attention and Suzan said, “Do you have a question that needs to be answered so that you pay attention?” This was one of the serious warnings that I heard her giving to a student. However, most of the time her warnings did not sound angry. Another time I heard her saying to students when they got noisy was “There must be a sound problem in here…” then she said, “I am just teasing you.” Still another time, when she came into the classroom and saw that students were chatting and off task, she said (putting her hands on her waist), “I thought only girls can do two things at once (there were no girls in the classroom at that time).” I think the lack of discipline problems in Suzan’s classroom was because her students were generally well-behaved, good students. I asked her what would happen if she had difficult students. Her response was,

I have had those classes. Much more structured, it would have to be much more behavioristic. I always try to teach to the audience. I even have had last term - before you started coming here - a group of honors kids that was primarily about 6 or 7 girls who were just way out of their league. They certainly had the intellectual capability, but they weren’t mature enough for it, their parents pushed them and pushed them so they ended up there and they were horrible and mean, discipline problems all the time. I had to structure the class such that they worked on their problems, they had to turn something physically in to me every day so I could keep this little folder that said they did eight problems today or four problems, because they would lie, they cheat, they weren’t engaging in the learning, they were finding every way to come here and not engage and then they say ‘oh she never taught us.’ So I had to start keeping track records, had to play their to get them, you know, at least not to be threatening to me even. So yes, I modify my behavior based on the class. I think there are appropriate times to have a lot of structure. (Interview with Suzan, 5-6-2003, p. 23)

57 Suzan generally had friendly relations with her students. Her students were comfortable talking with her or asking questions to her. An interesting example that I observed about Suzan’s relationship with her students was during the third period she was teaching. The first time I visited Suzan’s classroom, before the third period started Suzan explained to me that the students in this period start the class with a weird tradition. The tradition was ringing a bell and shaking hands to start the class as if they were starting a stock market. Suzan thought it is silly, but she allowed them do it. Suzan occasionally had casual talks with her students about things that were not related to chemistry during her classes. One day Suzan was looking for a safety guidebook that she needed to have in her classroom. She could not find it for a while and one of her students was comfortable enough to suggest her, “You need to be organized.” Many of the teachers that I had in the past would probably respond to this suggestion by saying “It is none of your business…” but Suzan’s response was, “I know, but my whole life is like this. Can you imagine being me?” In another occasion, Suzan and one of her students were talking about what the function of salt bridge is in electrochemistry. The student was reading some information about it in a textbook and he got frustrated because he could not understand what the book meant and he said, “What the crap is this?” Suzan tried to explain him the function of the salt bridge but she did not seem disturbed by the student’s use of the word “crap.” From all of these observations, I could see that Suzan created a friendly atmosphere in her classroom, which made it easy for her students to talk to her as if they were talking to one of their peers. However, Suzan also made the line between a teacher and a student clear. Students were comfortable talking to Suzan but I never observed them being disrespectful. Suzan showed respect for her students and she wanted her students to show respect for each other. She often asked her students to do little presentations, such as solving a problem in front of the class. One day students were presenting their solutions to a set of problems that Suzan gave them as an assignment. While one of the students was presenting his solution the bell rang and students attempted to leave. Suzan said, “Don’t you dare leave, be polite!” and she made the other students wait until the student’s presentation was over. In another occasion, Suzan was showing students how to solve a problem on the overhead projector. One of the female students suggested another way of solving the problem, but while she was talking another (male) student intervened. Suzan immediately stopped him to let her finish her suggestions. In still another occasion, a student asked Suzan that she did not get her paper back (which was a

58 quiz or a test). Suzan thought she returned it to her, but the student insisted that she never got her paper back. So Suzan started to look for the student’s paper but she could not find it for a while. The student said that it was not a big deal, but Suzan was determined to find the student’s paper even though it did not sound like it was an important paper. After a long search she eventually found the paper and gave it to the student. I thought this was a sign of respect that Suzan had for students because she did not give up looking for the student’s paper and she did not postpone looking for it either. In brief, Suzan had an adequate classroom for teaching chemistry and she had good students in terms of maturity and academic level. Her relations with her students were based on mutual respect and trust. She trusted her students unless they behaved in a way that would undermine that trust. She created a friendly atmosphere in her classroom and her students were always comfortable talking to her or asking for help.

Suzan’s Beliefs About Education Suzan considered the public school system as an opportunity for students to grow intellectually and socially. However, at the same time she thought that current education system was desensitizing students to this purpose. She argued that students do not understand that the formal education is an opportunity for them to grow but rather they saw it as a task to be done. She explained that that was how she used to feel about education and one of the biggest challenges in her job was to change that perception among her students. She said in an interview,

I think it would have been a more valuable experience if I realized that public education is an opportunity and we should be very grateful, thankful for that, that our culture is saying, ‘here is an opportunity to learn and grow intellectually’ and in this case socially. Instead I saw it more as a task to be done and didn’t engage as meaningful as I could. So my biggest challenge is to get them - even though this is about grades and they are going to put your GPA’s up in ranking and all that - get them beyond it. Because the grades will come if you just engage and that it is a tremendous opportunity. But they are so desensitized to it over time that they don’t see it. That is my greatest challenge is to get them [understand that] and I think kids are finally getting that and [those who] understand that are kind of excited. That is a charge for me is to [hear] that, they are like, ‘Dang! What a gift you have given me so that I can re-conceptualize this experience.’ It is not a task; it is an opportunity. (Interview with Suzan, 6-5-2003, p. 20)

59 Suzan believed that education’s main purpose should be providing an intellectual experience and helping people to understand their powers and how to develop those powers to be able to make choices and decisions that they wanted to go pursue in life. She argued that in reality this purpose was watered down so much that students could not always see it. There were so many diverse activities happening in the schools and students had to spend so much time in different areas that they felt a lot of pressure. She did not think that all these extra activities should be taken care of in schools. She thought that many programs included in education, such as the sports, busing, and free or reduced lunch should be handled by the community and the schools should only focus on intellectual development. When I asked her “Don’t students need social activities to avoid making schools boring places?” she argued,

I don’t think the point of schools is . But I think just being with other people is social interaction. I don’t think you need to provide all that other stuff. I do believe a community can have all those things; you can have sports, teams outside of schools. You can have, dance, sororities, and fraternities, I think community can do that, but I don’t think schools should. (Interview with Suzan, 6-5-2003, p. 15)

According to Suzan, the outcome of education should enable people to know how to read and write and think critically. From there on people could choose whatever they want, either to get further education or to get a job. From these arguments, it seemed like Suzan saw the purpose of education as personal development of individuals rather than producing the necessary workforce or the intellectual power that the society needed.

Suzan’s Beliefs About Teaching And Learning Suzan explained that her teaching style has changed over the years from a more vocabulary-based instruction to a conceptually based instruction that emphasized learning. She described her teaching style in her earlier career as,

When I first started teaching I thought of it as kind of like a technician. I took the state standards and I saw them as actually the objectives of what I was supposed to do. Literally, I thought, if it said teach atomic theory then I was more about teaching the vocabulary of atomic theory so that they (students) can answer like free response questions or short answer questions or ‘what is atomic theory.’ And over time I think I have come to realize that it is more about getting them to be able to conceptualize what is a theory, how did the atomic theory come about, what is the usefulness of the atomic

60 theory, and then feed them the detail somewhere in between. So it is more conceptual now, but detailed. (Interview with Suzan, 2-20-2003, p. 1)

Suzan told me that she became dissatisfied with her earlier teaching and when she was working on her advanced degree, she started to question her role as a teacher and she started to think about teaching and learning in ways that she have not thought before. Suzan stated that the biggest thing that she got out of her advanced degree was to develop a theoretical framework for her practice. She explained her theoretical framework as,

I believe that people - in order to learn something - need to experience it in multiple ways and they need to reinforce it and it has to be practical. So I design my classroom experiences where they are engaging, where it gets their attention, where it may generate an interest and then I give them enough of a hands-on, minds-on kind of experience that they can stay with you along the way and then they have to build a practice and check themselves. So we do a lot of practicing and checking after I have got them where they should be on their own. But the bottom line is, I see my job as plainly responsibility for the learning, helping them develop responsibility for learning. I think my ultimate theoretical framework would be to come up with activities in a created environment where people start to develop their own responsibility for learning and that is why my homework is the way it is. Because I believe that why do you do homework if you are not going to check it and why should I be checking it, it is their homework they should check it and if they are not getting it right they should ask me for help. So that is basically it - I make the opportunity there, it is up to them whether they choose to use it or not. (Interview with Suzan, 2-20-2003, p. 2)

Suzan felt very strongly about shifting the responsibility of learning to students. When I observed Suzan’s classes, her attitude of giving more responsibility to the students for their own learning was one of my most recurring observations. Many times I observed Suzan’s students working on their own doing homework, solving review problems, or doing test corrections. Suzan required them to do their homework, check it, and ask for help if they needed it and she often used the class time for these activities. When students were working on their own, Suzan was available in the classroom for the students if they had a question or if they needed help. She was more like a tutor or a resource for the students than a teacher. However, shifting the responsibility of learning to students was not an issue without controversy for Suzan. She explained how the school context influences her actions about this issue,

61 …In my ideal world - I would have a moral dilemma when I have students in the classroom who don’t really want to be there. Mama wants them there or the program wants them there, they don’t really want to be there and it is my job to badger them, if you will, into doing their work when I just assume that they choose to sit there and fail, it is fine with me. I really believe it is fine with me, but then I get other people who make me think that ‘Well they are just young teenagers, you should inspire them, motivate them etc.’ I say, ‘If they don’t want to be here, why are we torturing them?’ It is got to be torture to sit in there if you really not into it. So I have a different philosophy than the school does, when I think about that. But I do not act completely on that belief, only because I feel like the system want me to do something else. (Interview with Suzan, 2-20- 2003, p. 2)

Suzan thought that holding the students responsible for their own learning should even be a “requirement” that was expected of students. She thought that this responsibility should be given to students at early ages, starting with their formal education and the education system should promote the shifting of responsibility of learning to students. Based on this view, Suzan had developed a style for her practice that emphasized learning. For example, I rarely heard Suzan giving a direct answer to a student’s question. Most of the time, she asked many questions back to students and had long conversations with them to make them think about their question or come up with the answer on their own. She encouraged her students to think about what they learned and to express it. I have seen many examples of this attitude during my observations of Suzan’s classes. For example, when a student asked a question to her about his observation in an experiment about atomic spectrum, Suzan replied, “Look for evidence, don’t just guess, I want to hear your description of the color.” Another time she had this suggestion to her students during a laboratory experiment about chromatography, “After the lab, answer this question: What did I learn?” In another occasion when a student asked Suzan if the way he solved a problem was okay, Suzan replied, “You need to show me as if you are teaching it to a person who doesn’t know it.” To another student who asked her a similar question she said, “You need to show me how. Let me show you what I mean; you need to show it…” For Suzan, learning how to learn and developing a responsibility for learning were the most important outcomes of her practice. This outcome was even more important than the science content itself. She argued,

My purpose in teaching science is only the context, what I really try to do is teach people how to learn something, how to think about learning something, how to approach

62 learning something and how to develop the confidence for learning something, how to evaluate their . It is putting it in a healthy perspective. … And that could be in the context of science, it could be in the context of math, it could be in the context of anything. I think that fundamental development is way more important than the context that they are learning in. (Interview with Suzan, 5-6-2003, p. 15)

To see her students learn and to explore their ways of learning was an exciting part of Suzan’s job. When I asked her what she enjoyed the most in her teaching, she replied,

Playing with people’s way of making sense, when the students allow me to engage with their sense making, when they have developed the confidence to express themselves to the point that we can have an intellectual conversation, debate the way we view it and have a conversation about it. I like that because it gives me access to their way of thinking and I find that exciting. (Interview with Suzan, 5-6-2003, p. 20)

According to Suzan every student could learn science at least at a simple level, but she also thought that some students had predispositions for scientific thinking. Suzan also thought that every student learns differently but they learn best when they were engaged in a meaningful way in an activity and take ownership of what they were doing. She gave an example of her students doing pre-lab reports,

When we do a pre-lab write up to get ready for a lab, the labs come with all these objectives. They are not surely inquiries or standard labs; prove a point basically. And when they write the objectives, I tell them not to copy them out of the book. Because they will copy it straight out of the book and they won’t have a clue what they say. So to me that is not learning. Reading that and rewording it in your own words when someone just walked up to you, you can say ‘oh the purpose for me being in this lab is to test which of the bonds are ionic and which have covalent characteristics’ versus, you know, ‘to investigate the blah, blah, blah ionic and covalent behavior’ somebody else’s words, that is the difference to me. That is where real learning is occurring when they engage on that level and they will fight you for it. They want to copy it out of the book. (Interview with Suzan, 5-6-2003, p. 19)

I have observed Suzan using different methods in her classes from small lectures to hands on activities and from experiments to projects to provide a range of learning opportunities for her students. This was consistent with her belief that every student learns differently. She also allowed her students to work on their own doing homework or practices during class time so that she can help them if they need it.

63 In brief, learning how to learn and developing a responsibility for learning were the most important goals of Suzan’s practice. According to Suzan every student could learn science at some level, but she also thought that some students had more propensity toward scientific way of thinking.

Suzan’s Beliefs About Assessment Suzan’s emphasis on learning was also reflected on the way she used assessment. During a discussion that I had with Suzan, she explained to me that she was trying to get students to learn rather than worrying about grades. She told me that some students were telling her that they could not accept a B as a grade and that they had to have an A. Suzan did not like this emphasis on grades. According to Suzan, grades should be an indication of learning and should show students their weaknesses, but students perceived grades differently. She argued,

Grades are connected more to self esteem and feeling good and looking at one grade for what it is than what do you know. Their chemistry grade does not truly reflect how much chemistry they know, but it should. A grade should say you know this percentage of stoichiometry and this percent you are having trouble, here is where you are having trouble. But they don’t reflect that currently. (Interview with Suzan, 2-20-2003, p. 4)

Actually for Suzan, grading was one of the biggest conflicts that she had in her job. She even thought that sometimes it became a barrier in front of the students’ learning. She explained her feelings about grading as,

Well, I would rather - and I try to pull it in AP - give everybody an A and they agree to work as hard as they can. So this whole grading thing is hugely conflicted to me. I think we should evaluate what they know but I don’t think it should be grade based. So I have a real hard time with the whole grade thing in the sense that it is one of the barriers that keep me from getting them to do it for themselves and not for the grade. It takes me a long time to get them to focus on what do you know, what you don’t know versus ‘oh I got a 60.’ So, I think that my biggest conflict is that I am using grading to motive when I don’t believe that should be the motivating factor. I have to work in a system where grading - by the time they are at this age - is the motivating factor and it is counter to what I think they should be learning. (Interview with Suzan, 5-6-2003, p. 23)

Suzan thought that grades were connected to feelings, self-esteem, or prestige for the wrong reasons. An example she gave was that her students would become very competitive with each

64 other for grades but not for learning. Another example she gave was about how she used homework for assessment. She argued that homework was for students to tell if they were ready or not ready for a test or how much they learned about a particular subject or where their weaknesses were. She believed that she should not be giving grades to students for homework; however, she was expected to grade students’ homework to motivate them just like giving them a “candy” as she put it. She thinks that students ignore what grades mean once they get it. She said,

When they get their test back they [say] ‘I got an A’ and put the test away. When they get a D, they crumble it up. They never say ‘what do I know, what don’t I know.’ They’ll even come to you and say ‘I can’t have a B.’ What does that mean? I mean it is like, ‘I can’t have a B, I’ll get in trouble.’ This wasn’t supposed to be about what you can and can’t have, it is what you do and don’t know. (Interview with Suzan, 2-20-2003, p. 4)

Suzan tried to change this perception about grades by using different methods that emphasized learning over grades. For example, Suzan required students to explain their logic when solving questions in a test. She wanted to make sure that they knew what they were doing. After each test, she asked her students to do test corrections, which was to write a report about the mistakes they made in a test and explain why they made those mistakes and what was the right way of solving the problems they missed in the test. They had to prove to her that they learned from their mistakes and when they did that she improved their grades. Sometimes Suzan even asked her students to grade their own tests. In one occasion in her AP class, she asked her students to grade a test that they took using an answer key and then they were supposed to note the number of incorrect solutions, summarize what they have done and how was it different than the correct answer, discuss what they learned and give it as a report to Suzan. In another case, again in her AP class I heard Suzan making this reminder to her students, “Remember, no homework, no test corrections.” In this case she tied up the task of doing homework with doing test corrections for improving their grades. This might be one of the examples in which Suzan was doing something that she tried to avoid, which was using grades as a motivation for getting students to do their homework. One day, I had quite a few observations about how Suzan was enacting the role of assessment in her honors class (second period). It was a day before a test and Suzan told her students, “I’ll give you a quiz (for exercise).” A student said, “No we don’t want quiz.” Suzan

65 said, “Okay then, I’ll give you self evaluation questions.” It was not surprising to me that she did not insist on a quiz, since I knew that learning was more important for her than giving grades. After giving some problems as a practice to students that day, Suzan told students that the test the next day would be open-book. She then added, “If you don’t know what you are doing, it is just as hard.” Students kept asking questions to Suzan about the practice problems and the test the next day, forming queues in front of her. I heard her saying to them, “It is an easy test, if you know what you are doing.” Then I heard her saying to a student, “I want you to understand the concept of evaluation. You don’t take a test and dump it.” In another occasion, Suzan was talking about Lewis structures of some molecules and - ions in her honors class. She wrote a molecular ion (NO3 ) on the overhead projector and explained how to determine the Lewis structure of the ion. Then she asked the name of the ion. A student gave a wrong answer (which was nitrogen trioxide) and she said, “Thank you! I wanted someone to make this mistake.” She said many students make the same mistake and she explained the correct way of naming the ion (which is nitrate ion). To me, this was an example of how Suzan demonstrated that students could learn from their mistakes. As a summary, Suzan was not against testing, or giving grades to students. However, she did not want the grades to be a motivating factor for students’ learning. She thought that grades should be an indication of learning and she saw grades as a piece of information about students’ weaknesses and strengths. She felt that because of the fact that there was too much emphasis on grades, students generally did not understand the function of grades because of the pressures they felt. This situation created conflicts for Suzan in her teaching. She was trying to change the way students looked at their grades by using methods that emphasized learning over grades, but she was also forced to use grades to motivate students by the school system that she worked in and by the students’ own expectation.

Suzan’s Beliefs About The Role Of Teachers And Students In Teaching And Learning When I asked Suzan how she felt about her content knowledge, she said, “I felt inadequate from the moment I came here.” She argued,

To teach you almost have to know something way better. My belief is you should know the content at least two step beyond the student to develop the curriculum. But I don’t believe you have to know it to teach it. I know that sounds kind of counter intuitive, but

66 to develop the curriculum I think you need to know it, in my AP at that level with that level of students for sure, but I think I can do it at any class. I think you can create an environment where you are a co-learner. (Interview with Suzan, 2-20-2003, p. 9)

Suzan saw herself as a co-learner with the students. In time she came to realize that a teacher do not have to have advanced knowledge in her field to be a good teacher. She said,

[In the AP class,] I have told them when they were in my honors chemistry courses, I said, ‘I am way over my head in AP, I am still learning,’ you know, sure I passed thermo chemistry, sure I took those tests but I don’t know whether there is a positive delta G off the top my head. I have to actually think. I have to go to the book and look it up and process it and then I can say “Oh yeah! I have confidence in this.” In the past years my weakness was all year in AP chemistry. In this year, my weaknesses are in the second half. And I am even much more comfortable now when they ask me a question, I know I don’t know the answer off the top of my head, I do know I know where to find answers and how to reason it out. So yes I have felt very content inadequate at about every phase of my teaching career. But the way I have approached it has been different. When I was a young teacher, I would get offended and sometimes I feel myself getting a little bit embarrassed with AP. (Interview with Suzan, 2-20-2003, p. 9)

Suzan thought that being a co-learner depends on the relationship between the teacher and the students. She argued,

They have to trust you in that some students get real angry when you don’t know the answers. And then if you make mistakes, it is like ‘you are supposed to be telling me what to do’ so they get [frustrated]. The students have to be enculturated into you [becoming a] co-learner. (Interview with Suzan, 2-20-2003, p. 9)

Suzan was most comfortable taking the role of a “co-learner” in her AP class. She thought that taking this role might not be appropriate in every class or setting based on the context. According to Suzan some of her students could handle the teacher role as a co-learner, but others could not. She said (about her AP students), “My feelings are, some of them can handle it, some of them can’t. Some of them get offended [and say], ‘you are here to deliver this to me’ and I think I still have all those range of personalities in AP.” During my observations, I saw Suzan taking on the role of a co-learner on several occasions. She had an assistant, one of her old AP students, who gave couple of lectures in her AP class. One day Suzan’s assistant was giving a lecture and Suzan was listening to the lecture with other students. During the lecture Suzan said to the class,

67 “I didn’t know this, I learned it today…” referring to the subject the assistant was talking about. In another occasion, Suzan allowed me to give a lecture in her class as well. The lecture I gave was about the ideal gas law and during my lecture some students had positive reactions to the way I presented the subject. At one point Suzan said, “That is good Yalcin, they are getting it. They didn’t get it before.” I interpreted the fact that Suzan was very open to outside input in her classes as she was open to learning from others and she was presenting herself as a learner to her students to make her role as a co-learner more acceptable. She also allowed her students to teach others in her classes. One of the methods that Suzan used very often was to ask students to give short presentations to the class, such as solving a problem. When students gave a presentation, they became the teacher and Suzan encouraged other students to ask questions to the one that was presenting. However, presenting herself as a co-learner was not always easy for Suzan because to do that she had to leave the role of a teacher who knows everything. She explained,

I think to be honest there are moments where I get a warm feeling. I don’t want to call it embarrass or something, it is kind of like a “Uh, I don’t know what to do with this,” and if I am trying to rush them or get something done and I don’t know what I am talking about then I’ll fight myself. I’ll have to act outside of my consistency and then I’ll go “Uh stop that.” But I have learned to do “Uh stop that.” because the worst thing you do is to be dishonest with them. I think it is best to say ‘I don’t know’ (Interview with Suzan, 2-20-2003, p. 9)

Besides a co-learner, Suzan also used these words to describe the role of a teacher: a facilitator, a coach, someone who helps them, a guide, and a resource for the students. During my observations, after a review of subjects before a test I heard Suzan saying to her honors students, “Now it is all yours. I am available to you.” What she meant was that students were to work on their own on practice problems and she was there to help them. She presented herself as a resource for students to utilize and this was one of Suzan’s most frequent ways of presenting herself to students during my observations. During an interview, she described a teacher’s role as someone who “helps” students to look at the world through the lenses of different fields (biology, physics, chemistry, etc.) and to identify the skills that they needed to function in those fields. Then she added that still the ultimate goal of a teacher should be teaching how to think and learn. She said,

68 The basis of foundation is still how to think, how to build confidence in your own ability to come to understand something and then say “Oh, each of these are just disciplines, different ways of looking at the world, they have different sets of rules for practice.” (Interview with Suzan, 5-6-2003, p. 16)

Suzan’s beliefs about teaching and learning affected her beliefs about the role of teachers and students. Suzan believed that the responsibility for learning should mostly be on students rather than the teacher. When I asked her what was the role of students in learning science, her response was,

Well if you want to give them percentages, I think the teacher should have 10 percent; the students should have 90. I think the students’ role is to dig in and start to learn, to accept the challenge. (Interview with Suzan, 5-6-2003, p. 18)

According to Suzan, teachers should facilitate students’ thinking and help them build confidence in their learning to help them take on the responsibility of learning. She gave this example,

[Teachers role is to] facilitative, and even be wrong, be there for the discussion and the research and, you know, “Let’s talk about it, let’s figure out how you are thinking about it, make your argument.” Like a young man made an argument in the first period of how he solved the problem. Totally different than I ever would solve it and as he was explaining to me I was thinking “No, that is wrong, that is wrong” but his logic was solid. He actually worked backwards basically through a problem and that actually is a good experience for me when a student can make an argument that make sense; that is what I am looking for. (Interview with Suzan, 5-6-2003, p. 19)

I had an observation that showed very nicely what Suzan was talking about when she said students needed to feel confident in their learning. During one of my observations in her AP class, Suzan asked a student to set up the overhead projector to show a video of a chemistry teacher who solved chemistry problems and then explained her solutions in the video. Suzan asked her students to pause the video after each question and had them solve the questions before watching the solutions. During pauses students discussed the solutions for each of the questions and Suzan facilitated these discussions. When working on one of the examples, students figured out that the teacher on the video did not solve one of the problems correctly so the discussion about this question was longer than others. Suzan was trying to make sure that the students understood what was wrong with the teacher’s solution and she also wanted to make sure that the

69 students were not making a mistake either. I was eager to tell my opinion, so I told Suzan that I also thought the teacher on the video made a mistake. She listened to my opinion carefully and thanked me for it. She also told the class, “Yalcin here is a chemist too, so you can ask questions to him as well.” A student explained what the mistake was that the teacher on the video made and I said that I agree with that student. During a talk that I had with Suzan in my next visit, she told me that she was proud of her students’ confidence when they figured out that the teacher in the video made a mistake. She said, “It was a shining moment for me.” In brief, Suzan believed that the fundamental role of a teacher was to help students to have confidence in their abilities and take responsibility for their learning. She thought that this role of teachers was more important than the content they taught. She also thought that a teacher could still teach her subject even if she felt that her content knowledge was inadequate by taking the role of a co-learner. She recognized that not every setting was suitable for this role but on the other hand to develop curriculum she believed that teachers needed to know their subject well.

Suzan’s Beliefs About Science According to Suzan, a simple description of science is observing natural phenomena with instrumentation and collecting data to find information or patterns about it. Suzan saw science and its disciplines as ways of looking at the world, each having a different perspective but with a similar set of rules. Suzan did not think that science was the only source of valid knowledge and she valued other models that human beings developed to understand the world around them, such as religion. Suzan argued that religion and science were operating from a different premise; one from , one from data and they both could coexist without conflict. According to Suzan they were just different ways of looking at the world. When I asked her opinion about science as a way of knowing compared to religion, Suzan’s response was,

I think the world exists outside of ourselves and we are part of it and I think that any of these models whether it is science or religion - which I also think is a model - has a certain function and has some set of rules. They don’t bother me; they can coexist in my mind. Science is a set of rules to objectify reality so you can describe it, discuss it, and manipulate it and as long as those rules work, they stay intact because when we get technology we modify them. Science is not attempting to be a religion. When people confuse it, that is a sign of ignorance to me. Religion to me is a set of rules to guide the spirit. I think that the two can coexist. (Interview with Suzan, 2-20-2003, p. 11)

70 However, Suzan thought that a science student needed to be well versed in the models of science in order to be successful and move ahead even if she valued other ways of knowing more than science. Even though she thought that science and religion could coexist, she also thought that people needed to understand the differences between the two. She argued,

To me a religious model and a scientific model are two different things. Besides, religion doesn’t state or attempt to objectify reality. It tells you it is based on faith, whereas science is saying, “This is the evidence we have, here is the instrumentation, here is the evidence, we are using this evidence to describe something.” (Interview with Suzan, 2- 20-2003, p. 12)

Suzan thought that what was taught to students in schools about how we understand reality should not be limited to a particular view. She thought that any intellectual argument should be allowed in schools. About the inclusion of scientific or religious beliefs in education, Suzan had this argument,

I believe in an educational process where you can talk about anything or at least assist somebody in finding answers someplace. This whole concept of of these things is really problematic to me. I think that is counterintuitive to intellectual development. I am not saying we should tell them what to believe, I think we should point out that one is a theory based on evidence and the other one is based on faith. I think it is okay to have the discussion as long as you are communicating with the child. At least in the faith arena you are just offering your opinion based on your beliefs and whatever argument you have and I believe that is what an intellectual classroom is about, what a strong classroom is about. The ability to ask questions and have discussions and be wrong and be right and make the argument that is what learning is to me. So I don’t have a problem with it personally, but given the current climate, a teacher could have a problem if they have that kind of attitude in the classroom. (Interview with Suzan, 5-6- 2003, p. 17)

Suzan and I also talked about the subjectivity versus objectivity discussion about science. This subject was something Suzan thought about in the past. She said that she had arguments with her brother, who had a Ph.D. degree in artificial intelligence, about this issue. Suzan explained what she came to believe about whether or not science was subjective or objective,

I used to be fascinated when constructivists would say that scientists deny the subjectivity of their subject. So my brother and I would have these conversations about subjectivity and I would argue that your science is subjective, I mean your choice of what to study is

71 subjective and we used to battle on the surface about it but ultimately we got to the point where he said, “Yes that is true, but in science we accept the subjectivity of what we are doing. No scientist would tell you there isn’t subjectivity in what they chosen to study. But that is an accepted premise of their work. If once they chose that thing, it is the data that they collect and the repeatability, the rules of their trade that makes it a science versus something else.” So I got hung up for a very long time with the concept that science is subjective and they act like it is objective, but it isn’t that they are saying it is not subjective, they are saying we try to decrease the amount of subjectivity as much as humanly possible to design our models, get our facts out. (Interview with Suzan, 2-20- 2003, p. 11)

According to Suzan, in an ideal science curriculum it was not all that important to memorize detailed science content. She thought that it was more important to learn basic concepts and also things like the social influences of science in today’s world. She said that in an ideal science curriculum,

I would have some good inquiry classes or experiences and then things like ethics and impact of science deep into the culture and then disciple specific areas after that, if a person needed that level of expertise from that area. I really don’t think it is all that important if these kids know about protons and neutrons, electrons in their orbital unless that is their field. I think understanding that there is basic particles of matter that everything is made up and here is the evidence that we have for this, I think that is more important than memorizing the mass of an atom, the mass of an electron, the kind of trivia we make courses about. (Interview with Suzan, 5-6-2003, p. 18)

In brief science was just a way for understanding the world and the reality around us for Suzan. She thought that science was trying to objectify reality whenever possible and it was based on evidence. According to Suzan, science students needed to learn basic science concepts, how it was done, and how it impacted human societies but she did not think that small details were that important to know unless a person wanted to study a related science field. Different ways of looking at the world, such as religion did not create conflicts in Suzan’s mind. She saw both views as models for reality and she thought that they both should be allowed for discussion in educational settings where are the places for intellectual growth through discussion.

Suzan’s Feelings About Her Job Among the teachers that I worked with during my dissertation study, Suzan had the least number of complaints about her job. The complaints that she did have were related to the school

72 context and they seemed relatively trivial compared to other teachers’ complaints. Suzan did not seem very upset about the problems she talked about and she seemed to have accepted these problems and learned to live with them. The main complaint that Suzan had was the frequent interruptions that she had to put up with during her classes. Some of the examples to the interruptions that Suzan was talking about were the announcements coming from the speakers of the classroom, different bell rings (in the form of a tone coming from the classroom speakers) marking break times or lunch time for certain group of students, phone calls during the class, and requests from the administration for various things during the class time. Another complaint that Suzan had was the bureaucracy of the honors program, which limited her communication with parents and students. She explained that the parents had to contact the director of the honors program first in order to contact her. Suzan also did not like the process of taking attendance, which was another hurdle of bureaucracy for her. During one of my observations, she explained that she had to take the attendance every day, enter it to the computer and then it would be printed and sent back to her to be rechecked. She thought that this process was unnecessarily long and time consuming. The relaxed atmosphere of the school was also another thing that Suzan complained about. When I asked her what she would change in her school if she could, she said,

I would not let them interrupt the class for any reason that I didn’t deem was reasonable. That is probably all. Other than that I would like to be more supported to hold them to a rigorous [curriculum]. There is some subtle pressure to water things down and to make things more user-friendly for the students to accommodate their social schedules and I would change that too. (Interview with Suzan, 5-6-2003, p. 21)

Suzan thought that real investigations and real inquiry were the most useful activities for learning science. But she said that she could not do this kind of activities often enough. When I asked her why, she replied,

Lots of reasons, time is one of the reasons. Here is my reason, because we are interrupted so constantly for trips out of town, , football , proms, dances that kids are out so often. If you look at our attendance records, they are out a lot, excused or not that if I based a course on experience where you have to perform something and then reflect on it and work through it like that it would be too difficult to manage. If you put them in, somebody would be carrying the weight. I work in a program in the summer where they do inquiry based learning where teachers are experiencing the science and we

73 have a very strict rule that you can’t miss more than a couple days. If you miss experience, you miss the essence of what we are doing. And it would require me staying after school for hours for everybody’s personal need and I am not willing to do that. (Interview with Suzan, 5-6-2003, p. 16)

These were pretty much the complaints that Suzan talked about during our interviews. During my observations I saw her getting frustrated especially with interruptions, but she never seemed all that angry about these things, but frustrated.

Suzan’s Values Test Results I asked Suzan to take the Values Test to get some insight into her beliefs and values. Suzan took the same test twice with about eight months interval between them. The reason I asked Suzan to take the test two times was to look for consistency and reliability of the test results. Dr. Nancy Davis and I interviewed Suzan after she took the test the second time to assess the influence of current events that took place in her life that affected the test results and also to try to understand Suzan’s way of thinking when she answered the questions in the test. The result of the Values Test that Suzan took is shown in Figure 5. The chart shown in Figure 5 was developed by analyzing the results of the Values Test given to different groups of people in the United States over a long period of time. The population used to develop this chart contains people from different jobs and socioeconomic status (i.e., CEO’s, nurses, college students, managers, prison inmates). The left column shows the percentages of average raw scores given to items that represent a certain worldview. For example if a person has a total acceptance raw score of 36 for the yellow thinking, this means that this person gave more acceptance points to yellow thinking than 70% of the population of this chart. Similarly if a person has a total of 10 rejection points for the yellow thinking, this means that this person gave more rejection points to yellow thinking than 30% of the population. The red and blue lines (colors chosen arbitrarily) show Suzan’s acceptance and rejection scores in different systems of thinking (worldviews). The red lines show Suzan’s scores the first time she took the test and the blue lines show Suzan’s scores the second time she took the test. In the middle two rows that show the total acceptance and rejection scores for each worldview, the numbers on the left correspond to red lines and the numbers on the right correspond to blue lines.

74 The red and blue lines are shown as an illustration of where Suzan’s scores are relative to the population of the chart in Figure 5.

% Yellow Orange Red Purple Blue Green Turquoise 99 59 74 41 29 61 50 33 90 51 63 39 28 60 49 32 80 40 51 27 19 45 37 23 70 36 46 23 16 40 33 19 60 33 41 19 13 35 29 16 50 29 37 15 10 31 25 13 40 28 35 13 9 28 23 12 30 24 31 9 6 24 20 8 20 21 26 5 3 19 15 5 10 16 21 0 0 12 10 1 Acceptance 28 - 26 8 - 14 0 - 3 9 - 7 0 - 0 32 - 39 73 - 61 Rejection 14 - 8 18 - 23 72 - 36 6 - 26 29 - 47 6 - 10 5 - 0 10 5 1 19 15 1 5 14 20 8 6 26 22 7 8 19 30 10 9 32 27 11 10 24 40 12 12 38 32 15 12 28 50 13 14 40 34 17 13 30 60 15 17 46 39 21 15 34 70 18 20 51 44 26 18 39 80 20 24 58 50 31 21 44 90 27 33 75 65 43 29 55 99 29 34 81 69 44 31 60

Figure 5. The results of the Values Test that Suzan took two times. The red lines show Suzan’s scores the first time she took the test and the blue lines show her scores the second time she took the test.

Suzan’s acceptance scores were quite consistent between the two times she took the test. Her highest acceptance scores were given to green and turquoise thinking. However, her rejection scores showed some variations and one of the important changes was the decrease in the rejection score for the red thinking and increase in the rejection score of the blue thinking. When we asked Suzan what might be the reason for the change in her rejection scores of the red thinking, she talked about her recent experience with the parent of one of her students. She explained that she had a group of students who were acting egocentric and they were rude to others in one of her classes. When she caught one of them cheating during a test she had a

75 conference with her parent who had a doctorate in chemistry. The parent was supportive of her daughter and he even suggested that Suzan was not a good teacher and he did not believe that his daughter would cheat. Suzan said that in the past she would try to convince this kind of a parent (who represented a red person for her) that he was wrong, however, now she had the attitude of not arguing with this kind of people and try to resolve problems in a simpler way. Suzan made this explanation when she explained the reason for the drop in her rejection scores for the red worldview,

The only thing drops in my mind is the Dr. Flinch story, where Dr. Flinch came in and told me I wasn’t teaching his daughter right, and he does chemistry, he can teach her better, and he convinced the daughter that - which was a stumbling block for me to teach her. Well that is egocentric, he is in control, he is the authority, he is the doctor - she thinks he is a doctor and he is right. I think it used to tick me off more until I had that experience and reflected on it and said, “You know in his mind that is what he thinks.” So if I meet up with somebody like that again I certainly won’t try to fight them or convince them. I’ll just say “Okay, here is my position” - I’ll still make my argument, but I was trying to convince that man that he was wrong and he was wrong but I am not going to fight anymore about it. It might be an example of it. That is how I interpret that. (Interview with Suzan, 11-16-2003, p. 26)

Suzan seemed to be willing to accept people and their opinions as they were rather than arguing with them about certain issues. However, she would stick to her own values throughout. There was also another experience that Suzan said might be a cause for the decreased rejection of the red thinking in her test results. She explained that her beliefs about using violence against other people have changed since the September 11 attacks on the United States. She said that she used to think that violence was not the way to resolve problems but now she thinks that there may be times when violence might be a necessary method to deal with certain problems. As violence is often associated with the red worldview, Suzan thought that her rejection of the red thinking may also be decreased because of the impact of September 11 events on her beliefs over time. When it comes to the blue worldview, Suzan had zero acceptance of this thinking and her rejection of it has increased from the first time she took the test. This was an indication of negative feelings about highly rigid systems (such as fundamentalist ). During our interview, Suzan explained that she saw the blue worldview as blind loyalty to an authority or a system of beliefs. She also thought that the blue worldview included the belief that there was one right way, but she did not agree with this belief. So she did not associate herself with blue way of

76 thinking but from our conversations it turned out that she did not actually reject the blue worldview for what it is, she rejected the feeling of being put down by people who had a predominantly blue worldview. During our interview, when Dr. Davis told Suzan, “One of the things your scores indicate here is when you encounter individuals, who have that (blue) value system that is a person you may have difficulty with,” Suzan had this response,

I may have difficulty with the fact that they won’t discuss their position with the same [level]. I have difficulty with it that they may get offended. But I don’t have difficulty with them, with their beliefs. I have difficulty with the fact that when I discuss my sense of these issues, either this perspective or that, if I feel that presenting my case offends [them] or they rear up in the pack so to speak or they attack. There are people who, you know, call me a heathen openly in my school culture, [they say] “Oh that is the heathen.” Well good call me that but that is an attack on a level; it is their way of swinging their swords and I know that is a consequence of being honest with what I believe but that is problematic to me that they have to swing swords in order for us to be equally expressive of our beliefs. So that is what I reject. I don’t reject the individual. (Interview with Suzan, 11-16-2003, p. 28)

It seems Suzan’s negative feelings for the blue thinking was mostly related to religion. She said during the interview, “I do kind of see the value of organized religion for people, it just never worked for me.” During our conversation with Suzan, I made the comment that the kind of people who attack others based on their religious beliefs were close minded and she said, “That is what I would have called it but I don’t find close mindedness in people in a lot of places except in religion and politics.” To make a connection between Suzan’s feelings about the blue worldview and things that could be associated with this worldview in education, Dr. Davis asked Suzan her feelings about standardized testing and mandates. Suzan said,

Here is why I don’t have a problem with it, because it is a public education system, whoever the powers are this is the current design, if you enroll your child in this system, it is an opportunity then you accept rules. It is like joining the military and thinking you are not going to have to do that stuff. I don’t have vehemently opposed feelings about anything in education or in . I think the design is a pragmatic attempt to be an efficient design and getting at some confused objectives. But I don’t think anybody is mean. I think it is a case of too much to do, too little stuff, it is just like stuff on top of stuff on top of stuff and every time they change something they change the top layer instead of the structure but I don’t think that is closed mindedness… (Interview with Suzan, 11-16-2003, p. 29)

77 Suzan did not think that she faced the negative attitude of people who had blue worldviews in the field of education. She argued,

What I am trying to say is that the problem I had with closed minded people or people who believe they are righteous in what they do and they get strength from that more power to them, but when they use that to put other people down, if you make your own religion, country, anything better by putting somebody down I have a real problem with it. … I am not trying to convince them; I am just trying to learn, so let’s just have it open. They’ll come out in an attacking fashion, but I don’t get that in education. (Interview with Suzan, 11-16-2003, p. 29)

Suzan did not think that the education system and schools necessarily had a negative impact on teaching and learning despite the bureaucracy and efforts to standardize the education system. As our conversations went on during the interview, Suzan said, “I think you can do what you want inside public schools and get the job done, if you know what you are doing.” She also believed that other teachers could come to see this possibility, if they did not let the system have power over them. Suzan had some acceptance points for the purple worldview and much less rejection for it compared to the blue worldview. Purple is not a worldview that Suzan accepts, but she explained her higher acceptance of it compared to blue worldview during our conversations. Suzan thought that purple thinking represented a worldview in which people stick together and sacrifice for each other for their . She saw the blue worldview in a similar way but the fact that blue thinking included beliefs about sacrifice for religious gains seemed less appealing to Suzan. Suzan strongly rejected the orange worldview, which was an indication that she did not feel comfortable with the competition, materialism, and the feeling of entrepreneurship emphasized by orange thinking. When we asked Suzan why she had a lot of rejection points for orange worldview, she explained that she had become less materialistic in her life compared to past. She talked about her recent decision to buy a truck, which was a source of conflict for her because of her beliefs that reject materialistic worldview. She said,

Buying my truck was a big huge conflict of beliefs for me. You know, I recognize that it is not consistent with my belief structure, but I did it anyway. I don’t think you have to have five pairs of shoes and 25 pocket books. I moved a lot away from that. But buying the truck was like falling back on that belief, going the other way. That is an example of that conflict. (Interview with Suzan, 11-16-2003, p. 33)

78 Dr. Davis asked Suzan to comment on an item in the test in which she rejected the orange thinking. The item was, “it is least important that successful performance advances my career and I can get ahead” to which Suzan gave seven points. Suzan’s comment about it was,

The pleasure I get from my job is not that I accomplish, get money and recognition. It is that I like what I am doing, that I am enjoying it, that I get stimulated from it, that I think it has value. So that would be my answer here. Now that doesn’t mean I won’t engage in processes I believe that will facilitate that, that look like advances in my career. Something that irritates me is when people seriously not just playfully categorize my advancements in education, national board and my dissertation as tickets just to get more money or more power. They are in fact in both cases about my own practice and about making my world a better world at intellectual, emotional, spiritual levels. So that is how I would answer that one. (Interview with Suzan, 11-16-2003, p. 33)

Another item in Values Test that Suzan gave rejection points for orange worldview was: “The words and phrases do not describe me are a competition who values material possessions and technology, thinks pragmatically and pursues success.” Suzan’s comment on this item was,

Okay now at first I had a problem with the competitor because I am a competitor but I am a competitor with myself. I believe in competition but I believe in competition against yourself. But I read this statement as a competitor against others, where you move through to get stuff at somebody else’s cost, sort of. And “making society more and more technical is an advantage,” I personally don’t believe that. It keeps you farther removed from the actual stuff but you have to think about my context; to me technology means “oh isn’t it great we have attendance on the computer in schools?” Well no, I do it in my grade book, I do it in the computer, I get a readout of which I have to check against my grade book and the computer. Years ago, you merely bubbled in the Scan Tran and that is all you ever did. So in my context, technology is not a thing to be wanted. Pursue success, here I get a little bit shaking here because prior to my dissertation I would have not thought I was success driven. I actually entered the whole process because I wanted to learn more, it was fun and [my major professor] and I went into my classroom and studied me. I did not say I want to have a dissertation or I want to be a doctorate or any of that. I just liked it; it was fun, stimulating. However, I wanted to quit at one point, when it was really hard at the end. And I couldn’t quit, I was physically getting ill over it and I could not quit. And that I would say is a part of me that somehow valued this, some part of me could not deal with not succeeding. I am not succeeded at many things but I guess quitting would have been me choosing not to be successful versus not being successful by order of some other thing outside of myself. So that is the part of the statement on I am a little bit not convinced to that, I am not somebody who is driven by success. But the rest of it I think I would reject. I would not describe myself as competitive for material possessions. (Interview with Suzan, 11-16-2003, p. 35)

79 This comment showed that when Suzan gave rejection scores to an item, it was possible that she was not rejecting all aspects of that item. One of the things that I recognized when I looked at the results of the Values Test was that people who took the test interpret every item differently. So while an item that represents a certain worldview in one question may be appealing to a person, another item in another question that represents the same worldview could be rejected by the same person. For example, Suzan did not give rejection scores for the item, “I don’t think it is important for me to work for an organization that thinks strategically and acts competitively to be successful in its niche,” which represents an orange view. Her explanation for this was,

[I didn’t reject this item] because I believe I can work in any system and still perform. My brother says ‘I would quit if I work under those conditions.’ It is like “No, you just figure out how to be successful in it.” (Interview with Suzan, 11-16-2003, p. 36)

Suzan seemed to have vague feelings about the yellow worldview. While her acceptance scores remained pretty much same between the two times she took the test, her rejection score has decreased. The fact that Suzan had less than average acceptance scores and less than average rejection scores for yellow thinking was an indication that this worldview did not have much meaning for Suzan. During our interview, Dr. Davis asked Suzan to comment on one item to which Suzan gave rejection points for the yellow thinking. The item Suzan rejected was, “It is less important that systematic and long range thinking count more than people, money, traditions or quick fixes.” Suzan’s comment on her score for this item was,

I don’t plan most anything. I read this as, it would be like me sitting back saying okay ten years form now I’ll have a hot tub and a pool in the back yard and a bigger house or bigger car or whatever it is I plan. I just read it like that and that I don’t systematically plan for an outcome and work for it that way. … My mission is not about money or getting stuff. My mission is about what I want to do intellectually and spiritually; I have found that the money comes. But I did start my teaching career thinking you got more degrees to get more money, to get more power. But I don’t believe that now. I don’t believe I have more power. I have more money but no more power. Not power as they would define it but power as I define it which is ability to influence. (Interview with Suzan, 11-16-2003, p. 34)

Suzan went on to explain that she believed that she had more power now but in terms of how she defined power. According to Suzan power was the ability to influence rather than control others.

80 Suzan believed that she had more internal power as a result of her development rather than power to control others. One thing that became clear during our interview with Suzan after the second time she took the Values Test was that the difference in some of her rejection scores for some items was a result of a mistake or misreading the items. Based on this information, it seemed Suzan’s scores on the Values Test when she took it the second time were more accurate representation of her beliefs (including her rejection scores on the yellow thinking). Suzan had much higher acceptance scores than average on green and turquoise thinking. Green thinking indicated attentiveness to human concerns and feelings. Seeking consensus, giving priority to people’s needs, searching for greater purpose in life, and valuing feelings and quality of organizational climate are the features of green thinking. Suzan’s expression of a green way of thinking seemed to be consistent with her search for a better understanding of her own goals and ways to provide better educational experiences for her students. The fact that Suzan had high acceptance scores for the turquoise system indicated that her values included concern with whole-earth issues. One of the items that Suzan gave high acceptance points is “I like a job where our primary concern is the health of the planetary living system.” Suzan’s comment about this item was,

I may be getting more global, more philosophical because you know why do I teach kids, why am I here. Because I hope, you know, raise people’s awareness of certain things and they’ll be smarter and more educated and they’ll make better decisions and why do I care about that because we live in a place where we should be making smart decisions from the planetary perspective. So I do believe that, I believe if I sit down and think ultimately “Why do I do what I do?” except you know besides getting a paycheck and living why is this field so satisfying to me is for that reason. I think of teaching as a process of raising consciousness. That is how I read it and tried to make sense of it. (Interview with Suzan, 11-16-2003, p. 27)

In the conversation, Dr. Davis changed this item and asked it to Suzan as, “What kind of job would you want in an ideal world?” Suzan responded,

I would like to feel like I was on a team, with a group of people who could express themselves openly and debate and argue their position and not get their feelings hurt. I would like a healthy negotiating environment no matter what the context is. And then, I probably want it to be something that was consistent with the system, with the nature of matter. Not something fighting upstream but something that was flowing with the system. For example let’s use education, if I could be in an educational system where I felt it was

81 more consistent with how children actually learn that would make me feel better than a system where I feel we are forcing the way they learn as they taught. Now in that context I feel like I help them make small moves or I can even still enjoy myself making small moves. (Interview with Suzan, 11-16-2003, p. 28)

Another item that Suzan gave high acceptance points was, “These words describe me best, a world citizen interested in the grand synthesis of all energy, matter, and life in the universe.” Her comment about this item was,

That is one of the phrases I would say that I was thinking more globally versus in the past I would have thought more contextually but now I think this kind of goes back to my view of the Trade Towers and like shift in thinking about the ability that there may be times to be violent to defend yourself or to be even not just defend, be aggressive. I see myself more connected to the world at large on crucial issues that is how I was thinking there. (Interview with Suzan, 11-16-2003, p. 38)

Valuing conceptual thinking and search for meaning and purpose in existence are the features of the turquoise thinking. For people who value the turquoise way of thinking, learning is experiential and there is a lot of intuitive data gathering. Suzan focused her specialist thesis and doctoral dissertation on her own teaching and she continued to look at herself and her classroom with a reflective eye. She promoted conceptual understanding in her classes and she was very interested in understanding her students’ way of making sense. These characteristics of Suzan supported that she had a high acceptance of the turquoise thinking. In brief, Suzan’s overall acceptance scores for sacrificial thinking (which are the total scores of purple, blue, green, and turquoise) are much higher than her expressive scores (which are the total scores of red, orange and yellow) for both of the times she took the test. Our interview with Suzan provided more insight into her thinking process when she gave scores to each item in the Values Test. The interview also clarified the changes in Suzan’s total rejection scores. At the end of the interview that we had with Suzan, she said that she thinks the Values Test provided a fairly good representation of her beliefs.

Summary Suzan was a very experienced teacher who was passionate about her job and especially the learning part of it. She seemed to have thought a lot about her job, her role as a teacher, and

82 the role of her students. Her beliefs were consistent with her enactment of curriculum, which was an indication that she had developed the confidence to apply what was in her mind into practice. My assertions about Suzan, her practice, and her beliefs could be summarized as,

• Suzan believed that education was an opportunity for students to grow intellectually, which allowed them to make choices about what they want to do in life. • She had friendly relations with her students, but these relations were based on mutual respect and trust. • Learning, learning how to learn, and developing a responsibility for learning were the most important goals of Suzan’s practice, even more so than the content. • According to Suzan, students’ knowledge should be evaluated, but she thought that the emphasis on grades hindered students learning in many cases. • Suzan saw her role as a co-learner, a facilitator, or a resource as a teacher. She assumed one of these roles based on context. • Suzan saw science as a model for looking at the world and trying to understand the reality around us. She thought that there were other models, such as religion, that attempted to do the same thing from a different perspective but they were not conflicted with each other.

Sara’s Case

I knew Sara before I asked her to participate in this study. I have met her in graduate school where we were both in a Master’s degree program for about two years. Sara was a white woman in her mid 30s and she taught science to sixth, seventh, and eighth grades at Villa Middle School, in a southeastern city of the U.S. After getting a Master’s degree in science education, Sara has been teaching there for three years. Prior to her graduate studies, she taught as an outdoor education teacher in private educational programs. She had about three years of teaching experience, which was the least amount of experience compared to other teachers who participated in this study. I asked Sara to become a participant in this study in the beginning of the Spring 2003 semester and she accepted my request. I observed Sara’s classes, three periods a day, once a week from February 6, 2003 to May 12, 2003 and had interviews with her during this

83 time period and after. Sara was a friendly and talkative person, which was helpful during my interviews with her. We had a colleague relationship based on our experiences together in graduate school, which made it easier for us to communicate during interviews.

School Context Villa Middle School had about 700 students and it was located in a small southeastern city. The school building was a singe building with a front office right near the entrance. The largest area in the school was being used as a food court for lunch services and everyone had to walk through this area to get to the classrooms. There were paper-signs stick to the walls that showed the locations of the teachers’ classrooms and team areas. The school had a team system in which the students were separated into teams and they went to lunch or take a break based on their teams. Each teacher had a name for her classroom and team; Sara’s team was called Particle. This way student teams used the school facilities separately for efficiency and some teams did not even see each other during the day. Teaming also meant that teachers interacted with fewer students. According to Sara the main purpose of teaming students was to help create a more family like atmosphere. Villa Middle School had a year round school schedule and science was taught using an integrated curriculum. The year round schedule was basically nine weeks on and three weeks off with longer breaks at Christmas. Sara explained that she taught physical science in the beginning of the school year, she then continued with earth science, and she ended the year with life science. There was a shorter break between school years compared to regular schools in Villa. Sara taught the same curriculum to three grade levels (sixth, seventh, and eight) with increasing complexity to higher grades, which was called spiraling. However, Sara explained that all of the grade levels that she taught were basically getting the same content. She said,

We do all the curricula every year. Since I do three grade levels the curriculum is called spiraling. So each grade level is supposed to get a little more intense in the concept that they are learning. But basically all three grade levels are learning the same thing. So since I see my kids three years in a row I just make new activities each year for that concept and give them all the same activity and then when I test them, I test them at different learning levels. But it helps me to plan bigger activities and bigger projects because I can use all the same materials the same worksheets, the same guidelines and that is nice for me whereas other teachers, they are doing sixth, eight, ninth grades, they might have earth for one class, life for another, physical for another. That would be three separate

84 lesson preps, which would be for me impossible with the way I would like to teach. (Interview with Sara, 3-3-2003, p. 3)

Sara liked to teach one curriculum to all the grades that she was teaching because she could have more time to prepare the lesson plans and materials she needed. Time was an issue in the Villa Middle School. There was almost no break between classes; as soon as one group left another group of students came into the classroom. The periods were only 40 – 45 minutes and Sara felt rushed to cover the content. The Particle team that Sara taught in provided a more relaxed environment for students and teachers. Particle students were bright students who were allowed to dress the way they wanted and be more comfortable with their teachers. There was pressure on Villa Middle School to improve its FCAT (abbreviation for the standardized test applied by the state) grades, and this pressure was reflected on the teachers. This pressure was one of the biggest complaints that Sara had about her job. She explained,

…It seems like every year there is a big e-mail that comes to the staff saying ‘whatever we are doing is not enough. We need to focus more on reading, math, writing’ When we get that e-mail every year, it’s like “Well, how do we do more?” You know, where else does that support need to come from, and maybe it is home. … The state will say, ‘here is a new mandate on FCAT testing and the schools are being graded and if you don’t meet the standards, you are going to be considered as a school that needs significant improvement. And it seems like every year there is some new standards, some new law and mandate that gets thrown at us, but the result of that is we need to focus more on reading, math, writing and every year that I have been teaching I have got some kind of e-mail about that and it’s like, what else can we do? I mean we are busting out butts over here! (Interview with Sara, 5-5-2003, pp. 10-11)

Despite the intense pressure coming from the state, Sara thought that Villa had a very good science program. She explained that the school promoted hands-on activities and there was a very positive attitude towards science in the school. She said,

…This school has a great science program. All the teachers are based on hands-on [activities]. We all promote that and we all believe in that and so I can come in here and take a risk or try something new and have complete support. I can walk down to another classroom and they are doing the same thing in terms of hands-on and that’s great because it makes the whole environment for science here very positive. I don’t want to teach science anywhere else than with this group of women that are here. (Interview with Sara, 5-5-2003, p. 21)

85 Sara was very pleased with the administrative support that the teachers received and the science program in Villa. She explained that the school was involved in several educational projects with the local university, and this way they were developing a reputation about who they were and what they do. During this study, Sara was also involved in one of these projects and she liked the fact that other teachers were taking roles in similar projects or doing similar science activities, which made teaching science easier for her. When I asked Sara if the school had enough physical resources and materials, she said,

If I don’t have it, I can get it. That is the key. So I can either order it - and there will be money somewhere or with the connections that we have made with the university now I have got all these people to call say “Can I borrow this?” But so I know other science teachers that are kind of new and they don’t have any connections and they are kind of stuck, they don’t know how to get materials. (Interview with Sara, 5-5-2003, p. 21)

One of the complaints that Sara had about the school environment was that her classroom did not have windows. She would like to have an outdoor pavilion with benches where she could take her students outside for classes. In brief, Sara liked the school that she taught at, but she was frustrated with the pressure on teachers by the state related to students’ success and FCAT scores. She was happy with the resources of the school and the support she was receiving from the administration. She would like an environment which would allow her to use outdoors more often for teaching.

Classroom Context One of the first things that I noticed about Sara’s classroom was that it did not have windows (which is a source of complaint for Sara). It had two exit doors, a storage room, and a computer area. The classroom did not have a laboratory section, but it had a hood for handling chemicals, however, it is filled with books, which indicated that it was not being used. The counter around the classroom had one sink that could be used for science activities. The computer area behind the hood had a few antiquated computers. Students occasionally used these computers for typing or finding something on the . Sara had a desk in the back of the classroom with a computer and printer next to it. There was also a TV with a closed broadcasting system hanging from the ceiling. I have seen the school principal using the TV system to direct student groups to go to the buses separately after the school.

86 Sara taught four periods for four different classes every day during my observations. The first two periods were for 6th graders with 19 students, the third period was for 8th graders with 22 students, and the fourth period was for 7th graders with 21 students. She taught the same subject to all grade levels at the same time using the same activities and materials. She liked teaching science this way because it took away some of the time constrains and effort for preparing lesson plans or activities. Among the teachers I observed and interviewed, Sara seemed most uncomfortable with my presence in her classroom. She agreed to participate in my research study; however, I felt that she was wary about it, at least in the beginning. When I asked her if my presence made her uncomfortable, she said,

It makes me nervous about my content level when they ask me a question and I can’t answer it and I have a scientist in the back of the room. I keep thinking “Well he must think I am just a dope that I don’t know this answer.” So that is a little weird. (Interview with Sara, 3-3-2003, p. 4)

Sara also said that she worried about classroom management. According to Sara’s explanations, this was another reason why she felt uncomfortable with my presence in her classroom. She explained,

I get worried about management. I am not a very good classroom manager and so when anybody is in my room, I am a little wary of that, but that is also the nature of the program, it is supposed to be more like that. I’m trying to find balance between ‘students coming in and having maturity and responsibility and I am not going to have to do lunch detentions, time outs, referrals.’ I am one of the few teachers that doesn’t really do any of that. But the other thing is, sometimes I’m finding that when I get really excited, their energy gets up and then they get excited and they’ll start talking and it’s almost like ‘gosh do I have to be more calm to keep my class more calm?’ and I don’t want to do that. (Interview with Sara, 3-3-2003, p. 5)

Sara perceived me as a scientist, or someone who knew much about science and she was nervous about being judged by me because of her content knowledge. I explained her that I was not there to judge her in any way and that I actually did not even know a lot of the content she was teaching since the last time I saw those things was when I was in middle school. I think my assurances comforted her to some extent. However, especially in the first few weeks my

87 presence in her classroom made Sara uncomfortable. For example, during an activity in which students were making a model of the solar system, she asked me, “So, Yalcin, do you think I am crazy?” referring to the messy project students were involved in. I told her that it was a fun activity. In another occasion Sara asked a student to do something and when student asked “Why?” she replied jokingly while looking at me, “Because I am the boss, because I said so.” In still another occasion students were working on a project and Sara asked one of the students to put something away, kind of angrily. She than asked me (jokingly), “How is that? Is that mean?” I think my presence influenced Sara since she felt that her every move was being observed and recorded and judged. She felt uncomfortable about it and perhaps to lessen her discomfort she made jokes about her attitudes. However, in time, especially after our first interview when we talked about this issue, I think this influence lessened and she seemed a little more comfortable with my presence. On few occasions I even became a resource for her and she asked me questions during some of her classes. On one occasion one of Sara’s students asked her at what temperature the blood boils. She asked me if I new the answer, I said I don’t know but it should be higher than pure water. In another occasion, again one of Sara’s students asked her if there is a lot of mercury in the planet Mercury and if that was the reason it was named that way. Sara asked me if I knew the answer and I said I did not think that was the reason the planet is named Mercury. I attracted some of the students’ attention when I was in Sara’s classroom. In one case as I was sitting at Sara’s desk and taking notes for my observations, a student came over and asked me what I was writing. He said, “You are observing us aren’t you.” I replied, “No, not really. Just Mrs. Sara.” He told me, “Be sure to write she is a very responsible teacher.” I said, “Yes, she is a very good teacher.” Another student asked me, “Are you going to be a doctor?” I said, “Yes” and he asked, “In what?” I said, “In science education.” Another student asked me “Are you smart?” I replied, “Somewhat.” One of the students even found a nickname for me, which was “Mr. Dude.” Every time he saw me he said, “Hi, Mr. Dude!” Some of the other students would say hello to me every time they saw me, but most of the students seemed completely uninterested with my presence in their classroom. During my first visit to Sara’s classroom, I was faced with an unexpected but interesting situation. There was a graduate student, named Denise, from the local university in Sara’s classroom helping her in the classroom as a co-teacher. She was coming to Sara’s classroom two

88 times a week, so she was not there during most of my observations. Denise was a young woman working on her doctoral degree in a science department and she was involved with Villa Middle School and Sara through a research grant in which she was participating. During my first day of observations, I felt some tension between Sara and Denise. Denise would jump in to explain something while Sara was talking and Sara would have to stop and wait until Denise was finished and then she would pick up from where she left off. It seemed like there was a lack of coordination between the two. Even though I was not aware of Denise’s presence in Sara’s classroom before I started observing her, I obtained some of my most interesting observations from the interactions between them. It was obvious that Sara and Denise had different ideas about teaching. Sara was more into hands-on activities and general concepts rather than details of the content whereas when Denise taught, she talked fast and uses the word “okay” many times and she taught many scientific terms and definitions. However, that was where Sara felt that her knowledge was insufficient and she liked the presence of someone who knew about the details of science and who could answer students’ questions or add more information to what she was presenting. However, at the same time things were not working very smoothly for Sara when Denise was in her classroom. She explained her feelings about Denise’s presence in her classroom as,

You could do a thesis or dissertation on her being in my room. It’s definitely challenging. She is a knower; I am not a knower. I am the teacher and I don’t believe that I can make you learn something. You have to learn it; I am here to help you do it. What questions can I ask them? What can I ask them to help them to figure it out? So the knowledge is theirs not mine. And so there is this whole plan, an agenda, like an actress and you have a play to give and I have this knower that comes into my room and interrupts me. (Interview with Sara, 3-3-2003, p. 5)

I observed many instances when Denise interrupted Sara to explain something to the students or to give a definition of a scientific term. She did so suddenly and unexpectedly that Sara had to stop and wait until Denise finished what she wanted to say. During my first visit to Sara’s classroom, Denise interrupted Sara’s lecture several times to explain the meanings of scientific terms like aquifer, infiltrate, unpotable, and ppb. In another occasion, when Sara was talking about metabolism, Denise suddenly interrupted and asked students “What is the most common waste (coming out of human body)? How can you get rid of it?” She discussed the

89 answer with students for a while and after that Sara took over again and continued her lecture. On another occasion, when Sara was talking about the features of living things, she asked students what respiration meant. Few students answered the question and when one of them gave the right answer, Denise said, “Exactly!” and went on to make some more explanations. After Denise’s explanations, Sara went on to talk more about living things. On yet another occasion, Sara was giving a lecture about osmosis and she prepared an activity in which students were to figure out what would happen to a fresh water fish in salty water and what would happen to a salt-water fish in fresh water. She asked students to draw pictures and ask questions to figure out the answer. Again Denise suddenly intervened to make some explanations to the students during which Sara had to stop and wait. I asked Sara if Denise’s presence in her classroom bothered her, she responded,

Yes! Very much so, it is driving me crazy. And it stops my play, stops my acting. Now I got to refocus when she is done talking. Where I am supposed to get that energy back? Now my story has been cut. And she has taught some wrong things that I had to go back and fix, so it is a very interesting relationship with knower versus teacher and trying to help her see what our role is. (Interview with Sara, 3-3-2003, p. 5)

I also observed many instances where Sara utilized Denise’s knowledge in her classroom. Although she was not happy with her interruptions, Denise was a resource for Sara. For example, in one instance a student asked the difference between hard water and soft water and Sara asked Denise to answer the question. In another instance Sara asked Denise to explain the meanings of point source and area source when she was talking about ground water resources. In still another instance Sara asked Denise how deep-sea organisms lived with little or no oxygen. There were many other occasions where Sara asked Denise to answer a question or explain something or if there was anything that they left uncovered. In some of these instances Denise seemed the center of knowledge in the classroom. However, there were also instances where Denise would give wrong information and when Sara found that out she would have to go back and correct it. In one instance, Sara talked about an event that happened during a field trip to which Denise also attended. She mentioned the discussion between Denise and a person at the place they visited. Denise and the person were discussing a scientific topic, and it turned out that Denise was wrong in her assertions. Sara made the point to the students that science was not exact and absolute, and

90 she gave Denise’s discussion with the person at the field trip as an example of this. When I asked Sara how she felt about a scientist like Denise making mistakes she said,

It also makes me feel a little better. Like, hey I know things and I know how to look things up and I need to make sure. It also make me feel like I do have responsibility to my students to make sure what she is saying is correct and that I can’t just believe everything she said because we all make mistakes. But I just want to make sure it’s okay for the kids at this point. I don’t want this to be something that just we - her and I learn from. I want to make sure that kids have a benefit out of this and I think they are. They are learning a lot of concepts that I wouldn’t have imagined to bring up. So that is nice that she can add that. It’s just we got to start meshing better because I have a feeling the kids are starting to notice some tension. (Interview with Sara, 3-3-2003, p. 6)

Sara was concerned about what her students were getting out of Denise’s presence in her classroom. During one of my visits, she told her students, “If you think this (stuff that Denise teaches) is deep and heavy, just tell her.” A student said, “She keeps going and sometimes we can’t stop her.” This made me think that students were not impressed with Denise’s teaching either. Sara said that she asked her students how they feel about Denise’s presence in the classroom. She said that she had this conversation with them,

…I asked some of the kids how they felt when we were both up there and the kids said “It’s very distracting because one will step in” and they are like going back and forth trying to follow two people and one student said, “It’s very confusing I wish it was just one of you up there” … (Interview with Sara, 5-5-2003, p. 22)

In some cases, students were also confused about Denise’s role in the classroom. On one occasion a student attempted to leave the classroom to go to the bathroom. Sara asked him why did he not ask for permission and he said he got permission from Denise. Sara told him that she was the responsible person in the classroom and he needed to ask permission from her not Denise. According to Sara the reason why this co-teaching model is not working may be,

It’s a co-teaching model that - somebody comes in to co-teach but does not do planning with me. So I am doing the planning but she is jumping in to co-teach. So she does not know my agenda. You need to know where I am heading and what I need and what they need to get out of this. (Interview with Sara, 3-3-2003, p. 6)

91 She came to realize that there was not enough discussion in the beginning about how this co- teaching would work and what would be her and Denise’s roles. She explained,

Now I am finding that there wasn’t enough discussion of that. What is her role in my room and what makes me comfortable and having her co-teach with me. She is really a guest, but I approached her in the beginning saying you are welcome to teach with me. (Interview with Sara, 3-3-2003, p. 6)

Later on in the semester, Sara told me that she had a talk with Denise to improve the coordination between them in the classroom. She said that one of them had to stay on the sideline while the other one was speaking and this had to be planned ahead of time. Sara thought that there needed to be a collaborative plan for teaching and that plan should not be disturbed. When it came to students, Sara had the most challenging students among the teachers I observed during this study. She explained that many of the students that come to Villa had many problems in their private lives and they have had negative experiences about school in the past. This was why Sara’s team Particle tried to provide a more laid back place for these kids where they would feel safe and comfortable. Sara’s students seemed comfortable to ask her questions or to talk to her. However, Sara seemed to have many discipline problems with her students. Dealing with some of her students’ lack of motivation and participation was a challenge for Sara. I observed her sending students out of the classroom because of their disruptive behaviors several times. Sometimes when the noise increased in the room she stopped talking and looked at the students with a frustrated face to make them pay attention. Sara had little time to cover the content she was teaching, which made it difficult for her to tolerate disruptive behaviors, and she got frustrated quickly when the class progress slowed down. I think this was an indication of how much pressure she felt in terms of covering the content dictated by the state standards. I have observed instances of frustrating moments for Sara in her classroom. In one occasion, she asked a student to read a section from a worksheet, but there was too much noise in the classroom, and she got frustrated with her students and said, “If you are not reading along, I am not going to do this, there is no reason. If you are not interested come up with some other activity.” In another occasion Sara was giving a lecture on the overhead projector but some students were not paying attention. She got frustrated and said, “Okay, you know what? This is not working. You decide what to do, if you don’t participate, you will not have a break.” In still

92 another occasion there was a student sleeping in the classroom and Sara tried to wake him up but he ignored Sara. There was also too much noise in the room and she said to the class, “There is a guest in the room (referring to me), it is embarrassing.” Some of Sara’s students also seemed to lack the skills they needed to work in groups. During one of my observations, after a hands-on activity, Sara gave a little speech to students about working in groups. She asked students, “How many of you think insulting one another helped with time?” then she asked, “How many think it didn’t help with time?” Some students responded and then she said, “Insulting one another does not help.” In another occasion Sara warned a group of students to share the labor that they had during a group activity. The students were working on one thing at the same time while they could work on different things at the same time to finish their activity more quickly. Even though she did not specifically complain about it during our interviews, I observed few instances where Sara was frustrated with interruptions during her classes. In one case when Sara was giving a lecture, someone came in and said that he was sent to take the picture of the class. So the whole class went out to the schoolyard to have their picture taken. When they came back Sara was frustrated and said, “That was great (!)” In another occasion the fire alarm went off as a test and everybody had to evacuate the school during class time. After the evacuation, everybody went back into the school, and Sara continued her lecture but it was a struggle to restart her lecture. Just as she did this time, announcements started coming from the classroom speakers that interrupted the class. The principal was commenting on how the teachers and students did during the evacuation. In brief, Denise’s presence in her classroom created tense feelings for Sara due to different opinions about science teaching between them. The lack of discussion about their roles in the classroom caused a lack of coordination, which Sara thought was affecting students. On the other hand Denise had more scientific knowledge than Sara (even though Denise sometimes made mistakes) and Sara valued the extra knowledge that Denise brought in during her teaching. Despite Sara’s discomfort about her content knowledge, this experience made me realize that knowing science was not enough to teach it and perhaps Sara did not need to be that uncomfortable with her content knowledge. Sara saw classroom management as a challenge especially because of time limitations. She felt frustrated with students or events that disrupted

93 her plan for teaching. She had good students as well as difficult students in terms of maturity level and interest in learning who influenced the classroom management.

Sara’s Beliefs About Education Sara thought the purpose of education was,

To empower, to give kids more choices. To give them more power, in general, just to live their life, understand what is around them, being able to communicate with those around them, sharing things with those around them. (Interview with Sara, 5-5-2003, p. 8)

According to Sara the process of education during which students learn new skills was more important than the details of the content being taught. She argued,

I feel like there are two types of education, there is the basic knowledge that you need for day-to-day activities and then there is the extension of that which is the skills you need for life. How to work with others, how to think, how to believe that you can think… (Interview with Sara, 5-5-2003, p. 9)

Sara believed that it was important for students to learn to believe in themselves that they can accomplish their goals. However, she emphasized that believing itself was not enough. Learning how to do things and learning how to learn was also an important goal in education for Sara. She gave this example to explain what she meant by “learning how to do,”

…These kids, you hear them, they say ‘what is this?’ and they’ll point to a word and I say ‘well did you read that?’ I mean the definition of the word was right there, she pointed to the bold word, which you know that the definition is right there. So it’s like constantly trying to take more responsibility for their learning. (Interview with Sara, 5-5-2003, p. 12)

Sara thought that her feelings about content knowledge might be influencing her beliefs about the purpose of education. She felt weak about her content knowledge and she said that it was not easy to keep the details of information that she learned in the past. She explained that this might be the reason she was valuing the skills rather than the content learned in education. She said,

94 …If I were the keeper of the knowledge, I might have a totally different point on that (purpose of education). And that would be really interesting to find a knower, like maybe Denise and what she thinks. (Interview with Sara, 5-5-2003, p. 13)

Sara especially emphasized the skills students needed to develop to listen to each other and respect each other’s beliefs when she talked about education. She gave this example about a discussion that took place in her classroom related to the Iraq war,

…There were some that had negative opinions about war, some that were pro war and my job was to facilitate the conversation in a way that showed respect toward other’s opinion. They were expressing opinions without - having a tone of “Your opinion stinks, I am the only one that is right.” I was trying to guide it so that it was a good discourse and I feel like if the kids can really listen to each other, state their own opinions up - as long as they are listening - I think it is okay. I think it’s when they stop listening that is when things kind of get a little scary. Some kids will come in and you know their opinions that they are bringing in are from home, you can just tell, and they are so strong and they won’t listen to anybody else. And then some kids will sit; roll around their heads as they are listening to other people and commenting “Well that is a good point” that is what I hope. That is what I try to do to make it a positive discussion rather than name calling. (Interview with Sara, 5-5-2003, p. 10)

In brief, Sara seemed to think that the outcome of education should be personal development and she valued the skills that are learned during the process of education more than learning the content. However, she faced challenges in her school that made it difficult for her to implement the purpose of education that she believed in. She explained that in Villa Middle School so many kids have had terrible experiences in their personal lives and in their previous education in different schools that sometimes the role of the education became a rescue mission to get the kids into a safe place. This situation made it difficult for kids and teachers to think about the long-term purpose or outcome of education.

Sara’s Beliefs About Teaching And Learning Sara believed that the purpose of teaching science was same as the purpose of education, which is empowerment. She said,

95 I feel like science is just my tool to do all those things that I have answered in that first question (about purpose of education). So it is just kind of my background, it is the canvas and I just happen to love it so much and it can be so hands-on and so interactive and there is so much natural love for science that it makes it an easy subject to pick, to want to teach. I think every subject is the canvas for that general purpose of education and that each individual teacher has something that they are motivated in, but that is just my opinion. I mean I think sure there is a lot of scientific literacy we all need and that is a goal too but my overall goal is empowerment. (Interview with Sara, 5-5-2003, p. 11)

Even though the goal of empowerment was more important for Sara than the goal of learning the science content, she had strong feelings about her own science content knowledge. When I asked her how does she felt about her science content knowledge she replied,

Low. It is low. I mean when I first came here I studied all the time. I studied all last weekend about stars to prepare, you know, to know that I would be able to teach and the kids are always asking me questions and I have to be comfortable saying ‘I don’t know’ and it drives me crazy but I don’t know everything. So we are looking something up or e- mailing professors and that is why that grad student in here (Denise), it is nice having her because she can answer a lot. (Interview with Sara, 3-3-2003, p. 3)

Content knowledge was a source of confidence for Sara. Her discomfort about her content knowledge seemed to be in conflict with her belief that content knowledge is not as important as the purpose of empowerment (teaching the skills students need) in education. She said in an interview,

I want to be everything for them and - but that is just a perfectionist of me, I can’t know everything and because of our doing all the curriculums life, earth, and physical, I am just getting of each. (Interview with Sara, 3-3-2003, p. 3)

This conflict was created by the demands and requirements of the state school system in which Sara works that emphasizes the importance of content knowledge and encourages teachers to cover all the benchmarks and prepare their kids for standardized tests. This emphasis was the cause of Sara’s discomfort about her content knowledge, which also influenced her teaching. She had to limit the number of hands-on activities and increase lecturing and note taking in her classes so that she could cover the content she needed to cover. She explained how her teaching changed over the years,

96 I used to not do any assessment, tests and quizzes and now I always do to get them ready for FCAT. I used to not do notes and now I have days where we take notes to get them ready and partly because they get to ask a lot of questions and it becomes a big discussion. Sometimes it is a strategy to have them take notes just so they know they have a responsibility when they are doing that, because sometimes when they don’t take notes, they don’t feel like they have to do anything and they can just kind of fade off. But I have walked into some classrooms where a whole overhead of notes will be on the board and students are just copying and then that is it. That is the end of the day. And then writing, all period long and there isn’t a discussion or anything about that. So yeah I do more notes but I feel pretty good about our note days. I think they are pretty productive. I am much more focused on assessment right now and I have less time to do innovative and risk taking things than I would like to. I feel like I have less time to do peer teaching. [I am] focusing on more content than my original empowerment ideals. (Interview with Sara, 5-5-2003, p. 17)

Sara explained that when she did not do assessment and note taking, she did not have any problems with the administration and everything was okay. When FCAT started she had to change her practice since teachers in her school were asked to prepare their kids for multiple- choice tests and cover the state standards during professional development activities. When it comes to methods of teaching and learning, Sara thought that the least effective method of teaching was lecturing. She thought that hands-on activities were more effective methods than lecturing. When I asked her what activities were most useful in teaching science, she said,

I guess it depends on the student. When they are doing hands-on, you’ll hear them on the exam say, ‘Yes! Yeah, I remember that from when we did it in class.’ and I think that is an excellent way for these kids to see something and hold on to it, because they are working with it. But peer teaching is great. The least effective thing is standing up there, lecturing. Some kids are just kind of zoning out because they don’t feel responsible for what they are doing. And they’ll just sit there and they really won’t listen to what you say. As long as they are sitting there everything is fine. They can pretend to listen. If the kids got to teach each other more, I think they would learn more in this classroom. (Interview with Sara, 5-5-2003, p. 15)

Field trips and hands-on activities were Sara’s favorite methods of teaching and she used them often. Sara also thought that peer teaching could be a good way for kids to learn. Her master’s thesis focused on peer teaching, however, because of the lack of time she did not utilize peer-teaching methods very often in her classes. During my visits to Sara’s classroom, I have observed many times students doing hands-on activities and working in groups. For example,

97 during one of my observations, Sara’s students were working on making a scaled down model of the solar system. The school system was so supportive of these activities that students were even allowed to paint the walls of the classroom and the school hallway to make their models. During this activity students were working in groups and Sara was going from group to group helping them with their work and complementing on their models. As I was walking around to see what students were doing Sara said, “Isn’t this cool?” She seemed happier than usual during this activity and then she said, “It is so much fun when they do big messy projects.” In another activity, Sara prepared a rocket-building project for her students. Students were building rockets using materials that came as a kit. Sara did not give them any direction on how to built the rockets except in helping them glue parts together. Another activity involved using microscopes. Students were looking at objects through microscopes and trying to decide whether what they see was living or non-living. There were stations in the classroom, each with two microscopes. In each station different objects were put under microscopes for students to look at. Students were rotating from one station to the other after a few minutes of observation (because of limited time) in each station. Although Sara thought that lecturing was not the most effective way of teaching, she lectured often in her classes (accompanied with classroom discussions). Hands-on activities or projects took a lot of time; sometimes even days to complete and she could not always do these activities since she was pressured to cover a certain amount of content. Sara talked about a project that she had her students do to explain the time constraints that she faced as an example. The project she mentioned was about preparing a “body book,” which was a book prepared by students that included information about a system in human body (such as, nervous system or blood circulation) with pictures that students gathered from different sources. Sara explained,

Like this body book that they are doing, they are working really hard and one of the things I told them was ‘you can’t copy, you can’t plagiarize out of a book, everything has to be paraphrased in your own words.’ They are really working hard. And it is interesting how much are they learning. And you know what I have to do? I got to move on. Can I assess them with an exam? I don’t really have time to assess them. So I’ll probably end up just using that (body book) as their grade for the benchmark and move on. Am I brushing across the surface too much to the point where it’s not worth anything? (Interview with Sara, 5-5-2003, p. 15)

98 Many of the activities and projects that Sara had her students do involve a part. She did not hold her students accountable to that because she valued the content information that students were getting more than the appearance of their products. However, she thought that the creativity component of a project was a good motivation for some students to learn. She said,

Some of them don’t want to have any creativity involved so that is why when I do like the body book I never say ‘I am grading you on how good it looks.’ Because some just freak out, ‘I can’t draw, I don’t even like the color, but I understand the information.’ Is that important to me? Yes. So when a student doesn’t want to be creative, I need to honor that. Other students will learn - they’ll go like farther than I ever imagined just because they get to be creative because they get to draw and color and all of a sudden they’ll do it at home. If they can - some of them - they can color, they’ll do it. It’s homework. If they can do it as an Internet report and they got pictures on the Internet, they’ll do it at home. Will they take all the worksheet and do it at home? Often they’ll forget. So that creativity end brings all this motivation and for about 50% of the kids where it wouldn’t have been before. If I was just giving notes about each system, I wouldn’t have that involvement. (Interview with Sara, 5-5-2003, p. 16)

According to Sara students learned best when they felt responsible for what they were doing, and this is why she used hands-on activities often. However, hands-on activities did not provide all the content students needed to learn according to the state mandates and she sometimes felt frustrated with some of her students’ lack of motivation for learning. For example during one of my observations, students were taking an examination in Sara’s class. Before the examination, she talked with them about a previous examination that they didn’t do well on. She was frustrated with their performance and at one point during the exam she told me, “They just don’t study. Were you studying when you were in middle grade?” I told her that I don’t remember. Sara always seemed passionate about her teaching. She often complimented on students’ work and told them encouraging things. She listened and valued students’ comments, even apparently off topic ones, during class discussions. For example, during one of my observations Sara was discussing energy conservation in nature with her students. She was drawing a diagram (a food web) on the board that showed the food relationships among living things. She asked her students to give examples of which animals eat what. Some of her students gave some funny examples like “humans eat mice” or “humans eat algae.” Sara didn’t mind writing these examples on the board, which showed that she valued students’ ideas even if they sound unusual. Sara liked to create discussions during her classes so that students could express their opinions.

99 She also liked to give real life examples to make connections between science concepts and students’ lives during her discussions. For example, during one discussion she gave the example of the Australian Pine trees that came from Australia and invaded the Everglades and how scientists plan to use insects to get rid of it. Some students knew about this, and they were eager to tell their opinions during the discussion. Learning was a very important goal for Sara in her job and she felt happy when she saw her students learning. When I asked her what does she enjoy the most in her teaching, she replied,

Watching the light bulbs go off in their head. Hearing “Oh yeah; oh, I haven’t thought of it that way; I get it” and hearing those comments that show me a connection has been made, they are feeling good about themselves, they are happy. My worse days are when something doesn’t work and the kids are frustrated with an activity and, you know, I take things personally when it fails and those are my bad days, when everybody is kind of low but the good days are when everything is flowing and things are happening, learning is happening. (Interview with Sara, 5-5-2003, p. 19)

Sara believed that every student could learn science, however, she also thought that some students had more experiences in science than others. She said,

I think you definitely have your science and mathematic thinkers and it’s amazing. I have a lot of boys that aren’t strong in math but they have grown up fishing in the Gulf and their ecology sense is just incredible. Making big connections that that other kids wouldn’t even know where to begin. They can see the big picture. Some kids have had very poor experiences with science in the past and turn it off and believe they can’t. My goal is to help turn that around. But some kids do have block. They have a higher problem making connections, pulling ideas together but I really don’t think that is a disability with just science. I think if the student has a real problem with that, it kind of covers the whole spectrum. (Interview with Sara, 5-5-2003, p. 16)

In brief, Sara believed that the purpose of teaching science was same as the purpose of education, which is empowering students by teaching them the skills they needed to prepare them for life. She saw science as a canvas for this greater purpose. This purpose was more important for Sara than teaching the content of science itself, however, she admitted that not feeling confident in her content knowledge might be one of the reasons she thought this way. Sara valued hands on activities much more than lecturing, because she believed that students

100 were taking responsibility for learning during hands-on activities. She thought that students learn best when they felt responsible for what they were doing. However, because of the time constraints she used lectures more often than before the science FCAT implementation during her teaching.

Sara’s Beliefs About Assessment Sara explained that she used to not do any assessment until the science FCAT started. She said that everybody was okay with this, however after science FCAT became a requirement, she needed to prepare her students for FCAT by administering quizzes and tests with FCAT type multiple questions. I asked her if FCAT was not brought up as a requirement, would she still use assessment. Her response was,

Probably would, because I have learned to enjoy the assessments. I really had a major shift in three and a half years because I was always anti assessment. But with the FCAT I started assessing and then all these patterns came out of who is able to show me they get it and who is not and then it is helping me see what I need to do for that person. Maybe the class time isn’t as reflective because I am still doing all the labs and activities but not as many because I am also doing some notes and, you know, like the fact that I am doing quizzes is very new. I said to a student ‘Would it help you to have quizzes to prep you for that exam?’ and she said ‘yes.’ Then it would act as a review and more responsibility for her to put it all together and then it would be, you know, a prep for that exam and that is why I was starting to do that. I had another student say ‘I had a teacher who gave me a quiz every single Friday and I loved it. It was hard and we complained about it but it was one of the best classes I had because it really made me responsible for that information for the week and it kept me in track.’ (Interview with Sara, 5-5-2003, p. 16)

Sara said she realized the importance of assessment because it gave her information about her students’ knowledge; however, she did not expect assessment taking too much time with quizzes, reviews, and tests. She said that she used to use that time for doing hands-on activities or laboratories, but now she had to spend more time for formal assessment. Even though Sara saw assessment as a way to get an indication on her students’ learning, students had a different idea about assessment. Sara explained that her students get upset when they did not do well on a test. I think their perception of the purpose of assessment might be just getting desired grades because of the pressures they felt rather than seeing grades as an indication of learning. Sara felt the same pressure and this might be creating a conflict in her mind about the priorities that she has for her

101 teaching. Should the priority be learning or increasing students’ grades? These two goals should be aligned with each other; however, this is not how the politicians who made the rules for the education system perceived it. During one of my observations, Sara was talking to her students because they did not do well on a recent test. She told them, “Blame gets put on me (when you fail).” I thought it was interesting that Sara said this to her students, which was an indication of the intensity of the pressure she felt for improving students’ grades. The way Sara used assessment put emphasis on students’ learning rather than just giving them grades. She tried to be as flexible as possible in the way she used assessment to allow her students to be prepared and to learn. She explained,

Particle kids typically don't study, so assessment is an excellent measure of whether or not they understand (not just memorizing). If most of the kids do poorly, I will re-teach and retest. I do not want it to be used as a . I also don't stay on a rigid timeline. If my kids don't seem ready to test, I give them another day of review. I need to see their confidence. (E-mail response, 2-24-2004)

The Villa Middle School has a policy of giving a second chance to students to improve their grades by providing tutoring if they were unsuccessful in tests during the semester. Sara explained this process,

At Villa, we allow kids to remediate failed grades to a C-. So when a student does not perform well on an exam, he/she can come to my room on Wednesday afternoons for tutoring. Without the exams, I probably would not know who needed that extra help (though some students take advantage of this; some don't listen in class because they know they can be tutored later) (E-mail response, 2-24-2004)

Sara tried to prepare assessment in a way that motivated students. She thought that if students knew that they were being assessed fairly, they would be more motivated. She also tried to eliminate students’ fear for those who felt anxiety during exams. She said,

I like using exams as a motivation because I'm pretty honest with my kids so they know I don't just photocopy published exams from a textbook. They know the exams are based on our classroom notes, discussion, lab activities, and CAPA. They know it will be fair. They also know I will not count questions that they determine are unclear or unfair. I like to put notes on the board during exams, telling them I am proud of them. It almost feels like a team-building exercise! But my only real problem with testing is with the students

102 that seem to "get it" but shut down due to test anxiety. I try to help those students through exams, guiding them through questions, letting them answer verbally. For those kids, testing is scary. I'm doing my best to remove that fear. (E-mail response, 2-24-2004)

In brief, Sara’s beliefs about assessment have changed in the last few years, especially with the influence of science FCAT. She was assessing more than she used to and she felt pressure from the education system to improve her students’ grades. Sara valued learning; however, the emphasis on increasing student grades did not necessarily mean that their learning would be improved with their grades, which seemed to be a source of a conflict for Sara. She was flexible in the way she assessed her students to allow them build confidence. She also tried to help her students who had anxiety for assessment to decrease their fear.

Sara’s beliefs about the role of teachers and students in teaching and learning Sara believed that her role as a teacher was to help students learn. She saw her job as to encourage students’ interests and help them make connections. She said,

My job is to take something that they have so much natural enthusiasm for, especially in middle school. I mean they come in at sixth grade and say, “Oh this is my favorite subject.” So how can I nurture that? If I just give them bookwork every day, am I going to nurture that? I believe no. So how can I? Well I need to try to create interactive things, I have to try to have ESP, try to know what is going to work for them. It is not going to work for everybody but I try. And then how in that lesson, what can I ask them to get them to pull all the pieces together? Or how can the assignment be done so that it’s their knowledge that they are gaining, it’s their experience? … Now that is the ideal job for me, the purpose of being science teacher. Trying to figure out what it is that will keep their attention, what’ll help them make connections, how to present it in a way that’ll help make sense to them. And it’s hard, reinventing the wheel the whole time. But I also have the job to teach sixty some benchmarks that I have to teach through the year. So I have my ideal world and then I have my legal world and they’re very hard to combine. (Interview with Sara, 5-5-2003, p. 13)

From this quote, it appeared that Sara did not feel that she could enact the ideal role of a teacher in what she believed because of constrains and pressures she felt from the school system. She explained that she was accountable for her students’ success and what was going on in her classroom. Because of FCAT and state standards, Sara had to cover more content than she did beforehand in her classes, and she felt that there wasn’t enough time to teach everything

103 properly. She explained her feelings about this in relation to the body book activity, for which she did not have time to review students’ products in the class,

…That ridiculous quick review of the body system, like they all did their books and I was trying to get them to talk about things and we got to move on tomorrow. So [science educators that I know] would say, “Don’t worry about that. Pick a couple big things and then squeeze the rest into daily assignments or something.” But if I don’t get the every single one I failed my job and I don’t want to fail my job. But how effective was it to do my whole thing in five minutes? I don’t know, probably not very effective at all. Is it important when next year they take biology that when they read about it they’ll go “Oh yeah, I remember some of this from Mrs. Sara’s class where it’s not totally foreign; that is more important to me. And I kind of talk to other teachers about that, ‘what did you do for mitosis?” “Oh I just explained a definition.” You know, and we have to pick and choose what we think is most critical. Do I want them to know that all cells have different functions? Yeah, to me there are some basics. Some of them still don’t know what multi- cellular versus unicellular is and that drives me crazy. And we would break down the word, we would discuss it, you know, so those things are critical but there are other things I just want them to have an exposure to so they’ll recognize it for next year. (Interview with Sara, 5-5-2003, p. 14)

Sara had strong feelings about the conflict between what she wanted to do in her classroom and what the education system wanted her to do. Even though she thought that the benchmarks and accountability for science FCAT created a heavy load of content for her to cover in limited time, she wanted to do it and meet all the expectations successfully; otherwise she felt like she failed in her job. According to Sara she felt this way because she was a perfectionist and she blamed herself when things did not work as she planned in her classroom. In this struggle to not fail her job, to decide what to include in her teaching and what subject to focus on more became an issue. She thought that these choices were personal for each teacher. She explained,

It’s totally personal. So I might have, you know, one teacher might do more geology because that is her field, one teacher might do more space [science] and so there is a question of consistency, but that was never an issue until the FCAT was brought in. And it was more so “Hey do what you like, get the basics, but it is okay to focus on your love because if you love it [you’ll teach it better]” (Interview with Sara, 5-5-2003, p. 14)

104 According to Sara, FCAT created a competition among teachers and schools. She said,

It’s a competition. What if the way we do our curriculum here is just different from a school like Uptown (middle school). Whose curriculum is better? Or is Mrs. Smith teaching her kids in a more effective way than I am. … Well there is a way that you feel comfortable teaching and if your scores come back low, does that mean you have to change your style of teaching? If somebody ever came to me and said, “Okay you need to do a lot more bookwork, I want you on this chapter this week and this chapter in this week” I don’t know if I could stay in this job. (Interview with Sara, 5-5-2003, p. 15)

This quote revealed that Sara felt that she might even leave her job if the pressure she felt increased because of FCAT and state requirements. All this accountability and pressure made Sara feel that she was responsible for her students’ learning and for the grades or test scores that they were getting. This seemed to be in conflict with her beliefs about the role of students in teaching and learning. When I asked her opinions about this she explained,

I think the learning, is by the student. My job is to help that happen. So I tell them in the beginning of the year ‘I can’t really teach you anything.’ And they’ll look at me like I am crazy to say that. You know, ‘I can’t cut your head open and throw the information in there and make it just automatically come to you that you know this stuff. Since you have to be the one that takes it in and makes sense of it and I’ll do the best I can to help make those connections and bridge those gaps and provide you with an opportunity to want to bridge those gaps’ … (Interview with Sara, 5-5-2003, p. 16)

Sara’s beliefs about students’ role in teaching and learning were consistent with her beliefs about the purpose of education, which was to empower kids by teaching them necessary skills so that they could find the information they needed to learn and collaborate with others for learning. Peer teaching was a method that shifted the responsibility of teaching and learning to students. Sara had a master’s study about peer teaching, however, she was disappointed that she could not use this method often because of the constraints she felt in her job. She explained,

…You know my whole thesis was on peer teaching and I have hardly done any since then because of the stress and the time and I think the less I do that the more of a disservice I am giving these kids. Because it puts more responsibility on me as the one standing up there starting out information. (Interview with Sara, 5-5-2003, p. 16)

105 I asked Sara how did she feel about her teaching and was there anything that she would like to change. Her response indicated that she did not feel she was the teacher that she wanted to be. She explained how she would like to change,

Be funnier and more patient. More stable - ever since I have gotten pregnant and had a baby, I am not as patient as I used to be. I wish my eyes were a little more open to students that are not quite getting what I am saying. I have a tendency to keep going, going, going and a lot of kids know what I am saying and it is real easy to hear their answers and think that everybody is okay when really maybe 25% of the class sitting there going ‘I don’t really know what she is doing and I don’t really care.’ And so it is just balance of, you know, continuing to explain or getting so rushed and hurried that I just move on and leave kids in the dust. (Interview with Sara, 3-3-2003, p. 4)

Sara thought that she was not as patient as she could be with her students. During one of my observations, she apologized from her students for being “very tired and grumpy” in a previous class. In brief, Sara believed that students should take responsibility in the teaching and learning process and her role was to provide the opportunities that would help students to take this responsibility through activities and methods designed for this purpose (such as peer teaching or hands on activities). However, Sara could not use the methods that gave the roles she had in mind to herself as a teacher and to her students for their learning and also she was held accountable for students’ test scores which she thought was a responsibility that lied more with students. Because of this she felt conflicts between her beliefs and what she felt the educational system expected of her.

Sara’s Beliefs About Science I had few observations that gave some indication about Sara’s beliefs about science. During one of my observations, Sara was having a discussion about science in one of her classes. She explained to her students that scientists always have debates among each other and science changes throughout time as a result of these discussions. She then talked about the importance of conceptual learning. She gave the example of a video that she saw in which Harvard engineering graduates did not know how to light a light bulb with one piece of wire and a battery. She told students that they are learning science conceptually through these discussions. At one point during the class discussion Sara told me, “They are arguing science here. I like that.” In another

106 case, Sara talked about cells and she told students that human body has about 100 trillion cells. One student asked, “How do we know?” she replied, “That is what scientists theorized. is exact, it is approximate.” The student didn’t seem satisfied with this answer. From these observations it seemed like Sara believed that science was not an exact body of knowledge and it was open for discussions and different opinions. I asked Sara if she thought that science was the only legitimate knowledge. She said,

No. But I teach a science class and I have to teach certain things. I have seen how heated it can get when students start preaching their religions to each other and it’s - especially at this level cannot handled very well and it creates a lot of tensions in the room that we can’t really afford and I make a big deal to tell them that. I think it is great that they have these other beliefs and religions but we just can’t discuss them. I try to acknowledge their beliefs that they have but we can’t go around preaching it here in the classroom. I wish I can talk about religion. I would love it, because they are passionate about the subject. (Interview with Sara, 3-3-2003, p. 8)

She explained that talking about controversial issues, such as evolution, in science classes is a challenge. She explained,

Well I teach evolution every year and you have to approach it like you are walking on eggshells. I mean it’s like ‘okay, we are going to talk about evolution, you don’t have to believe in this, but it is the current scientific thinking and since this is a science class you want to be aware of what scientists believe in and why they believe in it and the evidence behind it’ and, you know, I tell them ‘I don’t want you to go home and say Mrs. Sara is telling me that evolution is truth but you taught me about the Bible and I don’t understand.’ I have to make the biggest deal about that. That this is just one source, one belief, the scientific belief and you are free to continue on with your beliefs. But you need to know this for this class and if you ever want to debate your belief with a scientist, you need to know what that scientist’s beliefs are so that you can start to take in a discourse with that person. I have to keep going back to that comment because you can feel the energy in the class starting to get [high]. There are very religious students that don’t believe in evolution at all [and they] will start to get upset. I had two students leave my room since I started teaching when we talked about evolution, because they were so upset and then you’ll start getting this religion topic come up. ‘Well in my religion we say that…’ and I have to stop that and it is so hard because I think it is great conversation but I am not allowed to let that go on. I had students say ‘Well, I believe in this.’ And you know that is how child was raised and that is okay with me but I have others start to say “Well, that is wrong, you can’t believe in that, that is crazy.” When that happens, then I got to stop it. So it’s a thin line you are walking on and you have take constant care of the discussion and I feel I am pretty good at controlling it and defining the science beliefs and of evolution. (Interview with Sara, 3-3-2003, p. 8)

107 Sara believed that science was not the only source of knowledge for people, but she wanted to make sure that her students learn science properly no matter what their beliefs were. Talking about a controversial issue, like evolution, was a challenge for Sara because of some of her students’ strong religious beliefs. She wanted to discuss this topics in her classroom, because she found discussing religion and science fascinating, however some of her students’ sensitivities did not allow her to go into this kind of discussions without having trouble among her students.

Sara’s Feeling About Her Job And Challenges She Faces I asked Sara if she liked her job and her response contained mixed feelings. She explained,

It is a love-hate relationship. I love it. Its more stressful than I thought it was going to be, more demanding, more paperwork, the legal aspect, the logistics, the paper, the other beyond being able to sit and plan. There are so many things that keep me from the way I would like to plan. And there is a lot more social work to my job than I anticipated. Which is great, but when you have so many of the paperwork end and then you got your planning end and then you got your social work and it makes for a very busy day. (Interview with Sara, 3-3-2003, p. 1)

She explained that she thought there would be more time to plan science curriculum and because of all the demands she faced she could not do her job the way she wanted to. She said that she did not have time to do many of the activities she liked. She said,

I want to do more and I can’t. I want to do more field trips, I want to do more guest speakers, I want to do more interdisciplinary activities, all those dreams and visions that we talked about at [graduate school] - well, when I came over here I was pretty bitter about investing all that energy at [graduate school] and then coming here and then having so many of those big dreams and visions, not having the time to do that. (Interview with Sara, 3-3-2003, p. 1)

Sara explained that the main conflict that she felt about her job was that there was too much information that she needed to cover but not enough time,

My conflict is that is there too much information that I am trying to give them, trying to help them learn, is there just too much for it to be effective learning? Now if you look in a textbook somebody would say “You’re crazy. Look at how much I teach following the

108 curriculum of this textbook. You don’t teach as much as I do.” But I really feel like there needs to be a day for discussion with the teacher, there needs to be a day for - one, two, or three days for hands-on or something that they are responsible for. There always needs to be a review and I just feel like I am starting to have to jam stuff down their throat and it’s a really weird feeling, I don’t like it. I’m paying more attention to every little word in the benchmark and feeling like I have to get through it and it’s a lot. (Interview with Sara, 5-5-2003, p. 21)

When Sara explained the challenges she faced in her job, she mentioned that she had high expectations for herself. She also talked about time being the biggest challenge she had. She said her challenges were,

Time, to make everyday effective and valuable. My education for teaching came as a field trip instructor and I had eight programs. I taught these eight programs for a two year time period. What I was able to do was once I got over the fear of making sure I knew the knowledge, I was able to master the management and how am I going to pull these kids in and what am I going to do to make this a well oiled machine. So many kids said, ‘why can’t science be like this in school?’ And that is why I came to [graduate school], to give it a shot. But I don’t have the time to do that on a daily basis. So my standards for myself are ridiculously high and I have a real hard time meeting myself there and it’s to the point where I don’t know - I mean at some point I got to get over that real soon or I got to get myself into a teaching situation where I am teaching something where you’re focusing on couple programs and are able to master them very, very well. So it is very hard to be perfectionist in this job. (Interview with Sara, 5-5-2003, p. 20)

The metaphor Sara used for her ideal teaching context was “well oiled machine” by which she meant mastering a curriculum very well testing it and perfecting it over time, and teaching students this type of curriculum where she would face few problems because of the perfectly organized nature of the curriculum. This type of teaching was the standard that she set for herself in her job, but she was disappointed that she could not reach this standard because of constraints and pressures she felt. She believed that she needed to change this high standard that she set for herself to be happy in her job. When I asked Sara how did she deal with the challenges she faced in her job she said,

I don’t know - I don’t know how I deal with them. I get so busy, like when you leave, I have a pile of paperwork to do before I can even sit down and plan for tomorrow. I don’t have anything planned for tomorrow. So that is what happens to me, I get on this pattern of planning the night before, sometimes mornings. I just want to get home and be with my family and the way to deal with it is to plan better earlier in the summer, but I don’t

109 have that luxury of time, because our schedule is starting up in July. The way to deal with it is to collaborate more with the other science teachers on projects they do. We don’t seem to use each other very well; we are all kind of reinventing the wheel, which becomes a waste of time when we all have the great set of activities in our own personal files. That’s kind of what I miss about [graduate school] talking professionally [about] work, because [when] the kids walk out, it’s really easy to hold on all the bad things. (Interview with Sara, 5-5-2003, p. 20)

The state standards, FCAT, and all other school requirements made Sara feel that teaching was not what she dreamed of. She felt so frustrated that if the requirements increased, she did not want to continue her job. She said,

Like one state, I think - I don’t know if it was New York State or New York City, where they want all the teachers to be on the same page everyday. That was done by a private company; they said basically it is going to get your success up on standardized tests. I see that as a major conflict. To me that is stripping away the power of the teachers and the ingenuity of teachers and who are they to say that, that is going to work for me and my style? And if somebody did that to me I would probably quit. (Interview with Sara, 5-5- 2003, p. 23)

I asked Sara if she thought that the education she got during her graduate school helped her in her job today. She said that it did help, but it was not as visible. She explained,

I think I was ready for all the philosophy because of the experiential education I did before, when I was an outdoor education teacher, a traveling teacher to schools, so I had experience in the classrooms but it just didn’t seem realistic. What I was learning there didn’t automatically come over to what we have in here. You know, we are guided by benchmarks and speed of what we are studying is incredible, how fast we have to go through everything so, it just seems like, you know, like my [master’s] thesis was on that peer teaching, well, you know, I feel like I can’t do that. I really do and, you know, I came to that conclusion in the thesis, which is a real disappointment. But yeah, I wanted to be able to do things like that but with the time and the accountability with FCAT and - it is not as loose as I though it would be. It is much more rigid and you have to teach that and oh here comes FCAT you have to start testing and prepare your kids and so the kids one day said to me “Would you stop talking about FCAT and just teach and let’s have fun?” (Interview with Sara, 3-3-2003, p. 1)

Sara mentioned that the education she got at the graduate school motivated her to push towards creating the classroom of which she dreamed. She said,

110 It is good to have the philosophy, because it does come into play. It keeps me motivated to try and push and push towards creating the classroom we dreamed about at [graduate school]. I was so excited about things when we were at [graduate school], about doing things in my classroom. (Interview with Sara, 3-3-2003, p. 1)

I asked Sara what could have been done differently in the teacher education program that she participated that would help her today. She said,

It would have really benefited me to had somebody explained the standards to me and say “When you get in that classroom this is what you are responsible for” and to help me - it would have been really nice to have a class where we all took a benchmark and the goal of that [would be] to design a lab activity with empowerment in mind. Okay, how am I going to [do this] what questions am I going to ask in the lab to help them make this connection? (Interview with Sara, 5-5-2003, p. 23)

In another conversation Sara said that she would have liked to have more teaching experiences before she was enrolled in the masters program. She said,

I wish I had been a teacher before I have started the masters program. All the theory and philosophy, I would have taken it in differently. I remember in our classes when we got to write up our opinion on the web site and I was always saying “To those of you who are teachers, if you think I am so off base, tell me, let me know because I don’t know. I don’t know what it is like out there in the classroom” and nobody ever really said a lot about that to me like “Be careful because you are dreaming really big.” (Interview with Sara, 3- 3-2003, p. 8)

I asked Sara if she wanted to continue doing her job. She said that she would like to continue her job, but she was not sure if she wanted to do this forever. I think her disappointment because of the difference between her dreams about teaching and the real world made her hesitate to decide whether or not she wanted to teach forever. She might quit her job eventually if she could not overcome her disappointments and if the pressures she felt increase. Sara did want to stay in the business of teaching, however, she would rather do this in different contexts in which she would feel comfortable. When I asked her if she wanted to continue teaching she said,

Yes, definitely. I don’t know if it is going to be forever. I kind of like to get back into eventually maybe something like working for Challenger Center or guiding field trips, something where I can take the curriculum and master it and then design the program to be the best program for student learning. Meaning how am I going to motivate students,

111 what is the inquiry going to be like, what is going to be the best possible mode for them to get as much power out of that learning experience? And when I try to do that on a daily basis I get burned out. So that burn out makes me think maybe I need to be in a job where I can focus on a few programs and you know maybe that is when I could use more of what I did at [graduate school]. And I don’t know maybe I am not giving myself enough credit for attempting what we have learned there. Because it is so fast you can’t - it is like you can’t even catch your breath. (Interview with Sara, 3-3-2003, p. 2)

Finally, I asked Sara what would she change in her classroom or in the school that she was teaching in general. Not surprisingly she wanted to get rid of FCAT first. She said,

I wish the FCAT - science FCAT was never started. Like - it is adding an accountability stress that I wish I didn’t have that’s taking away some of my ability to be a risk taker. It’s adding a third stress on the kids. They already have two others for main subjects that are tested and when I first arrived, science was looked at as one of the laid back classes; this is one of these classes where we can just enjoy. Now it’s trying to hold on to that and bring in the responsibility they have with testing. So I wish that would go away. I like how the benchmarks help guide me, which I appreciate, but now with FCAT I feel like I have to hit every single one with no leeway for flexibility. (Interview with Sara, 5-5- 2003, p. 20)

In brief, Sara has mixed feelings about her job. She liked her job, but she was disappointed about the realities that she faced in the real world. She set high expectations for herself, which created discomfort in her feelings about her job. She would have liked to have more experience before she had her graduate degree so that she could utilize what she learned more in practice. She thought that the graduate school she went did not prepare her for the realities of the real world, but she appreciated the philosophies that she learned during her studies. Sara saw FCAT as the biggest source of her problems in her job and getting rid of FCAT was the main thing she would have done if she had the power to change the education system.

Sara’s Values Test Results Sara took the Values Test two times with about eight months interval in between. Dr. Nancy Davis and I interviewed Sara after she took the test the second time to get some insight into her thinking process when she answered the test items. The result of the Values Test that Sara took is shown in Figure 6.

112 % Yellow Orange Red Purple Blue Green Turquoise 99 59 74 41 29 61 50 33 90 51 63 39 28 60 49 32 80 40 51 27 19 45 37 23 70 36 46 23 16 40 33 19 60 33 41 19 13 35 29 16 50 29 37 15 10 31 25 13 40 28 35 13 9 28 23 12 30 24 31 9 6 24 20 8 20 21 26 5 3 19 15 5 10 16 21 0 0 12 10 1 Acceptance 18 - 24 11 - 20 6 - 2 14 - 15 21 - 11 45 - 55 25 - 23 Rejection 10 - 6 22 - 18 61 - 64 21 - 10 21 - 36 0 - 0 15 - 16 10 5 1 19 15 1 5 14 20 8 6 26 22 7 8 19 30 10 9 32 27 11 10 24 40 12 12 38 32 15 12 28 50 13 14 40 34 17 13 30 60 15 17 46 39 21 15 34 70 18 20 51 44 26 18 39 80 20 24 58 50 31 21 44 90 27 33 75 65 43 29 55 99 29 34 81 69 44 31 60

Figure 6. The results of the Values Test that Sara took two times. The red lines show Sara’s scores the first time she took the test and the blue lines show her scores the second time she took the test.

Sara’s scores were quite consistent between the two times she took the Values Test. The major change was her increased rejection of the blue worldview. One of the items in the Values Test that represented the blue worldview was “My deepest beliefs and values stand on the firm foundation of my faith and one true way.” Sara gave high rejection points to this item and she explained that a recent experience that she had might have influenced her opinions about this worldview in a negative way. She said,

One right way, all that stands out to me is my recent discussion with a colleague, this fundamentalist, who told me I was going to and so the one right way automatically brings me to that discussion of her telling me that there is only one right religion and one right faith. I am having a very hard time with it. I wish we hadn’t had the discussion, but I think it kind of affected my opinion about her as a person and I really kind of distanced myself from her for about two weeks and now I am getting over that but I think about it a

113 lot, about that discussion. So maybe that is where that is coming from. (Interview with Sara, 12-16-2003, p. 24)

Sara had similar feelings to Suzan about people who have a dominantly blue worldview. She did not reject the beliefs that these people have, but she felt uncomfortable with people who believed that their beliefs or religion was the only true way and everybody should believe what they believe. She explained her feelings about dealing with this kind of people,

I have to be ready and comfortable with [a] person to sit down and have that kind of discussion. Because I need to know, [if they are] going to be open enough even to listen to what I think? (Interview with Sara, 12-16-2003, p. 24)

Sara’s discomfort with the people who have predominantly blue worldview was one of the reasons why she rejected this worldview. Another reason that she explained was that she was going through a major spiritual and religious conflict in her life. She was raised as a Catholic Christian, however, especially after studying science, she was not sure about her religious beliefs. She seemed to be in search of a belief system that would be comforting for her. She said,

To me everybody’s [opinion] is valid except the people that say no other religion is valid. That is how I feel. And I am having a real problem like evidence; the science in me is affecting [my belief in] things that can’t be proven by evidence. … I envy people that can say, “This is what I believe and when I die I am going to and I know what heaven is going to be, I am going to be with my family,” I mean how great to have all your scary questions answered and I can’t answer mine. (Interview with Sara, 12-16-2003, p. 27, 28)

Other than the blue worldview, Sara had high rejection points for the red and orange worldviews. Most people reject the red worldview, so it was not surprising to see rejection of the red values in Sara’s scores. Sara made comments about one item that rejected the red thinking, which was “In my job it is less important that I make lots of cash, people stay off my back, and I can do what I want.” She gave high scores to this item and she explained,

If I wanted lots of cash and if I didn’t want to work with anybody I wouldn’t be in this job. I mean that’s just wouldn’t be fulfilling enough to me, just to make money. I have to be here for a reason. (Interview with Sara, 12-16-2003, p. 24)

114 Sara had similar feelings for the item that rejected the orange thinking, which was “in my job it is less important that successful performance advances my career and I can get ahead.” Dr. Davis asked Sara, what was the reason she was in her profession. She said,

To help, and I am still trying to figure out if that is more of a selfish thing or an unselfish thing. Like am I here to make sure I feel good or do I really want to help kids? I don’t know. I think I do a good job and I think I make a difference. But it is not about the cash and … when you are a teacher it is not like I am advancing to a bonus salary or it is not like I can be in a better science-teaching job. (Interview with Sara, 12-16-2003, p. 25)

From this quote, it seems Sara had deep feelings about her job and her role as a teacher. She wanted to make a difference in her students’ lives; however, she did not want to do this for selfish reasons. Sara’s feelings about her job were very much tied to the school context that in which she taught. She explained that her students who mostly come from low-income needed teachers who could think outside the box and Villa Middle School provided an environment in which she could do that. Sara felt very negatively about environments in which teachers were forced to standardize their teaching and teach in a certain way (which represents blue thinking). She said that she could not teach in such a strict environment and she appreciated opportunities provided to her by her school even though she was not totally free from the pressures of the state’s policies for standardizing education. She explained how she usually went about preparing her classes,

First I have to figure out what do I need to get across. What do [the students] need to know from the standards and then how do I want to present it. So I do usually a day of notes where I am standing in front of the class and we are discussing it and they are not writing pages of pages of things they are filling in some blanks [in a work sheet] so that they are not writing the entire time. And then [I do] hands-on activities to supplement that and then the pattern usually now is ending the unit with CAPPA and then getting them ready with FCAT like questions. But I never use standardized books or any of that. (Interview with Sara, 12-16-2003, p. 25)

Sara liked the school she taught at, but Villa Middle School was also a very stressful place to be for her. Especially at certain times of the year when Sara had a lot of duties at the same time (such as organizing field trips, working on fund raising activities, serving in school committees,

115 trying to cover all the state standards in her teaching, and preparing students for standardized tests) and not being able to spend time with her family because of these duties was a major source of stress and conflict for Sara. Students’ low success levels, discipline problems in the school, and being under pressure from the state mandates added to Sara’s stress to the point she felt burned out. Part of the problem seemed to be Sara’s relative less experience compared to other teachers and she was still trying to figure out how to deal with the problems she was facing such as student achievement and being accountable for it. She did not want to fail her job, and she seemed unsure if she was doing a good job. Her doubts about her job became clear in the questions she asked when she talked about a program that she attempted to participate which did not result the way she hoped. She explained,

[Two other friends and I] signed up to do the performance pay, bonus program. We based it on a pre and a posttest that was taken from the county’s FCAT science practice database and we did not show enough growth. We put in all this time the statistical data, trying to show growth and we just didn’t show growth and we spent all that time and didn’t get the bonus. We’ll never do any bonus [program] again but for three of us about two weeks we were just crushed. It was like, “Well, is all these hands on that we do in Villa is a waste of time? Should we care that these kids didn’t score as high as Uptown Middle School? Does it have anything to do with hands-on versus bookwork? Is it just socioeconomics?” So it was really a crush. (Interview with Sara, 12-16-2003, p. 26)

Sara was very frustrated with not being able increase her student’s success and she was not sure of the reasons. This is why she tried to find other aspects of her teaching that could give some comfort to her. She explained,

I always have to keep thinking about the kids enjoying the class. This year that is what I am working on. Do they want to come through the door, do I have the discipline problems that other teachers are having and I don’t. So that is kind of what I am banking on right now. (Interview with Sara, 12-16-2003, p. 26)

Sara explained that during the semester, when things got really stressful, to give herself a break she had her students peer teach for a week. She asked her students to prepare a section of a unit and present it to the class. Even though Sara liked to use the peer teaching method, she did not feel like it worked very well for some students and she fell behind in her teaching schedule. However, she used that time to decrease the pressures of her job for a while. Sara thought that if

116 she took the Values Test a few weeks earlier when she was much more busy and stressed, her scores might have been quite different. When it comes to the worldviews that Sara accepted, her highest scores went to the green worldview. One of the items that Sara gave high acceptance scores for green thinking was, “When I am criticized it is usually for being too sensitive and caring with people, a naïve social worker type who is blind to the realities of life.” Her comment about this item was,

I mean I am famous for crying. I don’t know if it is a criticism but it is something that is like you just got to toughen up. It is okay to cry and my principal and I are both like that. So we have this bond with that. But how does a teacher who gets so sensitive survive 30 years of this job when I am standing up there and start howling in front of the whole class, in front of my kids? And I had to go back here and frantically dial numbers to find somebody to take over my room. That was after a girl in the hall was yelling at me saying I was the reason she almost got arrested the night before, screaming at me. If I didn’t care so much, I would say “Screw you, you don’t know what you are talking about.” When I go home [my husband told me] “Why do you let these kids bother you? They are kids and you are the adult.” But I still take things way too personally. (Interview with Sara, 12-16-2003, p. 30)

This quote shows how stressful Sara’s job could get for her and she admitted being too sensitive to other’s feelings and taking things personally. Another item that Sara scored highly on that accepted green thinking was “When under real stress, I seek support and assistance from others to explore and deal with my feelings and fears.” Sara commented that this was exactly what she would do when she felt stressed. Still another item that Sara gave acceptance scores for green thinking was “my own career priorities are determined by how I can dedicate myself on behalf of human causes that work to reduce hunger, poverty, racism and violence.” Sara explained that she saw her job as more than a science teacher and she wanted to raise her students’ awareness about the world issues and that was why she gave acceptance scores to this item. Sara also had high acceptance scores for the turquoise worldview and she gave some acceptance points to the purple worldview. Turquoise way of thinking was appealing to Sara and she wanted to have global perspective in her teaching rather than being constrained by context she taught in. During our interview, Sara’s comments about taking the Values Test was,

It is hard. It frustrates me because there are things I would really like for myself [that are mentioned in the test] that I don’t have. Like my life when I was in grad school was

117 different. You could even look at how I used to journal and write and think and create in my head and imagine and then I started teaching and all the creativity went towards this room and nothing else and that is like it is not fun. Because all that creativity came out of my life, out of my personal life. When it all focused here, it hasn’t been a very healthy thing. (Interview with Sara, 12-16-2003, p. 33)

It seemed like taking the Values Test made Sara think reflectively about her feelings in relation to her job as a science teacher. When it came to the purple worldview, the emphasis for sacrifice for common good and against the difficulties of the environment might have appealed to Sara. Giving scores to purple thinking might also be a result of strong family relations. Sara indicated several times that she felt guilty for not being able spend enough time with her baby daughter and her family, which showed that she had strong family bonds. As a summary, Sara’s overall acceptance scores for sacrificial thinking (which were the total scores of purple, blue, green, and turquoise) were higher than her expressive scores (which were the total scores of red, orange and yellow) for both times she took the test. Our interview with Sara provided insight into her feelings and conflicts that she experiences in her life, which ultimately affected how she scored the test items.

Summary Sara was a passionate teacher who cared about her job and she had strong feelings about the challenges she faced in her job. She was held responsible for her students’ achievement by the state education system, and she wanted to live up to the expectations set by the state and more importantly set by herself. The state expectations and FCAT requirements created intense pressures on Sara, which she did not expect to face before she started teaching. These pressures created conflicts with her beliefs about teaching and learning, roles of students and teachers in learning, and the teaching methods that she wanted to utilize. She believed that students should be responsible for their learning, but she was held responsible for their achievement. She believed that hands-on activities and field trips were effective methods of teaching and learning but she could not use these methods as often as she wanted because of time constraints and state requirements. Sara realized that she needed to change the high expectations that she set for herself to relieve some of the stress she felt in her job. It seemed that Sara was a young teacher who was in a transitions stage in her job. In this transition, she learned the not so pleasant face of the real world that she did not expect and she was struggling to cope in this world with the

118 challenges she faced. In the end, if she could be successful, she might stay in her job and continue teaching or she might choose to find a different job context that had less stress and pressures. My assertions about Sara can be summarized as,

• Sara believed that the main purpose of education was empowering students to prepare them for life. She taught that science was one of the contexts in which this bigger goal of education was pursued. • Sara believed that students were responsible for their own learning and the teacher’s role was to help that happen. • Hands-on activities were Sara’s most favorite methods of teaching. She believed that students felt responsible for their learning in these kinds of activities and that was when she thought students learned best. • Sara felt many conflicts between her dreams about teaching and her beliefs versus the realities of the real world in which she lived. State standards, FCAT, benchmarks, accountability, and constraints were the realities of the real world that she faced. • Content knowledge was an important source of confidence for Sara. She felt that her content knowledge was not very strong and this affected her confidence in a negative way.

Aylin’s Case

I first met Aylin during a social event related to the graduate program in which I was studying. Aylin was a white woman in her late thirties and married with two kids. Her husband, John, was a project manager for a major NSF grant through marine sciences at the local university and he was working on a masters degree in science education. When I interviewed her, Aylin had nine years of teaching experience. She taught science, math, and geography to sixth graders at Gulf Middle School in the southeastern United States. When I observed Aylin’s classes, it was her first year of teaching science and she was teaching out of field at the time. She explained that she held a Master’s degree in social studies education, and an Educational Specialist degree in Exceptional Education, but she did not have certification for science. Aylin was originally hired to be an Exceptional Student Education (ESE) teacher. After teaching in this

119 critical needs area for several years, she requested to teach regular students. The only way for her to teach regular students was to agree to teach science. By the time I started observing her classes, Aylin had applied for certification for teaching integrated curriculum, which meant that the state would consider her infield for teaching math, science, social studies, reading, and geography when she got the certification. My professor Dr. Nancy Davis knew Aylin and she suggested to me that I work with her in my dissertation study. I asked Aylin to participate in my study and she was kind enough to accept my request. I observed her classes from March 19, 2003 to May 14, 2003 approximately once a week and I interviewed her during this time period and afterwards.

School Context Gulf Middle School was a rural school with about 700 students. It was located in a small southeastern town inside a residential area with many houses surrounding it. The school’s neighborhood was known to be middle class and conservative. The county where the school was located maintains pride in the excellent reputation of its schools. The Gulf Middle School had new looking and large buildings, the hallways and classrooms were covered with carpet and the school facilities seemed very clean and well maintained. There was no bell between class periods and there was almost no break, as soon as a class finished next class started. One of the first things that I learned about Gulf Middle School was that FCAT was very important for the school, which was also seen as a source of money for the school. The state rewarded schools that had high FCAT scores and Gulf Middle School was one of the high scoring schools in the state. I noticed during my observations in Gulf Middle School that there was a big pressure on teachers about FCAT, which also had financial implications. When I asked Aylin about it she explained,

…Well the teachers that I know hate FCAT. They hate what has happened with FCAT. We worry about it, because it is almost like you are waiting for the cops to come through the door and start roughing you up and your immediate family if your scores are low. There is such an emphasis on it that your principal is paranoid, your principal is paranoid, your superintendent is paranoid, and that trickles right on down and you know, you are judged and she (the principal) calls you in. She calls you in and talks to you about why is your score low and what are you going to do about it this year. And in fact money is already attached … one of our goals must deal with FCAT and how we are going to improve scores. So, oh yeah, teachers are under so much pressure, because you know, we

120 are graded whether we are effective whether we are - you know - people will look at that and there is going to be money attached to it … (Interview with Aylin, 3-9-2003, p. 5)

It was important for the school administration to keep the school’s reputation about FCAT achievement scores and receive extra funds from the state. This might be the reason why the administration put so much pressure on teachers to keep the FCAT scores high. During one of my observations, Aylin seemed frustrated about the low average FCAT scores of some grades. After the class she told me about all the work that she had to do at the end of the semester and she showed me all the paperwork that needed to be completed. She seemed very angry and frustrated with all the workload that she had. She was especially frustrated with the work related to FCAT. It seemed she wanted to pour her anger out by talking to someone. She was eager to tell me all about the end of the year process that she had to go through. I was surprised with the amount of paper work that was required. I thought (so did she) that most of this work was unnecessary. She told me that there was too much pressure on teachers because of this process. The stress Aylin (and other teachers) felt because of the pressures on her was one of the most obvious observations that I had in Gulf Middle School. In another interview conversation, Aylin told me about the school principal’s reaction to FCAT scores,

…Our principal looked like someone who shot her dog this week when she came on, you know, “At this grade we did higher than the state average but eighth grade is lower than the state average in some things and seventh grade did lower than the state average in some things…” and she look like her dog had been run over. So you get the message that that is important and it is important financially to the school and, you know, parents look at it [and decide] whether or not they want to send their child somewhere because of this and just that one score and there is an expectation that you are going to devote class time to that. People say, “Well you know this FCAT covers the Sunshine State Standards and Sunshine State Standards they need - you know the FCAT.” Oh yea - they do, but I think sometimes things are rushed. Because you are feeling you have to get to something else that you have to cover it. Some things you just have to cover or at least I feel that way or I give in to the pressure that’s placed on me. (Interview with Aylin, 5-19-2003, p. 19)

In Gulf Middle School another source of pressure on Aylin was the in-service education. She explained that she had to attend in-service training programs and that she did not value the reason why they were being offered. She had to write reports about how she was going to utilize the in-service training programs in her classes and she got points for doing this, which counted towards her teacher certification. I asked Aylin if she had to do this and she said,

121 Oh, yes, you have to, for your teacher certificate. So it’s just - the paper - it’s this paperwork, this documentation, curriculum guide I have - I am going to be here today during the curriculum guide so I can prove to everybody that we taught the Sunshine State Standards, all the benchmarks have been met. You know, I could maybe be doing a better job of helping these children reach these benchmarks if I didn’t have to do so much paperwork. Pre-test, post-test, show it, how much improvement, just a lot of paperwork. At least at this point she (the principal) doesn’t ask us to turn in lesson plans and they do that at the other middle school, that she was telling me this past week that she may actually have to go to that because they are asking for so much - the state, you know, wants so much documentation they may actually go to making a lots of things almost mandatory. (Interview with Aylin, 5-19-2003, p. 18)

There was teaming among teachers in Gulf Middle School. Aylin taught with another teacher (her team partner) to two sixth grade classes. These classes alternated between the two teachers. Aylin and her team partner shared the subjects that they taught. For example while Aylin taught math, science, and geography her team partner taught reading, writing, and language arts. The students went from Aylin’s class to her team partner’s class and this exchange went on back and forth during every school day. According to Aylin, teaming in her school did not work as well as it was intended because of the way the school influenced teachers’ practice. She explained that the time she wanted to spend on particular subjects, the discipline plan she wanted to use, and teaching arrangements were all influenced by the policies and values of the school system. She said,

[School] influences it because even though we say we have no bells, you only have a certain length of time to teach something. Some days, ‘20 minutes would be great let’s move on to the what we need to do in the other class,’ other days it is ‘wouldn’t it be great to have an hour and a half.’ Working with a team partner, you are supposed to be able to do that, but it’s not as easy as if it was just you and your students, same students all day. Again there is a discipline plan and how they want you to handle certain things that I like to do differently if it was, you know, my ultimate decision to make and other parents weren’t looking for inconsistencies on how discipline would be handled. They would go [and say] ‘so and so - how is it happened to my child…’ you know. I feel that, because I have to document that all of the Sunshine State Standards were met, you know, I feel that some things where I would like to go in deep, it’s more, what is it, breath than depth, and there are things that I guess I feel like it would be better if we could just go a little more in depth. That is where they are interested but that’s all fine well and good but you better get to that other benchmark… (Interview with Aylin, 5-19-2003, p. 19)

122 The school system also influenced the classroom context in Gulf Middle School. Behavior control was highly valued and an environment based on this value was created around the school. During my observations in her classroom, Aylin spent a long time talking about behavior modification in some of her science classes as part of a science unit. Later she explained that the school did not require it, but she discussed many examples with students about how the school modified students’ behaviors during these classes. In an interview she explained that she had even been asked to join a school committee about positive behaviors, however, she said that this was not something she wanted to do. She explained,

I have been asked to be on this committee for this school about positive behavior but I hate behaviorism. You basically have to document how you use behaviorism. I mean it is actually part of our, whatever thing over there I have to turn in, that is a document [that shows] how I use behaviorism, which is a clock. But they, people believe in it so I have been asked to be on this team so we can make it a whole school wide thing. (Interview with Aylin, 5-19-2003, p. 17)

According to Aylin the discipline plan in her school had wider implications than one might think. She argued that because of the discipline plans in her school that did not associate consequences of problems with their solutions, students did not have a chance to develop their problem solving skills. They did not have input in the way school dealt with discipline problems and she saw this as a problem. She explained,

I don’t like the discipline plan the way it is. I like more natural consequences; I like student involvement in those consequences. I don’t like consequences that don’t relate to what it is that they are doing wrong. The students are not able to have more of a say in how the problem is solved. You could be teaching problem solving all day long, creative thinking all day long, how to work together all day long, negotiation all day long things that you are going to need your whole entire life, things that [even] countries need that we don’t [really talk about]. Someone else, God, your mom, you dad, big brother, big sister, they slide down from the heaven and they fix it or they terminate the problem. We don’t give the students the opportunity and I guess maybe people don’t want to give up the power but I don’t like the discipline plan. We have a team discipline plan, we have a sixth grade discipline plan and now we are going to have the school wide positive plan and I don’t like them. I have been asked to sit on it so maybe I can have some input and say, “Should we really take it [that far]?” … I just feel that students are capable and they certainly need to become capable on solving, mediating their own problems. (Interview with Aylin, 5-19-2003, p. 18)

123 In brief, Gulf Middle School was a very demanding place for teachers to work. FCAT was seen as a way to bring money to the school and because of this the school administration put too much emphasis on it. Bureaucracy and paperwork was a source of stress and pressure on teachers in Gulf Middle School and sometimes this stress and pressure reached intense levels for teachers, which made it hard for them to concentrate on their own job.

Classroom Context Aylin’s classroom was a nice, clean, and orderly room. I noticed interesting objects in the classroom during my first visit. There was a mirrored sphere hanging from the ceiling (similar to those seen in discos), there were candles lit at the front counter, a calming musing was playing from a stereo, and there were many pictures and posters on the walls. Most of these objects belonged to Aylin and she had to take them off at the end of the school year because the room Aylin teaches in was given to her temporarily and every year she might have to teach in another room and so she had to remove her personal belongings from the classroom that she used at the end of the school year. The student desks in the classroom accommodated two students each and they were arranged as rows. The students had assigned seating; however, sometimes Aylin changed some students’ location in the room. There were several computers in the front right corner of the room for student use, but I did not see students using them during my observations. In the front middle of the room there was a counter with sink that looked like it could be used for science demonstrations. There were two more sinks in the back of the room on the counters. Aylin’s desk was in the front left corner of the room. The room also had windows on the side, cabinets on the back wall, and carpet on the floor. Aylin taught six periods every day, two for math, two for science and two for geography. The third and fourth periods that Aylin taught were science classes. These two periods were the ones I observed. She taught to two sixth grade classes that alternated periods with another teacher who was Aylin’s team partner. So Aylin taught the same students every other period. There were more than 20 students in each class. The students in these classes were mostly white with few African Americans. The classes were mixed in terms of gender. Aylin’s students were most affected from my presence among the classes I visited during this study. Some students seemed very interested in me. They turned around and to look at me, asked my name or asked

124 other questions, when I was in their classroom. During a conversation Aylin told me that the students were very curious about me and they were excited about me being in their classroom. She said that many of these students hardly ever left the area that they lived in and seeing someone coming from a different country made them excited. When I asked her if my presence influenced her classroom in an interview she said,

Yes. Because those students - I was laughing yesterday with Ms Anderson (Aylin’s team partner) I said ‘where are they even getting that from?’ It is like, some of them want to show off for you, and they definitely want you to notice them. And I am thinking, you are not getting attention at home? It is like, why are you trying to get attention from Yalcin? Don’t I give you enough attention? And some of them are trying to be a little more outlandish and I have been shocked at the students. Some of my quieter students are starting to feel [the same way], well good, at least they are participating. And to find out that you are from a different country, you know that is all they care about. All they want you to do is to tell them all about Turkey. They can care less if you are trying to find a cure for cancer. They are so interested in you as a person and your culture. (Interview with Aylin, 4-9-2003, p. 5)

I was surprised with students’ reactions to my presence in their classroom; however, this influence seemed lessened in time. Aylin said that students got used to my presence after some time, and they started to act as they would usually do after my first few visits. Aylin did not seem influenced much from my presence in her classroom other than her surprise for the students’ behaviors towards me. Aylin’s students were generally well-behaved students. There were not big discipline problems in Aylin’s classroom, partly because Aylin had a good control over students. She was sensitive to students’ inappropriate behaviors (such as hitting each other, talking to someone while the teacher or a student is talking, walking around in the classroom, or not following directions) and when a students behaved inappropriately, she would ask them to write their names on the board (which had a consequence) or she would call them outside the classroom and talk to them. Sometimes when the noise increased in the classroom she would stop talking and look over the class until students stopped talking to each other and pay attention or she would call individual students’ names to warn them. I never have seen any of the students having disrespectful behavior against Aylin in the classroom. Aylin also never seemed angry or frustrated because of the students’ behaviors; she just warned them when they had inappropriate behaviors.

125 In her classroom, Aylin tried to create an environment of discussion in which every student felt comfortable to speak without the fear of saying the wrong thing. In class discussions she asked students to express their opinions but she did not force them to do so. During one of my observations, students were discussing environmental effects of mining in Aylin’s classroom. When a student said taking oil out of the ocean floor could harm animals that live in the ocean because they use the oil as skin moisturizers, another student made fun of this comment by rolling on the floor to show how whales might have been using oil on the ocean floor to moisturize their skin while other students were laughing. Aylin was laughing with the students and she allowed this discussion to go on for a while, which made me think that her students felt comfortable to express their ideas freely even if they sounded odd. Aylin was successful in having a good control over the class and at the same time creating an environment in which students could express their opinions comfortably. During another observation, Aylin had a discussion with students about behavior modification. She asked students to write examples about how school modified their behaviors to discuss them later. She told students, “I want you to write down what is in your head, don’t worry about right or wrong.” Students seemed a little confused about what to write and a student asked Aylin, “How can we write not knowing what you want?” Aylin said, “Now, just don’t worry about writing what I want or the right thing.” She tried to encourage students to express their own opinions without worrying about rightness or wrongness. Even though Aylin did not specifically complain about it, there were many distractions in her classroom. The phone in her classroom rang many times during my observations; people from parents to administrators were calling for different reasons. There were also distractions coming from school activities. In one case suddenly a music teacher and a group of students came in to Aylin’s classroom during a third period science class. The music teacher had a guitar with her and the students were the 7th grade chorus. The music teacher said to the class that they wanted to sing songs and teach a song to them to see if this was something they wanted to do next year and if so they could sign up for the chorus next year. They sang songs and taught a simple song to the students to sing with the chorus. They also sang songs in different languages like Hebrew, Latin, and Spanish. After the singing, the music teacher asked students if they had any questions about the chorus then she and the chorus left. In another occasion, three maintenance guys came to fix one of the sinks in the classroom. Two of them were chatting

126 while one of them was fixing the sink. They spent 10-15 minutes fixing it and left after their work was done. In brief, Aylin’s classroom was a well-equipped classroom and a nice environment for teaching and learning. Aylin’s students were excited about my presence in their classroom and they seemed curious about me. Aylin did not seem uncomfortable with my presence in her classroom; however, se was surprised with her students’ reactions towards me. Aylin tried to create an environment in her classroom in which students could express their opinions freely without the fear of being wrong. They seemed to be comfortable talking and expressing their opinions in Aylin’s classrooms. There were some distractions in Aylin’s classroom; however, she did not complain about them during our conversations.

Aylin’s Beliefs About Education Aylin believed that education’s most important goal was to provide the skills that students needed to seek for what they were passionate. When I asked her what was the purpose of education, she explained,

Well, I think to enhance them as a person and to see how we can offer to take what they have, whatever it is, because everyone has something, and [improve it. It is] kind of about happiness, for them to be happy and help other people and so sometimes that requires that, they know of few things that are kind of a boring learning like arithmetic. You could feel really passionate, you know, you want be an architect, you feel passionate about building structures and pretty [things that] people love but you are not too passionate about multiplication. But, in the end it is about being able to take whatever it is you are passionate about and express that and have the skills that you need to be able to express that, whatever is you’re passionate about. (Interview with Aylin, 5-19-2003, p. 7)

According to Aylin, education should be about personal development and happiness and to achieve this goal education should provide the skills that students need to pursue what they were passionate about in life. She taught that this should be something that would come out naturally in the education process without too much direction. She said,

I know a lot of people you hear [them saying] “Well you know we are supposed to teach citizenship, we are supposed to teach…” Gosh they want us to teach everything now, everything, morals, your values, they want you to do everything … but the nice thing is that you have 30 kids in a room, it’s 30 of these children are passionate about 30 different

127 things and so if you give them the skills to seek what they are passionate about, you are going to find someone that wants to be the dentist, you are going to find someone who wants to be the politician because that is what they are passionate about. I think we spend a lot of time maybe directing students into that when I think that would just come naturally if we give them what they need to develop their passions. (Interview with Aylin, 5-19-2003, p.7)

Aylin’s beliefs about how an ideal classroom or school should be was consistent with her belief that education should provide the skills students need in life. According to Aylin, an ideal classroom should represent the real world. She explained,

You know, ideally the classroom would be just like the real world. Because that is where they are going to be, and at schools it’s like we alter the [reality]. It’s like the Truman Show, we are altering the reality and then they graduate and we just toss them out there and they have an experience about how things [work]. Like if you are from the real world, you can say “You are being a jackass, go home, you are fired” or “You are suspended for a week go home,” you know but you can’t do that in a school. The students don’t have a lot of the control that they are going to have when they leave the school. And so they get it and what do they do with it, how do they exercise responsibly, fairly, thoughtfully when they never had it before. … So I wish that the schools could mimic the real world more but they don’t. (Interview with Aylin, 5-19-2003, p. 17)

I asked Aylin if the most important purpose of education was to provide students the skills that they needed so that they get a job that they like. She said that not everybody could find a job that they like but even if that was the case, they could have other things to enjoy in life. She explained,

Well, hopefully, they’ll like their jobs but even if they don’t maybe then can like the other aspects of their lives. You know some people are very lucky and I guess ideally we could feel everyone can have a job where they are passionate about what they are doing and what they are doing gives them the means to support themselves and the people they care about. That is ideal. In practice some people have jobs that they don’t like. But yet they like the other hours of the day. They developed interests, hobbies and so that is where they have their joy and that’s where they express what they are passionate about and their jobs are just a means to exercise that passion, I guess, if that is the way they set up their lives. You know, I don’t think of schools as like … a little factory where we are supposed to spit out workers. (Interview with Aylin, 5-19-2003, p. 7)

In brief, Aylin thought that the goal of education should be providing the skills that the students needed to be able to do things that they were passionate about, find a job to support

128 themselves and be happy in life. She thought that education was more about personal development than creating the work force needed by the society.

Aylin’s Beliefs About Teaching And Learning When I observed Aylin’s classes, it was her first year of teaching science. She explained that she did not choose to teach it and teaching it was not a decision that was up to her. She said,

It’s not up to me. If it was up to me, I would teach social studies all day and I would have a reading [class too]. I would teach three social studies and three reading. But I would rather teach science than math. I’m sure I’ll be teaching two science, two math and social studies next year, because I can’t see Ms Anderson (her team partner) giving up a reading or language arts class. I enjoy teaching science but I enjoy teaching social studies more than anything. (Interview with Aylin, 5-19-2003, p. 12)

I asked Aylin if she had problems in terms of being comfortable teaching science. She said,

The problems have been good ones because I had to get over some “Oh am I doing students a good service by teaching science? Will I be too much of a learner that I actually get in the way, that the students will not be further along than me?” You know, “Am I going to impede them in any way and their progress because I am not where they are?” Then I subordinate. I look at this as an opportunity and like in any other course you taught you know you can model it especially if you did a lot of modeling learning, the whole, you know, meta cognitive approach and so I suppose it is the same thing but there is that initial ‘Oh wow! Okay this is going to take a lot of [effort], this is going to take some reading on my part.’ In social studies it seems to be more natural, it flows with me, but that is where I was interested, that is where my passion is, that passion isn’t accessible with science. There are certain things that I can get really excited about, but there are a lot of things real not… (Interview with Aylin, 3-9-2003, p.1)

Aylin did not like science as much as social sciences, however, she preferred it over mathematics because science had social aspects that she could focus on in her teaching. She said,

Math is very dull to me and I teach it twice a day. I don’t like math, I never did like math, I don’t like teaching math, I don’t like being on either end, a student, a teacher, you know, I don’t like to balance my checkbook. So actually science is as bad as math, but with science I feel like I have to summon up trying to be excited about something so that hopefully this would interact with the students. (Interview with Aylin, 3-9-2003, p. 1)

129 Aylin also thought that science was more open ended than math however she still thought it was more difficult to teach compared to social sciences. She explained,

I think science is difficult to teach if you teach it well. Because I wish I had more background in science. I feel that I would be able to offer more if I had more experience and background myself. Because I can help in - for example, in social studies I can help connections happen and I can bring in different things and set up different experiences and see a bigger picture in social studies to help students. I have very limited vision in science. I don’t see many connections yet; it’s like the palettes that I can paint with are only in primary colors. Where I have been passionate before now, I actually have background, I have a lot of colors to choose from, and I don’t have that with science yet and so I think that is what makes it difficult for me to teach because I don’t feel I am really certain. I feel like I almost do a disservice to the students. (Interview with Aylin, 5- 19-2003, p. 11)

Perhaps the fact that she did not feel confident in science content knowledge was a reason for Aylin to have negative feelings about science. She said during an interview that she had to spend more time for planning in science compared to other fields she was teaching. She also said that she utilized different resources to grow her science knowledge. She explained,

… I talk to John (her husband) a lot. Probably not as much as I should but I talked to John and I read magazines and I like the Discover magazine, I subscribe to it because I felt ‘oh that could be helpful.’ I read some teacher journals to get some ideas about science; I use the GEMS guide because I think they are good. So I do try things, Project Wild, activities… (Interview with Aylin, 5-19-2003, p. 15)

When I asked her if she kept a little more structure to her science teaching than to other fields, she responded,

I wish I didn’t, but I do. I feel that I keep it only because of me being overwhelmed with the information. Well the students become frustrated and then you have a classroom full of frustrated students and then it turns into discipline and then no one experiencing anything but other people’s misbehavior. (Interview with Aylin, 5-19-2003, p. 12)

Aylin’s feelings about science seemed to be based on her experiences with science when she was a student. I asked Aylin what was the purpose of teaching science and after thinking for

130 a while she said that she was not sure what the purpose of teaching science when she was a student. She explained that her teachers made her dislike science. She said,

It is the word teaching I have a problem with because of the perceptions, the visions that pop into my head when I hear teaching science because I think back about how the science was taught to me and the purpose of that, I have no idea. I guess to make people not care how the world works. (Interview with Aylin, 5-19-2003, p. 8)

Aylin explained that science was taught to her in a way that made her think that it was not something everybody could do or understand when she was a student. She explained that her experiences of science teaching and learning were very traditional and behavioristic. She said,

For me science was taught where you read the chapter and you answer the questions at the end of the book, [my science teacher] who was the only teacher I had that had a science background, she would do quote on quote experiments, demonstrations, but she did them and we observed them. We didn’t participate; it was not hands on, we didn’t ask the questions, it was not something we were interested in, it was from the text, it didn’t pertain to our lives at all… I dissected a frog with [another science teacher] who had a science background and that was the way science was taught and to me, my perception of that is, it is to show you that science is very [like a] club that only a certain few allowed into and it’s their way to say ‘see how hard this is?’ and that was how science was taught to me. (Interview with Aylin, 5-19-2003, p. 8)

Aylin said that she learned more science from her husband and from her friends than she did when she was in school. The experiences she had in school had a negative influence on her perception of science teaching and learning and she wanted to avoid giving the same feelings to her students about science. Based on her past experiences and now as a science teacher, Aylin argued that the purpose of teaching science was,

The purpose of, I guess, offering science in schools, what I’m trying to do - because I sort of think of it as students are looking at it maybe the way that I looked at it and so I said “Well, what do you want, what do you want to do with this, how do you want this to be, what experience do you want with this, or, you know, do you want to try to have it with students?” and I would hope that with science the way it’s offered here that they can see what pertains to them, that they don’t feel that it’s a club, and that it’s helping them and me to understand how their world works. … With John and [my friends who are] all these people in science, I learned more science from them than I ever learned from any of my teachers. Just from listening to their conversations and hearing, you know, their ideas about how to teach things so hopefully it can be fun because science was never fun for

131 me and so hopefully it’s enjoyable. I had lots of things that I was curious about that I really wasn’t learning about much of them in the classroom. That is why I think I try to make it pertain in some way to the students so that maybe it matters to them or something that they even question or care about. That’s the way science has been taught, I would say it’s taught to turn people away it seems but that is my very biased perception. (Interview with Aylin, 5-19-2003, p. 8)

Aylin had a strong background, and she used this background in her approach to teach science. She valued every student’s opinion, and she always tried to create a discussion in her classes in which students could express their opinions freely. In these discussions she emphasized the social aspects of science and she helped her students to see that science was something they could discuss. This way she wanted to avoid creating the negative feelings that she felt about science when it was taught to her. Discussion was one of Aylin’s favorite ways of teaching and, she used it very often. To create a discussion, Aylin kept asking questions to students about the subject she wanted to discuss, and she generally required students to read the relevant sections from the textbook so that they could participate in the discussions. She always told students not to worry about saying the wrong thing during the class discussions. She gave relevant life examples or made up stories that students could associate with, such as examples related to TV programs or examples that students experienced in their lives. An example that Aylin gave when she was talking about types of behaviors (external or internal locus of control) in one of her science classes was: “Ms Aylin is chosen by Joe Millionaire… if she is asked by magazine people ‘what do you think?’ (Two possible answers could be) I am good looking, I have this capability and that I am not surprised that I am chosen (this would represent internal locus of control) or I cannot believe I am chosen (external locus of control).” Another example she gave was, “A young girl, no birth control, with a baby, abandoned, no money, school dropout, blames everyone else for what happened to her (external locus of control).” When Aylin gave this example a student said she had a sister just like that, which was an example of how students associated a concept to their lives. If students seemed to have difficulties about the concepts that Aylin was trying to explain, she gave more examples and made up more stories to help students’ understanding. I asked Aylin if teaching this way was the teaching style that she likes most. She said,

132 I think it is. Because I try to say, “What can they walk away with today?” I try to attach it to something that they already think or know or feel or have experienced. I want to attach, like stick into something. And then how can they use it? I am thinking about that day, [so that they] walk away with something that maybe they can use that day or maybe they can rethink something that day. I try - I do - I try to make it applicable to their lives. Maybe they can imagine ‘oh okay, I see how this effects me, or affects my community, or affects my family.’ I try to make it personal. (Interview with Aylin, 3-9-2003, p. 3)

Aylin seemed to spend more time on subjects that had more social relevance than others in her science classes. She did not want to use hands-on activities very often, especially those that did not involve creativity and questioning, because she felt that knowing what should happen at the end of an experience was not authentic. During an interview, she told me that she did not have good experiences about hands-on activities in the past and she explained her feelings about doing hands-on activities,

I like [hands on activities] but not more than anything else. I mean - with the paper towel test thing (an activity that Aylin tried before), what I liked about it was that it was about consumer. They could see how there are different products, pay attention to that when you are the consumer involving with your money. That was really the lesson I liked out of it more than probably the scientific aspect of it. And with finger printing (another activity that Aylin tried before) what I liked was just sort of thinking - almost like it was going to be like psychology - how does it work, how does the person thinking. You know more than just the knowledge of this is allude to this world. So you know experiments are nice but sometimes I am like, it is almost like, “Okay we did it, but what? We did an experiment but what?” You know, I know the outcome to some of them; they know the outcome, what is the thrill? So that can be a nice change, but a lot of the times it is like ‘okay, we did an experiment…’ (Interview with Aylin, 3-9-2003, p. 4)

During my observations, the only time I saw Aylin using a hands-on activity was about the environmental effects of mining on earth’s crust. In this activity, students had chocolate chip cookies, which represented the land and the chocolate pieces represented an ore. Students were working in groups of two to separate the pieces of chocolate from the cookie and then restore them if they could. They were to answer questions that Aylin wrote on the table, which were:

1) Were you able to restore the land to its original condition? Describe the kinds of changes that occurred. 2) Compare the changes with your cookie to those that happen with mining.

133 After the activity, Aylin asked questions to students about what they were thinking when they took the chocolate chips out of the cookie. Students said they were trying not to break the cookies. She asked few more questions to the students and discussed the real world mining. She made the point that mining destroys the earth’s crust, which might have some environmental impact, and there was no way to put the earth back to its original form. Aylin thought that people like to do things that they were interested in or passionate about and she did not feel that way about science. She did believe that experiences in science that fuel curiosity and provide opportunities to explore could be effective ways to learn science. However, she felt that her content knowledge was not strong enough to allow her students to do different activities in science because she felt that they would have different interests and questions and she might not be able to guide all of them at the same time. Aylin felt that this was a disservice to her students, which might be a source of conflict in her mind. During an interview, when I asked her what are better ways of teaching science, she gave her husband as an example of someone who was passionate about science and he had enough experience to guide his students during hands-on field activities. I asked her what activities were most useful in learning science and she explained her beliefs,

I want to say anything is better than just the textbook. Even if, you know, it’s hands-on and they are manipulating something. I think about John and when he taught science and what I would see him doing. When I taught science, [I] helped him just to see him teaching science and students were out in the field a lot, asking questions a lot, observing a lot, he was guiding them, letting them experience, like “Oh okay that wasn’t how that should have been done let’s try it this way” and I think that’s ideal. And so students come up to me ask about him and tell me how much they enjoy the science classes. So that is what he was passionate about and that is his background so for me with the experiments, even though I am using GEMS, and I think they are great the GEMS guide, I think if I had more of a background, I would be able to really release or led up the boundaries, the fences. Because I have to keep it, if I am going to participate I have to keep it fenced into what I have an understanding of it. If I say okay let’s lift up the gate and let the students wander with whatever, they are going to many places that I don’t know and then I would get frustrated because if I had let’s say 30 children, I can have 15 questions and I may be able to participate on two of those, you know, off the cuff and so to me that’s too much, “I don’t know, let’s figure it out.” Because I can’t assist every child but John, he could lift up those barriers because it didn’t matter where they went he had already gone and so sometimes I think if the teacher is going along on the journey with the student, going a path she hasn’t gone, that can be a benefit but I don’t know if it benefits the students if she is going down 15 paths she has never gone at one time. To me that is a level of confusion that I don’t think benefits the students because it doesn’t benefit me as a

134 teacher. I become frustrated, I become overwhelmed and then the learning environment changes because of what is happening to me. So I think if I keep it, say, “Okay I can only handle this much new information myself so we are going to have to keep [it] here because I am not ready to branch out there, that is good,” and that is where I feel like I do a disservice because I feel like if I had had science courses, if I had had more experience myself, I would be able to spread out more and that is where I feel like I do students a disservice. (Interview with Aylin, 5-19-2003, p. 11)

Aylin allowed her students to work on their own by giving them small assignments or problems to solve during her classes. Many of the assignments Aylin gave to her students were worksheets or problems in the textbook and she often graded students’ work that they did in the classroom. When she gave an assignment to students Aylin wanted to make her students read their textbook rather than just focusing on the questions for which they were responsible because she felt that they learn better by reading. She sometimes made her students read sections out loud from their textbook in the class before she gave them an assignment or had a discussion about it. During one of my observations, Aylin asked students to read a part in their book before answering the questions at the end of the chapter. She told them that it was important to read the chapter before answering the questions. Students’ work was going to be graded so she told them “I understand it is important to you but reading the chapter helps to improve your grade and learn better.” She then turned on some peaceful music while students were reading. On another occasion Aylin jokingly told her students how much they needed to read a chapter, she said, “Keep reading, you are going to read this to death. Oh! Your eyes will hurt.” Aylin wanted her students to learn the science concepts and express their conceptions with their own words through discussions. During one of my observations she asked her students to define what mammal was as if they were defining it to a three year old. It was interesting for me to observe students’ understanding of a concept when they tried to explain it. For example one student answered Aylin’s question as “Mammals have hair.” In another occasion, Aylin was discussing what was a developing country with her students in her class. Most students thought that developing countries were extremely primitive places and people who live in these countries could not survive without outside help. After the discussion Aylin told me that she could not believe what some of her students said about other countries. She said they must have heard these things from their parents.

135 Aylin believed that students learn best in a safe environment, “where they felt safe to question, safe to make mistakes, and where they felt accepted.” From my observations, I could tell that Aylin was trying to create a safe environment for her students in her classroom, and she was successful in doing this. For example, during one of my observations, students were discussing types of behaviors (external or internal locus of control) in one of the science classes, and they were giving examples from their personal lives and explaining the types of behaviors that they had in particular occasions. Students were eager to talk,l and they were giving honest examples from their personal lives. Some of them accepted that they had an external locus of control, which was interesting. Aylin jokingly said, “I wish I had those confessions on a tape.” This observation was an indication for me that students felt safe in Aylin’s classroom to express their experiences. Aylin believed that every student could learn science at some level. She also acknowledged that not all of her students would become a scientist. She believed that even if a student was a special student, she could learn science or at least she could learn the “feeling of questioning and working towards answering” that question. She said,

If you have an educationally, mentally handicapped child, who would be thought of as retarded, they can learn science. They may not learn science the way another student might learn science, but a question is a question and they certainly question and for them it could be your grand when they figure something out. So they can learn science. I think to an extent everyone can and especially they can learn the feeling of questioning and working towards answering or experiencing an outcome of that question. So, if that’s science, I think everyone can but certainly not all of my students are going to discover vaccines and cures for cancers and things like that. And that type of - what a person thinks of as scientist, some may, but some may just end up being just better cooks. (Interview with Aylin, 5-19-2003, p. 14)

In brief, Aylin did not like science as much as she liked social sciences. She emphasized social aspects of science in her teaching with classroom discussions. Classroom discussion was the teaching method that she used most often and she did not feel confident to guide her students in more hands-on and inquiry type activities, because she did not feel that her content knowledge was strong enough to guide her students during these kinds of activities. Aylin did not impose her opinions or knowledge on students and she valued her students’ opinions in class discussions. She let her students express their opinions freely, which allowed students to build

136 confidence to tell their ideas. Aylin believed that every student could learn science at some level and a safe environment was required for best learning.

Aylin’s Beliefs About Assessment Aylin valued assessment as a tool to assess herself. She had a perception about the role of assessment that was not only directed toward her students but also toward herself. She explained,

I tend to value assessment as a way to assess me. In other words, through the students demonstrating their “level” of mastery can it be determined if I did or did not do my part helping them understand/experience/think about an issue, idea, etc. (E-mail response, 2- 18-2004)

The ideal role of assessment for Aylin was to show how much students learned; however, she said that she did not always use assessment this way. She gave in to the pressures from parents who wanted to see grades given to their children. She explained,

Assessment is not used for this purpose in my classroom as much as it should. I have given in to parents wanting more grades to reflect what their child earns in the class. Having multiple preps also deters me from doing this type of assessment very often. Laziness I guess, coupled with the other demands of my time. Because I believe to do assessment well it takes time. Time to think about what you want to learn and how you what to determine to what extent you've learned it. (E-mail response, 2-18-2004)

Aylin thought that it was okay to use assessment to motivate students since many times they were not interested in what they were learning and in these cases assessment was the only way for them to be motivated. However, she did not think that this was an ideal way of motivating students. Aylin said she would rather have her students motivated by curiosity but using assessment for motivation seemed to be the reality of education. She made this comment when I asked her if it was okay to use assessment to motivate students,

Sure, if it is what is motivating the student. I had a professor tell me once that her tests were for me to demonstrate what I understood not to show what I got wrong. I would like for my students to think of assessment this way. It is a way to communicate with your teacher. I would rather curiosity motivate students. Life doesn't always work that way though. I teach things I am not interested in. I had to demonstrate competency in areas that bored me. Passing an exam to end the experience and to move closer to my

137 goal (graduating and teaching for example) motivated me then. So, if I am understanding your question I will answer yes, assessment can motivate if that is what the students wants/needs it to do. (E-mail response, 2-18-2004)

In brief, Aylin thought that assessment was a tool to look at how well she did her job as a teacher based on how well her students learned. She believed that doing assessment properly takes a long time. She also believed that assessment could be used to motivate students if it was the only thing there was to motivate them.

Aylin’s Beliefs About The Role Of Teachers And Students In Teaching And Learning I asked Aylin if her teaching style has changed over the years. She said that it did change, and she gave these two examples,

I don’t know if I am getting lazy or if I am getting better. It seems when I first started teaching I took stuff home all the time. Now I don’t take stuff home. I may think about it at home but I don’t work on it at home. It’s rare if I do that. (Interview with Aylin, 5-19- 2003, p. 13)

When I first stated teaching, I said that “I don’t have to love these children, I don’t have to like these children, I don’t have to care about these children, I am not here to be their mother. I am not here to take care of these children, I am not here to nurture these children, I am here to teach these children. I am not a social worker.” That lasted probably six weeks of my first teaching. Not my internship but my actual first teaching experience, and then I said, “You can’t be a teacher if you don’t care. You can’t be a teacher if you are not willing to nurture them as a person. You can’t be a teacher if you treat them like they - if you say these are emotionless beings.” We are here to model learning, we are not here, [to say] home life is your home life, no. So that changed within a six weeks of teaching. (Interview with Aylin, 5-19-2003, p. 13)

In these examples, it seemed that the influence of Aylin’s career on her personal life and her perception of her role as a teacher has changed in time. She decided to separate her job from her personal life and also she realized that a teacher was more than a person who just delivers certain content to students; a teacher should also nurture students as individuals. According to Aylin, separating her job from her personal life was necessary for her and her family’s happiness and being happy as a person was a requirement to provide the attention that her students needed and to nurture them. She explained,

138 Well, you realize that if you are going to have a lot that contributes to you being positive in the classroom, you need to leave the classroom in the classroom and be a person yourself. It’s like if you are in a marriage and if you don’t feed yourself as an individual, you are not contributing to the marriage. If you are a teacher and you go home and all you do is grade and plan when you are home, you are not growing as a person so you are not giving anything back to that relationship between you and the classroom. So that is why I said, ‘no this isn’t going to work.’ Like at [this other school], John and I were both horrible. We would get there at six so we would come home literally 11 o’clock at night. We were dead as people, dead. The children were having wonderful experiences and everything was right at the school, and, oh, they just absolutely loved it, but we were dead because of all we did. We wouldn’t have had that much to offer the next year, I don’t think. (Interview with Aylin, 5-19-2003, p. 13)

Aylin not only saw herself as a teacher but also as a nurturer. She believed that she could not separate herself from her students emotionally. Because of this, she needed to be happy and feel good emotionally in her personal life in order to help her students emotionally when they needed it. This was why she decided to separate her job from her personal life, because it was difficult for her to cope with the demands of her job and the needs of her personal life at the same time. When it came to teaching in her classroom, Aylin believed it was better to be a teacher who was comfortable to say, “I don’t know” to students and try to learn with them when she faced a subject that was not familiar to her. She thought that teachers must understand that they did not know everything and that they were learning while they were teaching. She said,

I think regardless of the subject, I think we model learning. I think that is important that they see that we are learning and that teachers don’t know everything so that teachers can say, “Well that is a good question; I don’t know” so that teachers can model actually learning, model questioning, model working through frustrations. You know, when you’re trying to figure out how to do something and you hit frustration but it is usually after that frustration where the learning occurs. And so if a teacher is willing to open up enough and model that then I think that benefits everybody, teachers and students. (Interview with Aylin, 5-19-2003, p. 9)

Aylin wanted to utilize a learning model in which teachers acknowledged that they did not know everything and they were still learning as they were teaching, and they valued learning from frustrations rather than being stressed by them. She explained that this learning model could be used in any field; however, she was more comfortable using it in social studies and reading. As it was clear from other conversations that I had with Aylin, there was a limit to how much a teacher could say, “I don’t know, let’s figure it out together.” This was how she felt especially

139 when she taught science. As discussions were an important part of her teaching, Aylin was more comfortable teaching subjects in which she could create class discussions and allow her students to express their opinions. Aylin had very good control over the class, but she was not an authoritarian teacher. In some occasions, she asked for help from students when she needed it. For example, she was preparing a quilt for her geography class, and she needed to find scales from the Internet to do it. She did not hesitate to ask for help from one of her tech savvy students to find and print what she wanted on the Internet. Aylin believed that there were many responsibilities that lied primarily with students in teaching and learning. When I asked her what the role of students in science learning was, she said,

It is kind of hard if I tried to narrow it down to just science because my first thing is I come up with an answer and I am like, “Oh that is sort of like doing everything.” So to learn - for me the role of student is I feel that they need to participate to whatever level they are ready even if that is just listening. Just to participate whatever level they are ready to participate, to ask questions, to wonder. I think that they have an to not disrupt the learning of other people because out there in the real world when they are adults if there is someone and that person is acting like a jackass, they can say ‘we are going to go over here now’ or they can say, “Excuse me but can you please go over there” or they can fire that person or they can train that person again or - but when they are in a classroom, they are here. They can’t say Michelle we are going out to parking lot, Michelle we are going down to Suzy’s house. So I think there are expectations that I have to say you have the right to not participate but you need to understand that they want to participate and you are interfering with that. And if I have to step in as the teacher and play that role, then I am comfortable with that. I like it when students can play that role for themselves but some students - of course I wasn’t there in sixth grade - so some students aren’t there but I think just to ask and to wonder that would be mostly it. Sixth grade can be hard, is really hard, this is a big thing for them now and so they may have questions about something, they may wonder about something but they just don’t want to say it because it sounds silly. (Interview with Aylin, 5-19-2003, p. 14)

From this conversation, it was clear that Aylin believed that students had responsibilities in the teaching and learning process. When I asked her specifically if she thought this way, she said,

Yeah, I mean you can’t give them the knowledge so if someone wants to experience something and learn more about something, yes, it’s up to them to try. You know, I can assist the best I can. But you can’t like pour it in their head … if wanting it did it, my students would be in a think tank right now solving all the world’s problems because I want it for them really. But you can’t care more than they do. Or you can, but it won’t get you anywhere. (Interview with Aylin, 5-19-2003, p. 14)

140 In brief, Aylin’s perception of her role as a teacher has changed in time. She realized that teaching was not the only role she had as a teacher and she had to care for her students’ emotions and nurture them. She thought that to do this, she needed to separate her job from her personal life so that she could be happy emotionally, because without being happy, she did not think she could help her students. According to Aylin, a teacher should be comfortable with assuming the role of a learner and say, “I don’t know” when she faced an unfamiliar subject, but she felt less comfortable doing this in science, because it got overwhelming for her. Aylin also believed that students were responsible for their learning and her role was to facilitate learning.

Aylin’s Beliefs About Science I asked Aylin if teaching science was different than teaching other fields. She made this comparison,

Well in math, I hate math and so with math I see there is a right and there is a wrong and there is a process then you do it this way. Why? I don’t know. I have to say I don’t know why because this is the way the book says and because this is the way my teacher taught me. Well, why is that work that way? I don’t know. It just works out that way. Some man, some woman centuries ago figured it out. … I teach math and social studies and science and, of course, I have taught reading, other subjects, that (science) is the only subject I haven’t taught alone. I guess I would have to say that I am noticing that it doesn’t have an end, it doesn’t have 2+2 is 4 and that’s it, it’s over. With science it’s not over. Every question leads to more questions, every answer leads to more questions, every non-answer leads to more questions. It’s like one of those things … this beautiful little maze that just keeps you going around and around and there is really no beginning, there is no end, it’s sort of beautiful and I never appreciated that like I did before teaching science. (Interview with Aylin, 5-19-2003, p. 10)

Aylin thought that science was more open ended than she thought. When I asked her talk more about this, she said,

I am beginning to think that way a lot. Like I said, I knew it on my tongue because I could say it, ‘science is open ended’ but I didn’t really understand it until I taught it. But you know, I could see like in language arts and in math and in reading there is all sorts of room for creativity, expression and, you can even bend the rules of language in like dwell books and language working where they could visit the way I am going to use punctuation, I am going to use capitalization, I am not going to follow the rules because this is how I express myself and in history you see all these interpretations of what happened. Everything is so relative and that is the of that. History and the learning

141 and there is no set right, there is no set wrong, there is just interpretations of what happened. In science it is sort of starting to fall into that category for me now. You know, that is more real than it was at the beginning of the year. (Interview with Aylin, 5-19- 2003, p. 10)

Aylin did not think that experiences that have known results contribute too much to science learning. She believed that science learning activities should be open-ended, just like science itself. She recognized that it takes passion and interest in science to design and carry out open- ended learning experiences. Aylin believed that even failures in science taught something to people. She did not feel passionate about science and she did not find science interesting, however, she appreciated her husband’s and her friends’ curiosity and their passion for science from whom she learned a lot. She explained,

I want to offer them (students) an experience and sometimes it seems fake to set up an experience because it does not seem authentic to me. Sometimes when I sort of already know what I think they might be interested in and then it occurs to the classroom and I feel like I’m leading the witness. So for them to have experiences so that they can start questioning [is important] because if I learned anything in since after being out of school, it’s for the people who are really passionate about science, they are passionate because they are very curious and they wonder and they are excited about it even though it makes me think they’re boring. But this is not boring to them, that’s their passion and so they’re fueled by those questions and they’re fueled by not knowing and they are not disappointed when they fail because that failure teaches them and that is what I think I am enjoying most about this year in science because I am really starting to see in science that there is no failures. … So science is a discipline where I am really starting to appreciate - I had this perception of definite right, definite wrong, knower, exclusive to the people that seem truly passionate about it. So I guess the role of teacher is trying to maybe help students experience that and to demonstrate that they can see that they can be a part of science but that is, I think, being a scientist. We are all really kind of scientists. (Interview with Aylin, 5-19-2003, p. 9)

From this quote, it appears that Aylin thought that open-ended inquiry types of learning activities were important in teaching science to fuel students’ curiosity and give them a better feeling about science. However, she did not like to use these kinds of activities, because she did not feel confident in her content knowledge to provide the guidance that her students might need. This belief made her think that she might be doing a disservice to her students by not providing different activities in her science teaching.

142 When it came to teaching controversial issues, like evolution, Aylin explained that it has been an issue in her teaching. She explained that this topic was a very sensitive issue to which parents reacted strongly. She explained that this is why she avoided talking about it in her classroom. When I asked her if teaching evolution has been an issue for her, she explained,

Yes, it was. There are teachers that I spoke to who absolutely defocused on teaching [it]. They are going to stay out of this topic all together. And then there are other teachers who say, “You know, let’s explore” and I have mentioned it with John a lot, because he taught science in the same school, same grade and, you know, I want to address it, talk about it and, just examine this topic, but at the same time knowing the reaction I’ll get from some of the parents, not so much the students, parents; I am like - when they come in and they sit in a meeting and they want to know why [I teach it] I am afraid that I won’t be able to [explain it] - when they hear the lack of catch words or phrases of scientific nature supposed to be said if you were officially in a science community when they see I don’t have that, they would question even further [and say] “Well then you’re really not qualified to teach evolution because you…” So that intimidated me a bit. That, I am like “Oh! Wow!” You know, would I be able to represent how much I care about just this issue and would they care and how would that effect the school, would they give the school a hard time? Just the ramifications of all that, my team partner, me, the school, you know, what if I don’t explain something in a way that needs to be [explained] or if I don’t cover basics or I anticipate that this would be an issue. Like in the subjects that I taught before, you anticipate. You are like, ‘it came up before it was an issue or it was a concern,’ so you know to anticipate it and you are prepared to be sensitive about it. I wouldn’t know what to be sensitive to with this issue, so I almost shut away from it. Even though I didn’t want to. I have been a little bit of a coward about it. (Interview with Aylin, 3-9-2003, p. 2)

According to Aylin, science is a way of knowing which included willingness to change, but religion, which is another way of knowing, is not willing to change. She explained,

I think there is an agreed upon scientific way of knowing that people will accept. But we all know that changes. The truth in science changes with each new discovery. But yet they’ll say we will accept this truth until we know it to be different. But for a lot of people, especially religion with what they say, things that can’t be proven, I mean that is the whole basis of the faith, they are less inclined to accept change. I think people have a perception of science doesn’t want to change, but it is so hard to change things in science but at least science is willing to change and I keep going back to religion, I think they resist change more than a scientific community. That would be fair I think about established two ways of defining what the truth is. There is a scientific truth and then there is a faith truth. (Interview with Aylin, 3-9-2003, p. 2)

143 Aylin did not see a problem in teaching and discussion different ways of knowing in science education. She believed that people needed to know what others think in order to discuss their opinions with them and make an argument. She explained,

I don’t think I would object to other opinions or beliefs being presented. I don’t think I would see a problem with that because we all interact in the world. If we are all going to have to interact, [we need to] come across, form some opinions, and have experiences, we have to do all these things. I think withholding information or withholding a bit of knowledge, I don’t think that has ever been official. You know, let the students form their own opinion. But I think once in the class, we were talking about evolution and some students were upset and they said that they didn’t believe that humans came from monkeys. And I said, “Well, I don’t think many scientists wouldn’t think humans came from monkeys either.” So they were shocked about that, because they thought that is what evolution was. And we went further and they were like, “We just really don’t have an interest, I mean, why learn it, it is not real, I mean God created the world and God created this and God created that” and that was it. (Interview with Aylin, 3-9-2003, p. 2)

In brief, Aylin realized that science is an open-ended endeavor, and there were no right or wrong answers to questions in science. Even failure could produce knowledge in science, which she started to appreciate in her teaching. Aylin thought that open-ended activities that fuel students’ curiosity were important for helping them know what science was about, however she did not feel confident to provide guidance for her students in such activities. Aylin believed that both science and religion were different understandings of truth and she did not dismiss one for the other. She thought that these different ways of knowing should be discussed so that people could learn each other’s opinions and grow from these discussions.

Aylin’s Feelings About Her Job And The Challenges She Faces Aylin was a teacher who liked her job. She liked teaching and learning with her students, who had many different interests and personalities. When I asked her what she enjoyed the most in her teaching she said,

The students. I enjoy students and I enjoy that I learn and this is because of the students. I enjoy that everyday I learn. But I get to be a learner because I have students with all these different experiences and all these different brains and I am interacting with all these different people … I enjoy them more than I think anything because they give me the opportunity to be a learner everyday. (Interview with Aylin, 5-19-2003, p. 16)

144 Aylin enjoyed learning as much as teaching. She saw herself as a learner who learned from her students and with her students. As much as she enjoyed teaching her students and learning with them, Aylin also thought that students themselves were a challenge for her in her teaching. She explained,

It’s hard for me to see students who don’t care about themselves. When they are apathetic and they blame everybody for their situation. External locus of control - and even when you try to give them experiences it is almost like they want to believe that they don’t have any control. That is hard for me, because I see them living their life that way, not realizing the control they have. And so it is hard for me not to just think of that child in that way instead of saying, “Okay I am going to picture this child as a person who has beliefs in their ability to play a part in their ” I say. “Look at this child, they don’t care.” I want to keep picturing that child as a person that feels they have a say in their lives because maybe that’ll bring it about or help bring that about and it is hard sometimes to do that when you have a child that are going to blame the weather on something. They’re just happy being unhappy and I try not so say, “Okay well be unhappy if it makes you happy.” (Interview with Aylin, 5-19-2003, p.16)

Aylin’s belief that she could not just teach certain content to her students but she also needed to nurture them and help them grow emotionally become evident in this quote. She felt frustrated with students who did not believe that they had any control in their lives. I asked her if the family context was the reason why some students behaved this way. She explained,

I don’t know … I hear things [from students] where it sounds like they came from an adult. But maybe it is just a personality or maybe some of the experiences they have had from home or maybe that is, you know, from parents to teachers they are being controlled, so what does it matter what they do, but I do see, hear students make comments where I say, you know, “That sounds a lot like what an adult would say.” (Interview with Aylin, 5-19-2003, p.16)

Aylin seemed to think that the way students were controlled by adults might be the reason why some kids behaved the way they did and they did not take responsibility for their actions. Besides her students, Aylin saw the state politicians as a bigger challenge in her teaching because of the policies they produced. When I asked her feelings about this, she said,

I don’t think they talk to students or teachers or administrators. … I think there is so much that we do that doesn’t have anything to do with teaching. It’s like almost getting to go to [university] and say we need to offer a course and that it would be called office

145 management, secretary skills or whatever that is called, you spend so much of your time doting eyes, crossing teeth, documenting and that time could be put to so much better use. But there is, what they call, accountability, we were told to account ability ourselves costing of learning time because the teacher uses planning time to do all their paperwork and documentation and then the time you have to spend sitting [doing all this work]. I don’t know how my principal does her job because of having to look over what we do and check of her check sheet and turn that into the superintendent. I don’t know how she even runs the school. And then of course there is FCAT and pressure that is put on with FCAT… (Interview with Aylin, 5-19-2003, p. 16)

The challenges she faced created conflicts for Aylin in her feelings about her job. The FCAT requirements, school discipline plan, students’ behaviors, and administration’s priorities caused conflicts for Aylin between what she believed and what she was able to do about teaching and learning. The biggest conflict she complained about was the accountability of teachers. Even though she believed that students should have the responsibility for their own learning, she was held responsible for their test scores, which seemed to be a conflict for her. Other conflicts that Aylin talked about were,

Conflicts go back to so much of the documentation. I think a lot of teachers fake it. I know some of the teachers do. They have to do the documentation; they make it up. I think the discipline doesn’t seem natural - like it’s a natural consequence to me and the students are playing their part. If the students are supposed to get more intense, more one on one, they don’t. There is no money attached to that ESE child so school doesn’t care. All they care about is that IAP [forms] are written correctly. That is where they get their money. If we have to play the FCAT game to get administration to care about the ESE kids I would be up for it today. But their scores don’t count … and the administration cares about where their money come form. Their money is coming from that IAP [forms], so they care that the IAP [forms] are written correctly. What happens between August and May, they can care less about. [The only thing they] care about what is happening this week right now on this campus, which is IAP [forms] are being written. It’s a lot what is on that IAP and what that child receives is mostly lie and that is one of the reasons I didn’t want to teach ESE anymore. It’s hard to do that and know that there is no way you can do all those things for all those children in that classroom. (Interview with Aylin, 5-19-2003, p. 20)

Aylin dealt with the challenges she faced by trying to learn from them. She realized that challenges caused frustrations because of the desires and ideas she had about how the world around her should be and she was willing to let go of those desires to lessen her frustrations. When I asked her how she dealt with the challenges she faced, she explained,

146 I laugh about them but I don’t know if that always works. Just see what I can learn from it. Because I am starting to really appreciate now, whenever you feel frustrated or upset it really is because you are desiring something that you are not getting and so if you can let go of that desire, if you can let go of that preconceived notion of what should be, you won’t feel that way quite as much. You are driven by your own agenda, your own needs, that is why because you have an ego, your personality, it’s hard sometimes to rise out of that but I try to say, “Okay, what can I learn from this, how can I be a better teacher because of this” and to say, “What are you really thinking about what you want or are you thinking about what’s a child’s need or what the child told you what they want.” (Interview with Aylin, 5-19-2003, p. 17)

This attitude helped Aylin to lessen her stress because of the challenges she faced and conflicts she felt. I especially thought of Sara when I heard Aylin talk about how she dealt with challenges in her job. Sara did not think this way, she had a perfectionist attitude, which created more conflicts and stress for her. In brief, what Aylin liked about her job was teaching and learning with her students. However, she found it challenging to deal with students who did not feel that they have responsibility for their actions. She also found the school discipline plan, administrative focus on FCAT and paperwork requirements challenging. She dealt with these challenges by trying to learn from them and trying to change her desires about how she thought the real world should be.

Aylin’s Values Test Results Aylin took the Values Test two times with about nine months interval between the two. Dr. Nancy Davis and I interviewed Aylin after she took the test the second time to get some insight into her thinking process when she answered the test items. The result of the Values Test that Aylin took is shown in Figure 7. Aylin’s scores are fairly consistent between the two times she took the test, except for her scores for the green thinking. Aylin had higher scores for the expressive worldviews, which was an indication that her internal values have more priority over the communal relationships for Aylin. Dr. Davis asked Aylin what may have happened that caused the decrease in her scores for the green thinking during the time interval between the two times she took the test. Aylin explained that her thinking about the idea of equality for all human beings, which is a characteristic of the green thinking, has changed over time. She said that she used to think that every human being should be equal, but now she wants to understand what people mean when

147 they use the word ‘equal.’ Aylin explained that her thinking was influenced by the feminist literature and a book that she recently read made her question the meaning of the statement ‘everybody should be equal.’ She explained,

% Yellow Orange Red Purple Blue Green Turquoise 99 59 74 41 29 61 50 33 90 51 63 39 28 60 49 32 80 40 51 27 19 45 37 23 70 36 46 23 16 40 33 19 60 33 41 19 13 35 29 16 50 29 37 15 10 31 25 13 40 28 35 13 9 28 23 12 30 24 31 9 6 24 20 8 20 21 26 5 3 19 15 5 10 16 21 0 0 12 10 1 Acceptance 69 - 58 4 - 7 3 - 7 0 - 3 0 - 0 36 - 23 38 - 52 Rejection 4 - 6 27 - 24 30 - 34 42 - 35 45 - 34 0 - 13 2 - 4 10 5 1 19 15 1 5 14 20 8 6 26 22 7 8 19 30 10 9 32 27 11 10 24 40 12 12 38 32 15 12 28 50 13 14 40 34 17 13 30 60 15 17 46 39 21 15 34 70 18 20 51 44 26 18 39 80 20 24 58 50 31 21 44 90 27 33 75 65 43 29 55 99 29 34 81 69 44 31 60

Figure 7. The results of the Values Test that Aylin took two times. The red lines show Aylin’s scores the first time she took the test and the blue lines show her scores the second time she took the test.

When I was in school, getting my masters I have been heavily green; everybody is equal because that is almost a radical feminist view. And so equality seemed to be a very good thing across the board but then, you start thinking well wait a minute, what do you mean by equal? Do you mean equal opportunity, do you mean it is there if you go for it, do you mean it should be given, what do you mean when you say that? (Interview with Aylin, 1- 22-2004, p. 29)

148 In relation to the item “The words and phrases that describe me best, a humanist egalitarian, believe every human being should have an equal opportunity for development” she made this comment,

It almost sounds like - and I don’t see the word “given” in here but I am thinking in my head every human being should be given an equal opportunity for development and I am thinking should they be given? That seem really passive, what if they don’t want an equal opportunity. They may not care about having an equal opportunity. Let’s go on with people who want that opportunity. (Interview with Aylin, 1-22-2004, p. 25)

Aylin thought that when equality or equal opportunity was a given, it seemed like people were being offered it passively, and she thought that people should utilize equality or equal opportunity more actively. This change in her thinking seemed to be one of the reasons for her lower scores for the green worldview. Aylin gave her highest scores to the yellow worldview. “People who select lots of yellow statements have a very strong sense of individual competence and self-worth,” which was also my impression of Aylin. This character of Aylin showed up when she commented on her score for one of the items that represents yellow thinking in the Values Test.

Well for [the item] “I like a job where, I make lots of cash, people stay off my back, and I can do what I want.” I could have ranked that higher if it hadn’t include I make lots of cash. … It would be nice if you can just do what you want to do, do what you feel is important, do what you think is right and people weren’t [saying] why is that important to you? Why do you care about that? Why do you care about them? You just didn’t have to justify or even listen to it because sometimes it is just better not to. (Interview with Aylin, 1-22-2004, p. 22)

Aylin had a lot of self-confidence when she taught social science (which was her main field) and she wanted to teach it her way rather than being told to do certain things. However, when she taught science, she did not feel the same confidence and her feelings about it were different. When Dr. Davis asked her what obstacles she faced to achieve her goals in her teaching, Aylin responded,

A mandated text, and I don’t see it [as a problem] so much in math and science because I don’t really know what is out there. I am just happy I have something to work from instead of my own head and experience. But when I see social studies text I am like ‘okay, hmm…’ (Interview with Aylin, 1-22-2004, p. 24)

149 Aylin felt more dependent on a text when she taught science and that was why it did not bother her as much to have standards or mandates in science teaching. She went on to talk about this issue,

Any text would help me [in teaching science], any science text would help me but this [textbook that I use] has been reviewed by teachers here at the school and other schools that it has some quality to it but then on the flip side I can turn around and see some of the books that have been reviewed by [other] teachers and I say hmm this was reviewed by my peers and I think it is garbage. Of course, you can supplement, but I think [when they tell me] ‘this is what you have to show us that you used this so you have to incorporate it’ that is just something you have to do even if it is not a quality. I am still up in the air with the state standards. I think there is good there, it is just you have to spend a lot of time documenting that you exposed them to it, covered it, whether they learned it or not who knows but I went over it on Monday March the third, maybe they got it! And you have to document it and that takes a lot of time, so I think that sort of thing that task of documentation of state standards, we spend so much of our free time documenting that it is time I would rather spend creating a lesson, thinking about the experience I wanted them to have or in science spend more time actually reading it, understanding it myself, saying what questions came to my mind when I read this. I am pretty sure these questions are going to come to their minds. Well, what are we going to do once we get there, once they are asking the same questions that I have? I would much rather spend my planning period doing that than what I do. So I think that is something that hinders, it is just all the documentation. (Interview with Aylin, 1-22-2004, p. 24)

People who give high scores to yellow worldview “may express discomfort at over-simplified models and failure to recognize the true complexity at hand” (Beck & Cowan, 2000), which is how Aylin felt when it came to the role of mandates and standardized tests like FCAT in education. For the item that represented the yellow thinking “I like a job where systemic and long-range thinking count more than people, money, traditions, or quick fixes” Aylin gave high acceptance points and made these comments,

Well I think about the FCAT. Lets have a quick fix, let’s just give them all the standardized form and that is a quick fix, and we are going to spend all that money on this, and you are going to do this… What is their real goal? What do they really want to accomplish? Do they want good, however they define that, citizens? Do they want educated citizens? Do they want intelligent citizens? Do they want companionate citizens? Do they want cultured citizens? Do they want citizens that are all [of these]? What do they want? I guess they want citizens that can pass the FCAT. (Interview with Aylin, 1-22-2004, p. 22)

150 Besides the yellow worldview, Aylin also had high scores for the turquoise worldview. During our interview, we asked Aylin to comment on some of the items in which she gave high scores for turquoise thinking. One of these items was “I like a job where our primary concern is the health of the planetary living system.” Aylin explained why she gave high acceptance points to this item,

In a way it is a bit selfish because the word here is our, so it has taken care of me immediately and where I am existing but it has also taken care of people I care about where people I love are existing, where people that are going to do other things are going to exist, so there is that immediate what I am getting out of it and then there is also other people, what they’ll get out of it. So it is not just about this is what we should do or this is a good thing to do or we are the only ones that can do it, this is our calling, we must take care of the earth, that is a little bit of all of that. (Interview with Aylin, 1-22-2004, p. 22)

Another item that Aylin gave acceptance points for the turquoise thinking was, “my own career priorities are determined by a need to unite with other minds around the planet to work for a new global order.” Aylin explained her interpretation of this item as, “I gave three [points to this item] because it is almost same with the reducing hunger, poverty, racism, and violence, a little bit of [all of] that.” Aylin had a less rejection rate for the red worldview compared to other teachers who participated in this study. Red is a worldview that is self-centered and Aylin admits that she sometimes feels that way. One of the items that she commented on in relation to red thinking was,

Okay, [for number eight], “whenever I am criticized, it is usually for being” I gave a one to “too rebellious and self-centered a power seeker who likes to rock the boat and gratify senses.” I do like to gratify my senses and I can be a little self-centered and say I am pretty good at what I am doing sometimes and I have been known to be rebellious by other people. They tell me I am rebellious but I might not agree that it is rebellious but they see it as such. (Interview with Aylin, 1-22-2004, p. 28)

Having low rejection rates for the red worldview may also be an indication that Aylin felt more comfortable with dealing with students or children who operate at this level. She used to teach special education classes, which may also have contributed to Aylin’s low rejection points for the red thinking.

151 Aylin had high rejection points for the purple, blue, and orange worldviews. The success driven and materialistic aspects of the orange worldview did not appeal to Aylin. She made the following comments in relation to the item that represents orange thinking “I prefer an organization that thinks strategically and acts competitively to be successful in its niche.”

I want people to let me do what I want to do because I do want to be successful at what I am doing. I really would like to say, yes I want to create experiences, I want to make them useful to me, I want to make them useful to the students, I want them to enrich us both, and I want to do that well. … So that is how I am talking about being successful and competitive. You compete in here, inside, like is this the best or is this the best, should you do it this way or should you do it that way so that is how I think competitively. I don’t know about [what they meant by it in the item], they probably mean someone like my sister with the marketing [who says], ‘we are going to get the customers and you are not’ kind of thing. (Interview with Aylin, 1-22-2004, p. 26)

When it came to the blue worldview, it was no surprise that Aylin rejected it since she often talked negatively about the authoritarian aspects of the education system. The state standards, mandates, and how she was expected to fallow certain procedures in her teaching were part of a blue way of thinking in education, which Aylin had problems with. Aylin also rejected the purple worldview, which indicated that the need for safety from the rest of the world and the mystical and magical beliefs had no place in Aylin’s worldview. In brief, Aylin had more self-assertion in her worldview and her acceptance scores were more expressive than sacrificial (community oriented) compared to other teachers. Her highest scores were for the yellow and turquoise worldviews, which also indicated that she was a very self-confident person and she understood and valued other’s worldviews.

Summary Aylin liked her job as a teacher. She was especially passionate about teaching social sciences rather than science, which was why she focused on the social aspects of science when she taught it. She felt that her content knowledge was not very strong, and she was concerned that this might have an influence on her teaching. My assertions about Aylin, her practice, and her beliefs could be summarized as,

152 • Aylin tried to create a safe environment for students in her classroom. She was successful in providing such an environment for her students in which they expressed their opinions freely. • According to Aylin, the goal of education should be providing the skills that students needed to pursue what they were passionate about in life. • Aylin did not like teaching science as much as teaching social studies. She emphasized the social aspects of science in her teaching. • Discussion was the method that Aylin uses most often. Through discussions she gave opportunities to her students to express their opinions. • Aylin did not feel confident in her content knowledge enough to arrange hands-on activities for her students. She felt like she might not be able guide students or provide feedback for their questions. • Aylin believed that teaching was not only about delivering a certain amount of content to students. She came to realize that she had to nurture her students emotionally as well. To do this she needed to feel healthy emotionally and that was why she separated her job from her personal life. • Aylin thought that assessment was a tool to show how well she did her job as a teacher by looking at how well her students learned. She believed that doing assessment properly takes a long time. She also believed that assessment could be used to motivate students if it was the only thing there was to motivate them. • According to Aylin, teachers should be comfortable with assuming the role of a learner and learn with their students when necessary. They should be comfortable to say, “I don’t know.” • Aylin believed that science is open-ended and teaching it should be open-ended as well. She thought that people learned even from frustrations in science. • Aylin thought that it should be okay to argue science and religion in science teaching. She believed that people needed to know the way other people thought and believed to be able to discuss their ideas with them. She did not dismiss science or religion over the other. • The biggest challenge for Aylin was the school administration policies and state requirements. She felt pressure on her because of being held accountable for students’

153 scores in FCAT. The fact that Aylin believed students were responsible for their own learning was a source of conflict for Aylin because she was held accountable for their achievement by the state school system. • Aylin was frustrated when she saw students who did not think that they were in control of their lives. • Aylin did not like the paperwork that she had to do in her school. • Aylin dealt with her challenges by trying to learn from them. She was willing to change her perception of how the world should be in order to lessen her frustrations because of the challenges she faced.

Brian’s Case

I met Brian during a meeting at the Science Education program where I study for the first time. I taught in Brian’s classroom as part of a semester long internship a few years prior to this study. I visited Brian’s classes for one semester during this internship and because of this I was familiar with his teaching before I asked him to participate in this study. Brian was a 49 years old white male, and he taught science in a research school that was connected with a local university. The high school Brian taught at was called Sunny High School. He taught all sciences, including biology, chemistry, and physics to grades ranging from 9 to 12 and he had certification in all the areas he taught. During this study he was teaching integrated science to ninth graders. Brian was a very active member of the teachers union and served on many committees associated with science teaching such as the local science fair. Brian was also the chair of the science department in Sunny High School. He had 26 years of teaching experience and had an Education Specialist degree in science education. Brian was the most experienced teacher among the teachers who participated in this study. I observed Brian’s classed once a week for two months in April and May of 2003. I have conducted interviews with him during this time period and afterwards.

School Context Sunny High School was a laboratory school connected to a local university in southeastern United States. The school had about 1600 students who were chosen with an attempt to represent the population demographics of the state where the school was located. It

154 recently moved to a new campus, which consisted of five buildings, and had become a charter school. It had elementary and middle school sections, which were located in different buildings within the same campus. When it moved to its new location, the high school adopted a system that had academy-based divisions which provided vocational education opportunities for students. At that time the school used to have several academies that offered courses in Health, Technology Education, Computing, or Food and Hospitality Management and a corresponding state, federal, or corporate license or certificate. These academy divisions were no longer active when I conducted this study. The high school buildings were designed with this academy vision and the structure of the buildings was quite unusual compared to regular schools. Instead of familiar classrooms and laboratories, each academy in the school had mainly three learning areas that included a lecture hall and a conference room. Despite much enthusiasm of the people who created the vision for the new structure of Sunny High School, it seemed that the school has not lived up to the expectations of its visionaries. According to Brian the academy vision has not worked as planned and the school was turning back into a regular school in time. He explained,

… There is only one true science lab versus the situation in the [old building] in which there were four labs, now we only have one. So it really didn’t work and actually there are going to be walls put up to take some of these learning spaces and divide them. Right now if you remember when you go into these academy learning spaces, you basically have three areas. You have two areas on the either side of the conference room and you have a lecture hall. But if you have four core teachers, math, science, social studies, and English three learning spaces are insufficient. The senior academy basically got away with two consecutive years of monopolizing the science lab as a room and that hopefully is coming to an end for next year because they are going to have to find another learning space to do that. So a lot of the program, vocational aspects, the career education aspects those are going to drastically change again and from my point of view, they are going to go back to more of a traditional high school, though it is not supposed to be a traditional school. It’s going to look more and more like any other school. (Interview with Brian, 4- 17-03, p. 1)

Brian seemed very disappointed with the new structure of the school. He thought that the fact that the number of laboratories was reduced in the new school was hurting the science department. According to Brian, even the only science laboratory in the school was not what it was promised to be. He also complained that he could not even use it because of the other classes scheduled for it; however, he hoped that this situation might change the next year. He explained,

155 I don’t know exactly what is going to happen next year, but I think one thing is certain for the first time in two years there will not be classes assigned to the one science lab therefore the lab will be used for people coming in doing labs. Right now there are classes scheduled there for the first period, second period, third period, fourth period, fifth period, and sixth period, the only period that is not scheduled is seventh. And most science teachers don’t have a class at seventh period. So that is just wonderful! And that, you know, it was the same thing last year. And the lab is not what it was promised to be. It doesn’t have a deep sink that you can use to wash glassware, it really doesn’t have proper drainage for chemicals, it doesn’t have gas, and so you are talking about one lab in a school that is K through 12 that is really behind. Maybe even some elementary labs in summer schools - I mean not every elementary school has a science lab - but I dare say there are some elementary schools that have a science lab that is better than the one we have. Now there are fancy tables, kidney shaped tables that may go up and down but that’s about it. It was made to be a multimedia room and certainly the physics teacher that’s using it has utilized that capability, but then after that you look at the computers that are in there and [they are really in bad shape] because students sit in front of these computers and take the balls out of the mice, they mess with the monitors, and they stick things in the hard drives or whatever and these are seniors doing that. Can you imagine what it would be like if that was a younger group in front of those computers? (Interview with Brian, 5-8-03, p. 15)

In a later communication that had with Brian, I learned that the lab continued to be used as a classroom the next semester rather than allowing teachers doing laboratory activities. Teaming among teachers from different fields was another vision that was planned for the academy setting in Sunny High School. Brian explained that the teaming among teachers did not work as intended either. He explained,

The vision that the director had in terms of designing the school has really not come to fruition. There is some teaming that has evolved. Last year was a true academy set up in which I was teaching basically chemistry to 10th graders and 11th graders. There were my counterparts in the other areas doing like wise. English teacher taught only American Literature to that same group of 10th graders and 11th graders. When it comes to math, everyone took Algebra 2. Social studies was a little disjointed but I think primarily everyone took American History. That kind of changed this year. Therefore, there was an initial emphasis on this process and then we realized that learning spaces and teaching spaces were not very good. The timeframes were really not there to do the type of cooperative learning and team teaching that you would need. 50-minute periods are not ideal for this when you are sharing space, like we tried to do with science and math last year. We were able to do some good teaming. This year there isn’t any teaming from that standpoint. The only thing that you can say is that there is a sort of a carry because there is still a group of teachers that have students in common, and they are in a common office space that we just left. (Interview with Brian, 4-17-03, p. 1)

156 According to Brian, changing the school’s location influenced the student population in Sunny High School. He believed that the quality of students changed since some students did not want to continue with the new academy-based system. He explained,

In terms of quality, a number high achieving students left to go to [other schools]. I don’t think a lot of people went elsewhere in terms of outside the county but those that could go to these other schools did because they did not want to take the career courses that were going to be required. If you were in health for example, you take health 1, 2 and 3 or for engineering you take engineering courses 1, 2 and 3. Now the decision has been made that program basically is a failure and, although some of these courses will still be offered, they’ll be offered more on an elective basis so you can still take them. My son for example was in health 1 this year; he will not be taking health 2. So it is problematic. As part of the lab school you try new things but unfortunately many things that we try, we don’t carry through in terms of reasonable research like you are doing. Furthermore a time frame is needed to honestly evaluate what is going on. Based on all obvious evidence, we were losing this battle. Now whether or not in the final analysis the war could have been won, if you use that sort of analogy, I don’t know. I wasn’t totally against some of these ideas but I wasn’t totally for it either. There were aspects that were good and aspects that were bad. It was particularly troublesome when some of our best students left. (Interview with Brian, 5-8-03, p. 17)

In brief, the Sunny High School seemed to be in a transition state that was not complete yet. In this period there were many things that did not work well for Brian, such as scheduling and arranging learning areas. He especially complained about not being able to use the only available laboratory in the school. He was also frustrated with new academy-based structure of the school that did not seem to be working. In a latter communication with Brian he told me “Realize that part of my frustration is also the unwillingness of some teachers to commit to the academy process. This was an effective sabotage to the procedure.”

Classroom And Student Context When I observed Brian’s classes, he was teaching in a classroom that was basically a computer laboratory. The room was being used as a classroom because of the unavailability of other learning areas in the school. Not having a room that was designed for science teaching was one of the biggest complaints that Brian had during my observations. The computer lab he was teaching in was very distracting for students who were always tempted to use the computers to go online during the class. Brian had to warn students many times during his classes about using

157 the computers, asking them to turn off the monitors or put the keyboards away so that they would pay attention to the lecture or activity he was giving. The room that Brian was teaching in seemed inappropriate to be used as a science classroom. There was a row of computers in the middle of the room, which separated it into two halves. Students sitting in one half of the room could not see the other students sitting in the other half of the room. Brian had to stand up and walk around to be able to see all of the students. There was not a black board in the classroom, which made it difficult for Brian to give some of his lectures. He was not able to draw things on a board when he wanted to explain something with figures. There was a small portable board which was hard to see and too small to write much on it. During one of my observations, Brian asked students to take notes and went on to write things related to electron configurations on the small portable board. It was impossible to see the board from the back of the class because there were computers in between blocking the view, so some students had to move around to see the board as Brian was trying to give some information about the number of orbitals in electron shells. Because of this situation, most of Brian’s classes had to rely on talking rather than visual presentations by drawing things on the board. The room also did not have any equipment or facilities to be used for science activities. It, however, seemed to be an appropriate room for computer based activities or for utilizing the Internet to do online research. I have not observed Brian using the computers in the room for this purpose during the time I spent in his classroom, but he said that he allowed students to prepare Power Point presentations for certain assignments and do research on-line. The class that Brian was teaching during my observations was a ninth grade integrated science class. There were about 20 students in the class and it was mixed in terms of race and gender, however, there were more boys than girls. There were not major discipline problems in Brian’s classroom, but there were minor problems such as students talking with each other during classes, or they seemed unprepared even after class started. Some of the students seemed behaving too comfortably to me. For example, during one of my observations, when I came into Brian’s classroom, he was collecting homework from students. Some students were talking loudly and walking around in the classroom even though Brian was there. Brian asked them, “Is there a reason why you are not prepared for class? You should have your notebook out, your textbook out…” Sometimes it took some effort for Brian to get them ready for a class. During another observation, Brian was sitting at his desk and reading something, as students were

158 working on their own on solving some questions in the book. Some students were very noisy; they were making loud and funny noises. Brian said from where he was sitting, “Could we act more human please?” Then he asked students to label their papers otherwise he said he would count off points. More than discipline, what Brian complained about students was their lack of interest in learning. During my observations, I observed many times Brian getting frustrated with students because of their unwillingness to study. During one observation, Brian was reviewing some questions that were in the textbook. He called students’ names and asked the answers for each question. There was not much response from the students when he called their names. If they could not answer a question, Brian gave the right answer and/or completed students’ answers. He said, “You were supposed to study this and ask me questions.” During another observation, Brian asked students to work on a problem in the textbook, but there was not much action among students. So Brian said pointedly “I want everyone to work on this problem.” Then he started to walk around in the classroom to make sure students started to work on the problem. He said to the class, “I don’t think you are taking this seriously.” After a while a student asked Brian if he got the right answer. Brian said to class, “No, I am not going to tell you the answer.” Then he asked students to take out some paper and turn in their solutions. This was an attempt to see how each student was working the problem. According to Brian, sometimes asking students to turn in their work in a written form and grading it was the only way to get them do their assignments. I was able to observe this behavior during one of my observations. Brian asked questions about homework assignment that had to be done earlier to a student but some students told him that he did not tell them to turn that homework in and so they did not do it. Brian believed that students knew they could only be graded on written assignments, quizzes, or tests and because of this they did not do readings or assignments that were not graded. He explained,

They think they figured out the system. The system is asking for tangible things like written homework or something that can be graded. I can’t grade how you read the section the previous night unless I give a quiz. If I start giving quizzes based upon their reading ability then that’s another problem because a lot of the students don’t read very strongly. It’s a catch-22 there in terms of success. I’d like to see them read it or be familiar with it before I discuss it. If they haven’t read it, my discussion become more meaningless than it has been before. It’s hard to do what you want to do under those

159 circumstances. Demonstrations cannot be readily done in a computer room. There were many cases of showing concepts on the computer projector when it was available. (Interview with Brian, 5-1-03, p. 9)

When I asked Brian if students were being less responsible today than they used to be in the past, he said,

Yes. I’ll give you an example of it. A typical assignment that used to be done was asking a student to read something in a chapter or read a section. In the past, that would typically be done. Not necessarily by everybody, but by the majority of people. Now, unless you give a written assignment, something to actually complete and turn in, they will not do it. (Interview with Brian, 5-1-03, p. 9)

I also asked Brian if the general school population was changing this way or the quality of students he was getting was changing. He said,

I think both of those. Typically Sunny had high-level students and before I came to Sunny, I taught in a suburban high school in which there were very high ability students. But part of the lab school process is trying to get students from every [stage] in terms of academic achievement. In some of these communities, it is just not rewarded to be studious, really caring about what you are learning. So for many as long as they can get by, they are okay. They are generally not interested in really diving deep into learning something. (Interview with Brian, 4-17-03, p. 3)

Brian explained that students’ lack of responsibility for their own education was also frustrating for their parents. He said,

… Right now I think more than ever, high school parents are frustrated with their children. Because they are not taking the responsibility that they need to take. There are some parents who would like me to call every night and say this is what Johnny needs to do, this is what Johnny hasn’t done, that’s totally ridiculous for me to do this for every high school student. If I had to do that for all 150 students, I would be forever on the phone or doing e-mail or whatever, I would never be able to do anything else but continue to contact parents. So somehow the message has not gotten through that there is a certain level of - I don’t want to say babying, but it is true that students’ responsibility is expected. It is okay to say ‘this is your life, this is your responsibility.’ There is an expectation that you will do it without someone standing over you at all points. (Interview with Brian, 5-1-03, p. 9)

160 Brian thought that because of today’s technology and media, there were more distractions for students compared to past generations, which might be affecting their interest in education and their sense of responsibility. Besides this influence, he thought a bigger reason for students’ lack of responsibility was their family structures. He explained that there were more separated families today. This might be influencing the way children’s personalities develop as they grew. He explained,

I think part of it is the disintegration of a family. I think so many families are in a very difficult situation. The children spend part of the week with one set of parents and another part of the week with another set of parents, and I think that is a terrifically difficult thing for teenagers, or middle schoolers, or even for a third grader. I mean it has to be hard not knowing whether I am going to be with my father this week, or my mother or how is this going to work out. The idea of leaving books with other families or other homes was never heard. Now it is a common occurrence, ‘I left that in my father’s truck. I left it on my mother’s kitchen counter. I won’t be back until Thursday.’ What do you do? (Interview with Brian, 5-1-03, p. 10)

In brief, Brian was teaching in a room, which was actually a computer lab. He was teaching to students that were not so enthusiastic about learning and he was often frustrated with students’ lack of responsibility in their education.

Brian’s Beliefs About Education I asked Brian if the purpose of education was to train the future citizens that will serve a society or if it was helping students to improve themselves to become self-sufficient critical thinkers who care about their society and what was going on in the world. He said that he thought both of these views were valid, however, he argued that in the early phases of education there was much more direction coming from adults to educate the children and as they grew up and become more mature, they had to realize that education was an opportunity to improve themselves and become self sufficient. He explained,

Certainly you would want to have students to think for themselves, to make decisions, to be self sufficient in terms of learning. In terms of future learning, once you get at some point in time a student has to make the realization that ultimately learning is their responsibility. I don’t think a kindergartener or a first grader typically understands that idea. Some want to do well because they have the drive to do well, but I think at some point in time between middle school and high school, there has to be the realization that

161 education is important, and that I have to take responsibility for my own learning regardless of what the teacher does, regardless of what my classmates do, regardless of the situation. I can take a great deal of control in my education whether it’s constantly reading, whether it’s practicing something, whether it’s taking part in a workshop or whatever it might be, there are things that you can do to further improve yourself. (Interview with Brian, 5-1-03, p.8)

Brian believed that education “starts out as the responsibility of the state to set the stage and then there reaches a point in which the students have to take over.” He believed that if students could not live up to this responsibility, they should not blame anyone but themselves. According to Brian, many of his students did not quite have that responsibility and even at later stages of their education (middle and high school) they expected precise directions from teachers and often they did not do anything that they were not being graded on.

Brian’s Beliefs About Teaching And Learning Brian’s beliefs about education correlate with his beliefs about teaching and learning. He believed that students needed to have responsibility in their own learning; however, he did not see this happening as much as he would like. He explained how this influenced his teaching as,

It’s almost like a pre-emptive strike if you are talking about warfare, you assign a reading, you assign them to do the questions and hope that some connections will be made before you discuss it which is not the way I would prefer to do it at all. I’d prefer for them to answer questions after I’ve discussed it with them. But if they are not going to do anything in the process then, I have to do something to at least break the ice to get them to think about this information. The responsibility is now more on the teacher then ever to bring the information to their attention instead of them meeting the teacher halfway and saying okay I don’t understand this. I think you have been in the class several times where I’ve asked students, “Do you have any questions?” They typically don’t have any but then when it comes to the test “Oh, maybe I should have asked this, maybe, we should have explained this some more” and so unless you build a board with notes exactly what you are going to ask them in test, there is not a lot of critical thinking going on. In some of these cases they should have asked again, exactly what does this mean and why is it important. They are waiting for the teacher to say you must learn this, you must learn that and that is frustrating particularly when you are talking about upper level students in some cases. (Interview with Brian, 5-1-03, p. 9)

During an interview that I had with Brian, he emphasized that when he said students did not take responsibility in their learning, he did not mean that all responsibility should be on students

162 during the teaching and learning process. He recognized that teachers had important responsibilities as well in terms of creating an environment which was conductive to students’ learning; however, he would like to see some effort on the part of students to meet the teacher somewhere along the way rather than waiting for the teacher to bring everything to them. Seeing that many students lack this effort was frustrating for Brian. He said,

I want you to be aware of the fact that I am not negating my responsibility, [when I say students need to be more responsible in the teaching and learning process]. I am saying meet me somewhere along the way, whether it is a third of the road or half of the road would be more ideal but meet me somewhere where I can see where you are in terms of this process. When a student sits back, I guess my biggest example of this would be when they say, “I don’t understand anything.” How can you not understand anything and be in a classroom? You have to understand something so where can I begin this construction of knowledge with you if you are going to say I don’t understand anything. And so to me that is irresponsible. I mean a high school student should be able to say, “I understand this but I don’t necessarily understand that, let’s try it a different way, lets do some different techniques but I don’t understand this.” But if you say I don’t understand anything, that is a point of frustration for me because I just don’t know what am I supposed to do. (Interview with Brian, 1-7-2004, p. 20)

In one of my observations, students were working on writing chemical formulas for chemical compounds. Brian was walking around in the classroom checking students’ work or helping them. He said to students “don’t get helpless” which meant he expected them to take action if they were having difficulties. However, many students did not ask for help even if they had difficulties with the subject. When Brian asked them a compound’s formula, students started to make guesses, which seemed like a game for them, rather than trying to understand how to name the compound. Brian said, “I have had enough today, why don’t you write down the names and formulas?” He mentioned our earlier discussion during an interview to the students and said, “Mr. Yalaki and I have been discussing the fact that students are not studying. You are not reading the book. How many of you had read the book?” There was not much response from students and so Brian said to them, “You obviously need to work more on this.” Brian often seemed frustrated with students’ behavior during his classes. Sometimes he seemed angry and sometimes he just laughed. During another observation, Brian was reviewing some multiple- choice questions with students. Some students started to make guesses to find the answers. Brian

163 laughed and just gave the answer with explanations, which made me think that he did not want to deal with students’ attitude at that moment. Besides students’ unwillingness to take responsibility in their learning, the school environment also posed difficulties for Brian’s teaching. He explained,

Well, right now this particular school is really behind in science. I mean the whole set up is greatly influencing me because chemistry is really suffering. … There are teachers that are doing things that are really counter to all the safety measures out there. Not having an automatic eyewash, not having a shower but still doing experiments that involve chemicals. The whole idea in designing this building was that it would be high tech. This is the tech academy and it’s about as low tech as you can get. We do have computers sitting in front of you here, but these are not top of the line computers by any stretch of the imagination. Students aren’t using them for the intended purposes. (Interview with Brian, 5-8-03, p. 14)

Brian especially complained about not having adequate facilities in the school for doing science activities and also about not having access to the only science lab in the school. He said he was familiar with couple of software programs that were designed to provide laboratory simulations on computers; however, he said the computers in the classroom he taught were not suitable to run those programs. He explained his students’ reactions to this situation as,

… Students are asking why aren’t we doing these programs or labs and then they are even comparing themselves to other classes with teachers who are putting themselves out on a limb in my opinion by doing some of these experiments anyway. It makes it hard to know what to do or say. I don’t want to put a student in danger, but then I don’t want a student to say, “I haven’t had any lab experience” either. So, you go back and forth between those two dimensions and it’s hard to know what to do. Ultimately my responsibility as a teacher is to make sure that students are safe. It is not maximizing science when you do that! And certainly they enjoy more risk taking scenarios. (Interview with Brian, 5-8-03, p. 15)

Perhaps because of all these reasons and the difficulties he was facing, Brian was mostly giving traditional lectures in his classes during my observations. In my first visit to Brian’s classroom, Brian was standing at the front of the classroom and giving a lecture about physical and chemical change. A textbook was in front of him on the table. He was asking questions and calling the students’ names that to answer the questions he was asking. The questions he asked were mostly completion questions such as “After the combustion, you expect the ash to weigh

164 what? (The answer would be less.)” Sometimes when students did not answer a question, Brian gave the answer shortly after and then asked “Right?” There were few students who always asked questions to Brian and seemed interested in what he was teaching; however, many of them seemed uninterested. Since many students did not do their homework, Brian often asked students to read sections from the textbook and to solve the questions at the end of each section in the classroom. When he gave homework, he went over the homework questions in the classroom. He often asked students to write their answers on a piece of paper and turn it in to get them do what he asked them to do. During one of these activities, a student said out loud, “I don’t get it” while he was working on a problem. Brian replied, “That is precisely why I want you to do it. Show me what you know!” Other students who were working on the same problem, started to show their answers to Brian to see if they got the right answer. Few students who had the right answer cheered loudly, which made the problem solving activity look like a contest. When Brian went over homework questions in the class, he generally stood and talked in the front of the class and sometimes walked around in the classroom. He gave extended explanations on top of students’ answers for some of the questions. Brian did not force students to memorize things, however he expected them to know certain important facts in science. For example when he was giving a lecture about electron configurations, he said to class, “I don’t expect you to remember all of this, but what I do want you to remember is when orbitals are filled, they are more stable.” Then he said, “You need to understand the basic idea, if you just follow me…” and he asked everybody’s attention in the classroom to show them some of the confusing things about electron configurations. When one student said, “It’s so confusing” Brian replied, “It’s confusing, I just want you to be aware that this exists.” In another occasion, Brian was talking about types of chemical bonds that elements on the periodic table made. He said to class, “You don’t have to memorize the periodic table, but you must have a pretty good understanding of where the common elements are.” There were some occasions Brian got frustrated with students’ lack of understanding of some basic chemistry concepts. For example, when he was talking about writing chemical formulas, he was giving the name of a compound and asking students to write the formula for it. After asking a compound he was checking students’ answers to see if they knew how to write chemical formulas. One of the compounds he asked was strontium hydroxide. A student said, “Mr. Brian,

165 this is hard.” Brian said, “No it is not.” He checked most of the students’ answers and none of them got the answer right. So he said, “This is not encouraging. You should have studied this.” He kept walking around to check students’ answers for a while and then he said “You better write OH for hydroxide!” However students did not know what hydroxide was even though it was discussed earlier and was clearly in the section of the book for that lesson. Brian finally said what the formula of hydroxide was and then he made some more explanations about how to write chemical formulas with polyatomic ions. Besides lecturing, Brian also utilized group activities, presentations, and projects in his teaching. However, he found it hard to do hands on activities because of the school context he taught in. When I asked him what activities he found to be most useful in his teaching, he said,

Well it’s easy to say that hands on, minds on activities are the most important and that has been the most difficult to do here because we haven’t had access to the lab, we haven’t had access to materials, and our budget was cut to zero. In terms of what we have been able to accomplish, I think cooperative activities, group activities, web quest, computers, presentations of students, like power point presentations those things have been easier. Particularly in the classroom that you are observing, obviously the computers are sitting right there. The chemistry classes have been at a huge disadvantage this year. There needs to be an emphasis put on science materials and science resources for everyone to use. I think some schools do this very well, and I think I was supposed to coordinate science in this school. Because of the way the move was made to this building, and how the general the set up was determined, this was impossible. Science is now more difficult to teach. (Interview with Brian, 5-1-03, p. 12)

Brian explained that he noticed some changes in his teaching style over the years. He said he did not depend on lecture as much as he used to and he started to utilize different teaching methods more often. He started to use cooperative teaching and group presentations more often, but he recognized that not every subject was suitable for these teaching approaches. In an interview he gave this answer when I asked him how his teaching style changed in time,

Well there is less reliance on lecture. That is probably the biggest change. It used to be very distinct in terms of ‘this is what I expect you to know.’ I look back with regret that there weren’t more opportunities for cooperative learning and for the type of presentations that they have today, so I think even in the midst of the problems, I think a lot of the total experiences today are better. Because of the difference in teaching techniques and the availability of a lot of resources and new media, there are more opportunities. With more cooperative learning, more group responsibility type things, and

166 students interacting with each other are all good changes. The idea that if you can teach the material to someone else, you are learning it as well has certainly been emphasized much more in the last decade than it was in the first decade and a half that I have taught. It’s harder sometimes depending on the subject. I think biology lends itself to that reasonably well, I think chemistry has its moments where it helps, but I think as you get more into mathematical and the higher sciences there needs to be a trade off. I think you can do cooperative learning, you can do group learning but you got to have the student who has tried to take in responsibility to recognize where they are. What help do they need? If they continue to rely on a partner, they are going to get further and further behind at some point. Whether or not they make it through that particular section or not, on an exam or some sort of cumulative assessment process, they’re not going to be as strong as they could be if they’re not recognizing that earlier. (Interview with Brian, 5-1- 03, p. 12)

Brian explained that being familiar with national debates about methods related to teaching and learning was the driving force that caused the changes in his teaching style in his career. He was a member of various professional organizations and he read academic journals that allowed him to stay up to date with recent developments in educational research. However, he often found it difficult to utilize the research that he read about in the literature in his practice because of the circumstances he found himself in. Brian also thought that the different methods he came to utilize in time were not always applicable to everything he taught and the traditional lecturing still seemed to be the dominant method he was forced to use. He explained in an interview,

Because of my experiences I probably had more time to look at research than other people because I have been taking [graduate] courses forever. I have always been a member to professional organizations, so I read journals and certainly I was part of the science ed. program [at the local university]. So I have been exposed to all the exemplary practices and what is supposed to be done. I certainly know what is supposed to be done but the difference between knowing what is ideal and the reality can be two different things in terms of your circumstances, but I certainly am aware of what the National Standards are. I know what the State Standards are. I know what is supposed to happen in a classroom according to all the experts. It’s just whether or not that can be carried out under the circumstances that you find yourself teaching. … Frankly I think scheduling is a big determinator, if that is a word, of what you can achieve. I think science teachers have a limit to what they can do, how thinly they can be spread out in terms of how many different preparations a science teacher is expected to do each day. (Interview with Brian, 4-17-03, p. 5)

Brian believed that students learn best when they made a personal connection with what was being taught. He recognized that not everything could provide personal connections,

167 especially some topics in chemistry, such as atomic structure. He believed that when personal connections were possible, students learned better. When I asked him how do students learn best, he said,

I think if they can make the personal connections and again that is what I was trying to make. The Everglades is a prominent part of this state and students need to realize the role of the Everglades. They are all from Florida or if they are not from Florida, they are currently living in Florida, so connections can be made. We have gone outside and we have done different things like that. But if you make a personal connection with the learning then, I think that is the best way to learn. Not all things are easily done this way; there are aspects of chemistry that are not that easily personally connected. You don’t have a great deal to do with nitric acid and sulfuric acid. Hopefully not anyway, if they are, then we are in trouble. But there are opportunities where you make that personal connection. So I think that’s the best way to learn. You can make it your own if you can say, ‘I had this experience earlier, we talked about this in class, and I can take this knowledge and put them together.’ (Interview with Brian, 5-8-03, p. 14)

Brian believed that every student could learn science at some level; however, he thought that some students were more willing to learn compared to others.

I think there are certainly students that are more willing to learn. I think all students are capable of learning. They may not be able to learn at the highest level, but they are able to get the key concepts, key ideas of science. I would never think that we couldn’t reach every student in terms of the basic ideas, basic tenets of science. That should be able to occur and students ought to be able to feel good about what they know. I think that is one of the keys that I always wanted to see. I use the newspaper a lot in my class. I want them to at least be able to react in a conscientious and intelligent way to that article and how it relates to science. ‘I have heard of this, I know something about this, what are the ramifications if we drill for oil in Alaska, what is going to happen to the environment? There is a trade off here. Is it important to have this oil? Is the technology available? Is the oil more important, or do we need to protect this environment? I want them to at least have that cross their minds. There are two sides to virtually every issue and it’s important to realize that the science learned in schools does have applications. (Interview with Brian, 4-17-03, p. 4)

From this argument, it seems like Brian saw the purpose of science education as providing scientific literacy to students so that they could make informed decisions about science related issues in the future. When I asked him about it, Brian explained,

168 Obviously we have students who are going to go on into a science careers so they need to go beyond that. But I think the goal for every student is some basic science literacy to be able to make intelligent decisions as citizens. (Interview with Brian, 4-17-03, p. 4)

In brief, Brian found teaching science difficult in the student and school context that he was teaching. He thought that students were not taking enough responsibility for their own learning and the school facilities and scheduling was preventing him from doing many hands on science activities. However, he tries to utilize different teaching methods, such as collaborative learning, group projects, and class presentations. Brian considered himself as being familiar with current research in education and he thought that the circumstances of real life did not always allow for the implementation of the research findings in his teaching. According to Brian, students learned best when they made personal connections with what they were learning. He believed that every student could learn science at some level and he saw the purpose of science education as to achieve scientific literacy for most of the students.

Brian’s Beliefs About Assessment Brian thought of assessment as a “necessary evil” that needed to be done and he said that he would like to not to do it at all. When I asked him his views about the role of assessment in education he explained,

Well I would like to not be able to do it at all, which I guess a lot of teachers do. It is kind of a necessary evil but I want students to have some power behind what is assessed. As you saw, as you walked in one of the things that was assigned to last semester was a media project in which they were supposed to go to the internet and go to newspaper sites. I wanted newspaper articles in particular; this semester we will be doing magazine or journal type articles. I wanted them to find things that relate to chemistry and I wanted it from all over the world as long as it was in English and I can understand what was happening. A number of students didn’t do it. It was a 200-point project and a system in which you are basically counting every point and they know where they stand in terms of extra credit and what they need to do. They have the power in their hands in terms of determining what they end up making for a grade. A number of students did a fantastic job, they improved their grade, and they made A’s for the nine weeks. That was kind of a buffer for the exam because a lot of people don’t do very well on exams and I am not going to give extra credit for an exam. (Interview with Brian, 1-7-2004, p. 20)

Brian provided several opportunities for students to improve their examination grades that involved projects and assignments. He assigned points to each assignment that counted towards a

169 total and he allowed students to check their grade status to figure out what they needed to do to improve their grades. Brian saw the role of assessment as a measure of what the students knew regardless of the type of assessment being used, whether alternative or traditional. He believed that students should be able to show what they knew in one way or another. He explained,

I mean, one of my feelings is that it is one thing to look at alternative assessments and all kinds of things for a 9 weeks grade but the bottom line is you have to at least show some understanding of the concepts involved in an exam. So when they say I want to add these points to the exam, I say no I am not going to do that. Now will I curve an exam? Yes I will but that is for everybody, it is across the board, it is not some sort of strange curve, it is a 10-point curve or whatever it might be. For assessment at this point in my career, I think it is very clear what I expect from students; each assignment is worth something, it may or may not count in terms of that total but it could count towards a point total and they know at any week they can come and get a printout of where they stand in terms of those points. So they essentially have it in their domain to improve their grade. If they are not doing well on a test, then show me that you can understand something about chemistry in other way. (Interview with Brian, 1-7-2004, p. 20)

Brian also explained that he thought assessment could also be a motivating factor for students. He was willing to assess students’ knowledge in alternative ways if it helped to motivate them. He said, “If art work is something that you do very well, then show me some chemistry art work, at least you are going to show me some concept that you know.” When it came to standardized testing (such as FCAT), Brian thought that there was nothing wrong with testing students in science. He explained his views about this issue as,

Well I see nothing wrong with having FCAT test for students to be assessed in science. It does create pressure. Certainly, teachers feel like they are going to be judged based upon how their students do but the FCAT should be seen as a cumulative process of science that you are learning, building on the foundations constructed in science over a period of time and that is just one year. So with it being in the 10th grade, there really isn’t as much pressure involved for 11th grade teachers and 12th grade teachers than it would be for some of the teachers for these earlier grades. (Conversation with Brian, 2-19-2004)

I asked Brian if FCAT created a pressure for him. He said that there was a pressure part of the emphasis on accountability, but he thought that this was the way it should be. He explained,

170 The pressure is there, but I feel like it is part of 21st century in terms of accountability. You have to have some accountability for what you do. So I think it puts more emphasis on science if anything else and that is a good thing. (Conversation with Brian, 2-19-2004)

In brief, assessment was not something Brian liked to do and he would have liked to avoid it if it was possible. Besides examinations, he provided many opportunities for his students to improve their grades during the semester, and he was open to alternative assessment methods. Standardized testing was not a major source of stress for Brian and he thought that it was a good thing to have standard testing for science because it emphasized the importance of teaching science.

Brian’s Beliefs About The Role Of Teachers And Students In Teaching And Learning Brian thought that an ideal role of a teacher was to be a coach for students. He also thought that under the circumstances (the school and student context) that he taught, this was a very difficult role to assume for teachers. Brian explained what the ideal role of a teacher was as,

Well, I’d very much like it to be coach, the metaphor of coach, but it’s not that very often. It’s more continual, there are training aspects to it but the distractions of today are hard to deal with. It’s like in teaching in a class where there is a computer in front of them, that’s very difficult because they know that there are certain things that they can do on this computer and that creates too many distractions. They go home, there are 150 cable channels on their TV, there are all these games that they can play, Play Station or Nintendo or whatever. They have additional distractions like sports teams. It used to be kind of a privilege to be on a sports team, and it was really followed very closely how you did in the classroom. Now, the coaches don’t seem as concerned about the grades; they need to be, but they don’t seem to be following it on a weekly basis like they once did. “Is Suzy doing this, is David doing this in terms of meeting the requirement for the class?” [They don’t ask] and so they miss class, they don’t make up the work immediately and then they expect the teacher to pick up the pieces. So it’s a different mindset I think now and it’s a much harder role for a science teacher. If you have a typical lab program like you should have, you would be forever making up labs, I mean forever. (Interview with Brian, 5-1-03, p. 10)

I asked Brian what exactly he meant by “coach” when he talked about teachers’ role in teaching and learning. He explained that he would like the teachers’ role to be much like a coach of a sports team. He used the metaphor of a “game plan” by which he meant a teacher should provide a plan for students in their learning and show them their weaknesses and strengths. He said,

171 Well this really leans heavily back to the whole deal about personal responsibility. So when a student recognizes that they need help in this area, I as a coach or as a supporter, present the key concepts as in the case of a coach. “This is the game plan, this is what we are trying to do, know what are the things that you can do already, what are the things that you need?” Helping one shooting the jump shot in basketball or balancing equations in chemistry. Recognize where your strengths are, recognize where your weaknesses are and then be willing to seek help, that’s another aspect of coaching! The idea is to seek help and if you know you need help then I am there to help you. I offer help all the time. Part of the problem is I don’t have one classroom this year, unlike previous years. They don’t come to me for help even though you explain where you will be. But I think the mind set in today’s world is “If I get in the classroom that’s fine. I am not going to seek help, I am not going to come after school unless I absolutely have to.” Now Part of that deal in this school is that you can’t walk home, typically, there are few students who now live in the south side. Parents come at regular times to pick you up or you have to ride a bus so you have very limited time after school to stay. There is an ongoing battle with athletic teams in that after school there is supposed to be a period of time for students to seek help. Instead they tend to go to directly to that particular sport. If you ask why, then blame the coach, “I can’t come Mr. Brian to seek help in chemistry because I must be on the basketball court,” which is not true. The truth is, shifting the blame back and forth between coach and teacher. “I could be a better basketball player if I didn’t have all this homework in chemistry” or “I could do chemistry, but I got to be on the basketball court to do this drill.” So that’s an ongoing tit for tat type of thing that goes on. I’ve been shocked at the number of chemistry students for example that I teach that do not seek help. They’ll sit there and they won’t ask questions, you ask them a question and there is not even a reasonable response and you say well, shouldn’t you come after school? “No I can’t, my mom can’t pick me up, I can’t do that.” (Interview with Brian, 5-1-03, p. 11)

Brian argued that most students did not see teachers as a coach who was there to help them in their learning. He believed that students expected teachers to assume most of the responsibility in their learning. The idea of a coach that Brian talked about, as I understood it, was a person who showed students a way to achieve a goal (that is to complete their formal education successfully) and to do so he/she had a plan for each student for achieving their goal. Students did need to work hard themselves and ask for help from the coach (the teacher) when they needed it, but the fact that most students were not taking this responsibility in their learning seemed to create a conflict for Brian. He explained in an interview what he thought the roles of students should be and what was actually happening,

Well I think they have to take a prominent role. I think the teacher should be like a coach, but I think that’s where a lot of students just don’t understand that role at all. They want to sit back, and they would like it carefully spoon fed to them. They wonder why they don’t understand it if they are not taking an active role in the process. And one of my

172 classes, I ask them to bring in evidence supporting both side of the Everglades Protection Act, the Everglades clean up, which have been in the news a lot. Well, three students brought in any information. I mean this was environmental science, this is a key issue, okay this is a way of getting out of a text book, out of a routine, lets have a debate, bring in information supporting big sugar, what they are saying versus what the environmentalists were saying. Well three people did it. So you can’t have a debate in a class if only three people are doing the assignment. So, I think that is a classic example of not taking the responsibility, waiting for the teacher to hand it out to you, the old attitude of being fountain of knowledge and I am supposed to pour it out to them. Well I expect them to meet me maybe not all the time half way, but at least part of the way and saying, here is an issue, what do I know about it, here is what I wrote, here is what I’ve learned, now lets go from here. (Interview with Brian, 5-8-03, p. 14)

In brief, Brian could not assume the ideal role of a teacher that he believed in because of the school context and students’ behavior. Brian believed that students’ perception of a teacher’s role and their role in education represented an environment in which students only did precisely what they were told to do and nothing more. They saw the teacher as a source of knowledge and they thought that teacher had the responsibility to somehow transfer that knowledge to them. The fact that students chose a very passive role in their education forced Brian to stick with traditional methods of teaching many times.

Brian’s Beliefs About Science Brian believed that science education should only include universal science rather than including other types of knowledge, such as ethnic science or religion. He thought that there were other fields such as history, language study, or multicultural education that could address diversity in education. He explained his views about this issue as,

I think in general, science is different enough - a teacher should recognize these diversity issues but at the same time I think science, the basic ideas of science carry through cultural differences. I think there are opportunities in other classrooms to dive into this a little bit more as in the case of history or language study. I think math and science kind of situate themselves in a little bit different area then multicultural education. You can look at, if you are talking about Brazil and talking abut the techniques of what is the science of the Amazonian natives. I think that would be a very interesting topic to point out. There are still fundamental things about how elements react and what fish do and what species of monkey might or might not do that we carry through. So what these natives have learned would be important, but it’s not something that you need to dwell on. If you are in Australia, it’s going to be something different, if you are in Thailand it’s going to be something different. But I had a student from Mongolia who said that chemistry was

173 taught different in Mongolia than it was taught here and I looked at her kind of weirdly, because to me chemistry is chemistry and H2O is water and it’s hydrogen and oxygen, in Mongolia that produces water but she I guess in reference to your question there were some differences in terms of the way it was approached but I find that kind of surprising in the 21st century. (Interview with Brian, 4-17-03, p. 5)

Brian believed that science was a universal type of knowledge that should not drastically change from place to place or culture to culture. He also thought given the limited time they had, science teachers could not examine what kind of science related knowledge was generated in different cultures. He argued,

I would say so that in the limited amount of time that you have the majority of that time should be spent trying to find some unifying concepts across the planet. There is nothing wrong in bringing in other cultural aspects as you can or as you’re aware of what you can do. But I certainly don’t think that it should be a majority of the time spent, because I think then science learning would suffer a great deal. (Interview with Brian, 4-17-03, p.6)

When it came to the controversial issues in science, such as evolution, Brian said that it had been an issue in his classes when he taught biology. He explained his views about this issue and how he dealt with it,

It has been a while since I taught biology. But when I taught biology I basically express to students that I have beliefs, that you have beliefs, these are theories, theories are explanations, these are explanations in science that it’s really a personal matter, a personal construct, how you put these together, but you need to be aware of what science is saying. You can mesh issues, come together with your personal, family, and religious beliefs in terms of how you feel about evolution. The point of this is that we are here. Exactly how we got here is not a critical aspect to what happens to you tomorrow. If you are going to cure cancer, if you are going to find a new energy source, how you got on the planet is not really a critical consideration. (Interview with Brian, 4-17-03, p. 6)

Brian said his personal belief was that science was not necessarily the only source of knowledge and that there were other types of knowledge that was legitimate for him. Brian has taught different fields in science including biology, chemistry, physics, and general science. He explained that biology was his favorite field, because he felt that it was his strongest area. He said,

174 In many respects biology is my strongest area. I’ve come to appreciate chemistry and physics a great deal. I’ve enjoyed teaching environmental science this year. I have a lot of strengths in biology. But the situation in schools is that typically there are more biology teachers than there are in other areas. If you are able to teach in other subjects, one is pushed in to the other areas. I’ve literally almost taught every science that you can teach. You have to go to way off on the general path, like fresh water ecology or something, to find something I haven’t taught. I would prefer biology but at this point chemistry and physics are other areas that I have been relegated to teach. (Interview with Brian, 4-17- 03, p. 7)

Content knowledge was not an important issue for Brian, because he felt confident in his content knowledge and he taught different science topics without feeling uncomfortable. During my observation in his classroom for this research and during my earlier observations of Brian’s classes for an internship, I was able to observe Brian’s confidence in his teaching. He never seemed uncomfortable about a subject and also when he did not know an answer to a question, saying, “I don’t know” did not bother him. He explained his feelings about his content knowledge as,

Not a real big issue, but there are certainly areas of physics that I don’t understand as well as I understand areas of biology. There are areas of chemistry that I don’t understand as well too. The idea is, particularly in science right now, trying to cover something in a reasonable depth. Trying to truly explore some of these issues versus just covering chapter after chapter after chapter. So, if I could say that I was going to be a chemistry teacher then I would spend a lot more time trying to develop some of that extra content. But I don’t know from year to year what I am going to teach and so it’s not an incentive. I am trying to keep current, I am trying to read, like we were talking about the research that I also read, current science, what is going on in science, but I am not a Ph.D. in chemistry and I don’t have a Ph.D. in physics and I don’t intend to be. (Interview with Brian, 4-17-03, p. 7)

In brief, Brian believed that there was not much space in science education to present different types of knowledge that related to science. He thought that science education should consist of mostly universal science that was same across the cultures and places. When it came to controversial issues, such as evolution, he thought that students needed to understand the scientific viewpoint about it. He believed it was okay for students to construct their own views in relation to scientific theories by considering their personal beliefs. Brian himself believed that science did not necessarily constituted the only type of knowledge he accepts.

175 Brian’s feelings about his job Based on my interviews with Brian, it seemed like school context and students provided the biggest challenges for Brian in his job. He thought that a recent move to convert his school into an academy-based institution was not very successful and all the physical changes that came with it made science teaching more difficult for him. He was also frustrated with students’ lack of willingness to take responsibility in their learning, which he thought was a situation that has gotten worse in recent years. When I asked him what was the biggest challenge in his teaching, he responded,

I think right now for me is trying to reach all levels of students. For the vast majority of my teaching career, I’ve taught students who typically wanted to learn, who cared about their assignments, who really wanted to learn. Only in the last couple of years have I really taught students who didn’t really want to learn, didn’t really see a purpose in taking biology or environmental science or chemistry or whatever, [they would] much rather be somewhere else. So trying to reach in the same class to top level students and a student who truly doesn’t care, I think has been a tremendous challenge for me. I’m trying to give alternative assignments, looking at different ways of learning, trying to appeal to these students in any way if there is something that they could do well. For example a students in his chemistry class really likes to do power point presentations and so I have allowed him to do several assignments using power point as a way of learning. I am trying not to restrict student learning. This continues to be a challenge. (Interview with Brian, 4-17-03, p. 3)

There were many issues that many science teachers faced in their jobs, which created conflicts for Brian. For example many science teachers went into their jobs thinking that they would teach in their field of expertise, but they ended up teaching in different fields. There was a certain level of support that teachers expected when they started teaching, but many times they did not get the support that they needed. Brian had this to say about these issues,

I think fundamentally, from my point of view, right now I think the responsibility for being a science teacher is too great in this country. I think that the realization in most schools is that you need to try to teach one science and do it well. Many people have to teach multiple science areas, which is very difficult to be strong in biology, strong in chemistry, strong in physics, and strong in earth and space science. But I was told by a professor that I had, that in Australia most schools have a technician or lab person that helps it in context with the teacher. Most of the schools in this country don’t have such a person. And so there is a constant battle, battle maybe too strong a word, but there is a conflict in terms of using equipment, using materials, does one teacher have to use up

176 more things than another? If you had one person who organized the labs for each structure, they would know the materials, they would know where the equipment is, they would know what needs to be repaired, but instead you have this miscommunication that occurs because people think ‘oh well he’ll know this because he’ll see that it’s broken or he’ll know that I used the last bit of sodium hydroxide and he’ll know to reorder it.’ It is like you are some sort of a magician, you know this just because you are going to look on that shelf at that point in time and know that you need to order. I haven’t seen in my experience a great communication network among science teachers. I mean, they tend to do their own thing and it’s not necessarily for the benefit of the whole school. It’s like ‘okay, if I can scrounge enough of these pieces of equipment and these chemicals I can do my program and heck with the rest of the people whether they can do theirs or not.’ And I see that going on here. Even though I’ve asked for people to give me lists of what they have and what they need, they are not telling me. They are not sharing that information; they are not exact or clear with what they have. Most of them don’t have much of anything but then when I’ve asked for things in terms of experiments like which experiments would you like to do or which demonstrations would you like to do, they are not telling me that either. So I don’t know, it’s a weird situation and it’s a situation that I don’t think is all that unusual. I think if you looked at schools across this country, you would see a great many of them like this. It really would take a principal who is knowledgeable in science that understands the problems of science and says ‘how can I help you.’ The principal we have here right now is a former elementary principal. Quite frankly I don’t think she has a clue about what is needed in science. I think she is trying her best. I think she is doing what she can do, but I don’t think she has really an idea of what I would like to do over the next few months. (Interview with Brian, 5-8-03, p. 16)

I asked Brian what would he changed in his school that would provided a better science department and better science education. He seemed pessimistic about the future of the science program in his response,

Build a new science wing. I mean that is the bottom line; this school is not going to move forward in science until someone realizes that there needs to be a quality lab program. A quality lab program is not done in the kitchen and that is what this is. When you go around the building, you have seven kitchenettes and those are not labs (referring to the small lab areas in some learning spaces). (Interview with Brian, 5-8-03, p. 16)

In a different interview, he gave other suggestions for improving the science department,

Personally I wanted - because of the way this school has been constructed - I wanted to have the entire high school science department together so that we could learn from each other and help each other and build a strong science program instead of being parceled out around the building. In most schools science classrooms are pretty close together. In our school they are scattered all over three levels of the building. (Interview with Brian, 4-17-03, p. 1)

177 The new structure of the school, insufficient materials, insufficient support from administration, insufficient cooperation among science teachers, and quality of students were the major causes of frustration for Brian. He explained,

Some of the most frustrating things are the lab situations and psychology situations that have had confronted me here in this school. Obviously, there are schools that do this a lot better. They have the space, they have the materials, and they are able to do a program with hands-on, minds-on [activities]. I feel like I can reach out at times with the inquiry based approach, but if you do the research there are not the activities currently that there needs to be. (Interview with Brian, 4-17-03, p. 5)

Certainly quality of the students went way down when we moved to the [new location] because of the changing curriculum and the move into the academy structure. Surprisingly this wasn’t taken into proper consideration by the administration. We were requiring everyone to take chemistry and everyone to take physics. Instead of a huge influx of material to do this, we didn’t get it. It was like ‘okay, we’ll give you a text book, here is what you got, go.’ There needed to be a huge amount of emphasis in chemistry and physics if you require every student, regardless of background, to take these courses. And like I said you basically take chemistry out of the realm, if you can’t even use the lab in chemistry. You know people in my class are saying ‘why aren’t we doing labs and I’m saying I’m in an engineering tech room. There are long tables, what am I supposed to at these tables?’ I can’t do the cooperative learning, I can’t do the things that I would normally do in a classroom and I certainly can’t do labs that are dangerous. So, I’m caught and it makes me feel bad. It makes them unhappy, but hopefully next year that will be different. But I thought this year was going to be different and I was genuinely shocked when I found out that, no, they scheduled right back into that lab and I said no, that shouldn’t happen, they should have brought in a trailer for senior physics or whatever but they didn’t. They didn’t bother to do that. In fact because it was a new teacher, they didn’t even want him moving out of the room, which I thought was rather interesting. (Interview with Brian, 5-8-03, p. 17)

Despite all the negative feelings and difficulties that he faced, there were also things that Brian enjoyed in his job. Like other teachers that I spoke to, seeing students learn, seeing them making connections, feeling interested in what was being taught was what made the enjoyable moments for Brian. He said,

I enjoy things students react to, their own research and giving presentations and talking about things that they’ve learned, that’s possibly the thing that I enjoy the most. Seeing the students, when they say ‘I didn’t know anything about this and now I know the following things.’ And they speak with great pride; they’ve learned something. (Interview with Brian, 4-17-03, p. 5)

178 Based on our conversations, when I asked Brian what would be more useful for him in his career if he had it in his teacher education period. He said,

I think the more experience a person has with another science teacher the better. You can be certified, and basically except for a short internship it’s basically your personal experience in school and coursework. This tends to be non hands-on or non-the methods or they’ll call it methods but then they talk about it instead of doing it. So I think the big difference would be that you need those new teachers - that’s where we’re really heading in this question - paired with certified science teachers. I think you need to see this pairing for longer than one year. Co teaching would be a wonderful thing. Obviously an expensive proposition for some schools, but if you are talking about really getting new teachers on board, the idea of having a mentor teacher, someone who can come around and help would be tremendous and this year I had some of the time to do that, but then I wasn’t asked to do that. So I got mixed messages in terms of what am I supposed to do. If I walk into someone’s room, are they going to be intimidated by the fact that I am walking in as science department chair? They are certainly not coming to me and asking me for help and believe me there are people here (laughing), who need help. But, you know, I can’t do it unless there is some sort of an agreement with the principal and these teachers say ‘look Brian is here to help not to criticize, not to evaluate and report back to me’ or whatever, but that feeling, particularly in American schools is very difficult to get over. When people walk into your room, the idea [that they are going to judge you is strong], particularly in science. I think there are some areas that maybe, you can get away with it, but science is not one of them. (Interview with Brian, 5-8-03, p. 18)

In brief, the school that he taught in and his students were the biggest challenges for Brian. He felt frustrated that he did not always get the support he needed from school administration. On the other hand, he enjoyed the moments when students were learning and making connections. Based on his experiences, he thought that student teachers in science needed more practical training with the help of in-service teachers to be prepared for the realities of their jobs.

Brian’s Values Test Results Brian took the Values Test two times with about eight months interval between them. Dr. Nancy Davis and I interviewed Brian after he took the test the second time to get some insight into his thinking process when he answered the test items. The result of the Values Test that Brian took is shown in Figure 8. From these results it seemed Brian’s worldview most strongly agreed with the blue and green worldviews. Between the two times Brian took the Values Test, his scores for the blue and

179 green worldviews were most consistent, with the blue worldview having the most acceptance scores. Brian’s other scores were fairly consistent except there was some variation on the purple and red worldviews. His rejection of the purple thinking has somewhat increased while his rejection of the red thinking has decreased.

% Yellow Orange Red Purple Blue Green Turquoise 99 59 74 41 29 61 50 33 90 51 63 39 28 60 49 32 80 40 51 27 19 45 37 23 70 36 46 23 16 40 33 19 60 33 41 19 13 35 29 16 50 29 37 15 10 31 25 13 40 28 35 13 9 28 23 12 30 24 31 9 6 24 20 8 20 21 26 5 3 19 15 5 10 16 21 0 0 12 10 1 Acceptance 15 - 14 21 - 28 7 - 2 9 - 0 56 - 54 33 - 37 9 - 15 Rejection 7 - 5 0 - 7 50 - 34 48 - 62 0 - 0 0 - 0 45 - 42 10 5 1 19 15 1 5 14 20 8 6 26 22 7 8 19 30 10 9 32 27 11 10 24 40 12 12 38 32 15 12 28 50 13 14 40 34 17 13 30 60 15 17 46 39 21 15 34 70 18 20 51 44 26 18 39 80 20 24 58 50 31 21 44 90 27 33 75 65 43 29 55 99 29 34 81 69 44 31 60

Figure 8. The results of the Values Test that Brian took two times. The red lines show Brian’s scores the first time he took the test and the blue lines show his scores the second time he took the test.

One of the items in the Values Test that represents the blue worldview was “My deepest beliefs and values stand on the firm foundations of my faith, and the One True Way.” Brian gave high acceptance points to this item and when we asked him to comment on his scoring, he explained,

180 A firm Christian believes and [it is] a key part of my life so any belief or value is going to be have to be centered on that. I don’t think that we are necessarily ordained or destined to be a certain way and that is why I gave some points [to this item]. There is a power within you to shape tomorrow even within the idea of a firm foundation, the Lord works within your life to do that. That is the reason for those points. (Interview with Brian, 1-7- 2004, p. 21)

This quote supported that the blue way of thinking was dominant in Brian’s worldview. Brian was open about his religious beliefs and religion seemed to be in the center of his all of beliefs and values. During our interview with Brian, Dr. Davis asked him about his involvement in a teacher union organization, which seemed to have implications abut Brian’s beliefs and values. Brian explained that he agreed with many roles of the union, however, he did not necessarily agree with all aspects of the union activities. He said,

Well, the union activity has been important but it is something that kind of fell in my lap and I ran with it to a certain degree because there really wasn’t anyone else to take up the ball and run with it. … It has become an important aspect of my life but it is kind of interesting because I hear people talking about unions and there are lots of things about unions that I agree with. The idea that everyone should have a fair chance, everyone should have a fair opportunity to [deal with] injustice or miscarry of justice, but there are some policies of the national union itself that as a southerner I am not real thrilled about. And [in those aspects] I have served a smaller part and said, ‘well when it comes to collective bargaining, when it comes to the idea that people need to be represented, I can sort of take the good with the bad.’ And so I feel like that is an important aspect of my personality. I am not a strongly liberal person. I think I have some very moderate views and some things probably be considered liberal, but [for] many other issues it would be pretty conservative. And so here I am a union representative and people label you as a certain character with that and that is certainly not my personality. I am strongly religious, which for some reason to be considered liberal it is almost non-religious all of a sudden. (Interview with Brian, 1-7-2004, p. 19)

Brian’s views about his role as a union representative agreed with his acceptance scores of the green thinking, which seeks consensus among people and promotes equality and justice for everyone. Brian also took charge as a coordinator of the regional science fair activities besides his role in the teacher union. He explained that he views science education as a communal activity rather than individual. He explained,

181 I have always believed in the total realm of science as part of the city’s scientific society or part of the regional science and engineering fair or [professional organizations] whatever it might be, I consider those things to be very important and really part of the total teaching arena that you want your students to be exposed to teachers that are part of this, you want them to be exposed to the possibilities of the scholarships or the activities that are part of organizations like these. So yes I think that is a key aspect in terms of my total personality as a teacher and what I stand for. (Interview with Brian, 1-7-2004, p. 20)

From these conversations, it seemed that community issues, including issues related to his family, had more priority in Brian’s worldview. He explained that once he was offered a job in another city, which he wanted to take, but he did not take it because he did not think that it would be the best decision for his family. The community centeredness of Brian’s values fit with his dominantly blue and green worldview. Brian had low acceptance and low rejection points for the yellow thinking which indicated that yellow worldview did not have much meaning for him. For one item that he put rejection points for the yellow thinking, he made this explanation,

As you grow older and you approach 50, [you become] non-materialist, non-compulsive, and internally driven. I mean I could see myself very different if I wasn’t married, if I didn’t have children. I would be a very different person in terms of how I would react in an organization than the way I react now. So there is an internal drive there, there is a need to seek out and to do different things but it’s under control, it’s not compulsive, you know, [it is] non-compulsive. (Interview with Brian, 1-7-2004, p. 26)

He also had relatively low acceptance and rejection points for the orange worldview. From the items he scored, it seemed like Brian especially did not agree with the success driven materialistic part of the orange thinking. During our interview he had this comment in relation to materialistic aspect of the orange worldview,

If making a lot of money was my goal, I could have made a lot more money a lot sooner than this. … I am a firm believer that just because you make a lot of money is not going to make you happy and so I never considered that to be important. (Interview with Brian, 1-7-2004, pp. 23,24)

In another quote Brian commented about another item for which he gave rejection points for orange thinking,

182 I think it is just basically a realization that I am not going to change the world. I am trying to do my part in it. I feel like I have had a positive impact on a lot of children’s lives but material success, it is not just that important now. I have a home, I have a family, I have no desire for a yacht, I don’t have any desire to basically spend summers in Tahiti that just doesn’t thrill me. (Interview with Brian, 1-7-2004, p. 25)

Brian’s rejection of the red thinking has decreased while his acceptance of it increased to a lesser extend. Brian said that the first time he took the test he was in a more stressful situation, which may be the reason, why his rejection score of the red thinking was higher. Not having a classroom of his own was one of the reasons that caused some stress for Brian. The red worldview is reflected in many students’ behavior as they act more spontaneously and immaturely. Because of the stresses he felt, perhaps it was more difficult for Brian to deal with the characteristics of a red worldview reflected by his students. When he took the values test the second time, Brian had his own classroom and he did not have the same stress level as before and his rejection points for the red worldview decreased. When Brian was talking about the changes in his scores after he took the test the second time, he made this comments about his increased rejection for the purple worldview,

Obviously as a scientific person I am not superstitious, I am not mystical, I don’t go around wearing about charms, fortunes or spells, I mean that was a pretty obvious one [to reject]. Of course that matches up again here, I don’t share the view that world is a magical place. (Interview with Brian, 1-7-2004, p. 23)

Brian also explained that he might have put more rejection points for the purple worldview just because he may have read the items differently or based on his momentary thoughts. For example for the item “Whenever I’m criticized, it is seldom for being too superstitious and mystical, a person plagues by charms, spirits, fortune, and spells,” Brian initially gave eight rejection points and when he took the test the second time he gave 15 rejection points. He explained that after reading the item again, he would agree more with the way he scored when he took the test the first time. For another item which was, “I don’t think it is important for me to work for an organization that preserves our traditional customs, observes seasonal celebrations, and protects our close knit groups,” Brian gave no rejection points when he took the test the first time and when he took it the second time he gave 15 rejection points for it. He said, “… probably

183 it is a little unfair to put 15 here because I think that is a nice idea but I don’t think it’s extremely important.” When it came to the turquoise worldview, it seemed like the way of thinking in this worldview did not appeal to Brian. For example for the item “when under real stress I rarely shift to another plane of consciousness to transcend the animalistic elements producing it,” to which Brian gave high rejection points he commented that, “… [I] Think about faith first but I would never shift to another plane of consciousness; I don’t know what that means even. You know, I think I know what it means but I have never done that.” Another item that Brian gave rejection points when he took the Values Test the first time was, “I don’t think it is important for me to work for an organization that connects to a global network of information and makes decisions based on nature’s ordered systems.” The second time he took the test, he did not give rejection points to this item and he made this comment about it, “I am not sure why I would have said that… (Laughing) it sounds good; I am not sure how workable that is. I guess there was a realization at times that your dreams, you ideas are not really going to come true.” Also for the item “My own career priorities are least determined by a need to unite with other minds around the planet to work for a new global order,” Brian said, “I mean it would be wonderful to do that but I cannot honestly say that that is something I think about doing.” From these quotes, it seems clear that the turquoise thinking did not have much meaning for Brian. In brief, Brian’s worldview was mostly dominated by the blue and green thinking. He considered himself as a religious person and he seemed satisfied with the material aspects of his life. As he got older, he felt like his dreams will not become true and he has little impact in changing the world. At the end of our interview When Dr. Davis asked Brian if he was becoming more pragmatic, he said, “It is a possibility based on what you are seeing in these results, probably so.”

Summary Brian was a very experienced teacher with 26 years in the job teaching high school science. There were many contextual factors that caused difficulties in his teaching, which was very frustrating for Brian. The school context and the student context were the main sources of his frustrations. Brian wanted to be a teacher who provided support for his students like a coach, helping them to achieve their educational goals. He expressed desire to use hands on activities

184 and provide better science teaching experiences for his students. However, students’ unwillingness to take responsibility in their learning, lack of facilities and supplies, and lack of school administration support prevented him to do his job the way he wanted. My assertions about Brian, his practice, and his beliefs could be summarized as,

• Brian believed that the new structure of the Sunny High School was not working and he thought this new structure has influenced the science education in the school in a negative way. • Brian believed that many students were not taking responsibility in their learning and they lacked willingness to study for reasonable periods of time. • Brian believed that education started out as the responsibility of the state to set the stage and then there reached a point in which the students had to take more of the responsibility of their education. • According to Brian students learned best when they made personal connections with what was taught to them. His use of newspaper, TV, and current magazines supported this finding. • Brian believed that every student could learn science at some level and he saw the purpose of science education as to achieve scientific literacy for most of the students. • Brian often used traditional methods of teaching and he felt like he was forced to do so because of the less than ideal school environment. • Brian believed that many students’ perception of a teacher’s role and their role in education seemed to represent an environment in which students generally did precisely what they were told to do and nothing more. • According to Brian, it was difficult to assume the ideal role of a science teacher when students did not take reasonable responsibility in their own learning. • Brian believed that there was not much space in science education to present different types of knowledge that related to science, and that science education should typically include universal science. However, he did believe that if the opportunity presented itself, it was okay to explore different types of knowledge. • Brian thought that students could construct their own beliefs however they needed to understand the scientific thinking even if it was contrary to their beliefs.

185 • Based on his experiences, Brian thought that student teachers in science needed more practical training to be prepared for the realities of their jobs and mentor teachers would be a tremendous innovation to promote.

186 CHAPTER 5

ANALYSIS

Introduction

In this chapter, I present a summary of the findings about Suzan, Sara, Aylin, and Brian’s beliefs and worldviews in separate tables for easy access and then I provide my analysis about how their beliefs, worldviews, and practices relate to each other in light of the research questions. As a reminder my research questions are,

1. How can participating teachers’ worldviews be characterized? 2. How are participating teachers’ beliefs about educational issues related to their worldviews? 3. How are participating teachers’ worldviews related to their practices? 4. How or under what conditions do science teachers modify their worldviews?

Based on the findings that I presented in the previous chapter, Tables 2 through 8 summarize the findings about participating teachers’ beliefs and practices in relation to purpose of education, teaching and learning, teachers’ and students’ roles in learning, assessment, science, and teaching context. Table 9 summarizes the findings about the participants’ worldviews based on Graves’s (1981) and Beck and Cowan’s (1996) model. These tables are followed by a discussion of how are the participating teachers’ worldviews related to their beliefs and practices. The last section in this chapter discusses the potentials for change and how changes occur in worldviews based on the findings of the Values Test. My discussion about the participants’ worldviews in the previous chapter (summarized in Table 9) provides an answer to the first research question and the discussions that follow the tables below provide answers to the other research questions.

187 Table 2. Participating teachers’ beliefs about the purpose of education

Suzan • Education is an opportunity for individuals to learn and grow intellectually. • The main purpose of education is to provide basic skills, such as being able to read, write, and think critically. After acquiring these skills, it is up to individuals to pursue their goals and to choose which way they want to go in life. • Education is about personal development. Sara • The purpose of education is to empower, which means giving students more power through knowledge and skills. • Education provides students more choices in their lives and helps them understand what is around them and allows them to develop the skills to communicate and collaborate with others. • Education is about personal development. Aylin • Education’s most important goal is to provide the skills that students need to seek what they are passionate about in life. This means getting a job that they like or at least getting a job to support themselves and pursue their passions in other areas. • Education is about personal development. Brian • The purpose of education is to train the future citizens who will serve the society. • It is also to help students to grow individually and become self-sufficient critical thinkers who care about their society and what is going on in the world. • Education starts as the responsibility of the state and adults at the early ages of a person and later on, as they get older, people should realize that they have to assume that responsibility for their own learning.

Table 3. Participating teachers’ beliefs about teaching and learning

Suzan • Learning how to learn and to develop a responsibility for learning are the most important outcomes of teaching and learning, even more so than the content. • To learn something, people need experience it in multiple ways and they need to reinforce their learning by practicing it. • Suzan uses different methods in her teaching including hands-on experiments, class work, projects, presentations, and peer teaching. Sara • Science - like any other field - is the canvas for pursuing the general purpose of education, which is to empower and this purpose is more important than the content. • Students learn best when they feel responsible for what they are doing. • Hands-on activities provide feeling of responsibility and they are more fun. • Lectures followed by classroom discussions are methods Sara uses often besides hands-on activities. • Discussions are important for students to express their opinions and to develop skills to listen to others. Aylin • The goal in teaching and learning science is to make science applicable to students’ lives. • Hands-on activities would be most useful methods to teach science, but Aylin does not feel confident in her content knowledge to use these methods often. • Students learn best in a safe environment, where they feel safe to question, safe to make mistakes, and feel accepted. • Classroom discussions where students are free to express their opinions and doing worksheets in the classroom are the methods she uses often. Brian • The purpose of science education as providing scientific literacy to students so that they can make informed decisions about science related issues, such as environmental protection. • Students learn best when they make a personal connection with what is being taught. • Lectures, class work, and solving problems in class are the methods Brian often uses. He also uses classroom presentations and newspaper activities in which students read science related articles.

188 Table 4. Participating teachers’ beliefs about the roles of teachers in learning

Suzan • Suzan sees herself as a co-learner with the students rather than as the source of knowledge. • Assuming the role of a co-learner depends on the relationship between the teacher and the students and also the context. • Teachers’ role is to facilitate students’ thinking and help them build confidence in their learning. • In her practice, Suzan generally acts like a tutor in her classroom helping her students while they work on problems or assignments. • Suzan doesn’t use lecturing often and she utilizes different methods from hands-on experiments to projects in her teaching. Sara • Teachers’ role is to help students learn. • Teachers’ role also includes finding students’ interests and nurturing them by asking questions like: What can I ask them to get them to pull all the pieces together? How can the activities and assignment be done so that it’s their knowledge that they are gaining, it’s their experience? Aylin • Teachers’ role includes caring and nurturing. • Regardless of the subject, teachers should provide a model for learning to students. • It is better to be a teacher who is comfortable to say, “I don’t know” to students and try to learn with them when she faces with a subject that she is not familiar with. Brian • The ideal role of a teacher is much like a coach of a sports team, which means being there as a supporter when students recognize that they need help and present the key concepts as in the case of a coach.

Table 5. Participating teachers’ beliefs about the roles of students in learning

Suzan • Responsibility of learning mostly lies with the students while teacher’s role is to facilitate or guide their learning. • Students’ role is to accept the challenge and start to learn. • In her practice, Suzan requires her students to do their assignments on their own in the classroom, check their homework themselves, ask for help when they need, and even graded their exams. • She expects her students to act maturely and honestly. Sara • Learning is by the student. • Teacher can’t teach anything unless students are interested in learning. • Students are the ones who take the knowledge and make sense of it. Teachers’ role is to help that happen. Aylin • Students should participate to class activities at whatever level they are ready even if that is just listening. • Students need to ask questions and to wonder. • Students have an obligation not to disturb the learning of others, even if they don’t participate in class. • Teachers can’t teach their students unless they care and want to learn. There has to be willingness on their side and it is teachers’ job to assist them. Brian • Students should take responsibility in their education. Students should meet the teacher half the way or at least a third of the way in terms of taking responsibility in their own learning. • They should do their assignments, come to class prepared, and participate in class activities.

189 Table 6. Participating teachers’ beliefs about assessment

Suzan • Assessment should provide information about students’ knowledge and their strengths and weaknesses. Students and teachers should use this information to know where they need to focus in terms of learning. • Students generally see assessment as a matter of getting good grades for self-esteem or competition, which actually creates a barrier in their learning process. • After a test, Suzan often asks her students to write a report about their mistakes and show that they learned from those mistakes. She improves their grades when they do so. Sometimes she allows her students to grade their own tests or assignments. • Standardized tests provide a piece of information that is useful to see what are the weaknesses in students’ knowledge, however they don’t provide the full picture. Sara • Sara used to avoid assessment until science started to be tested in standardized tests. • She realized that assessment is important because it gives information about students’ learning. • Assessment should not be used as punishment. • If students don’t do well in a test, she teaches the subject again until their grades improve. • Sara doesn’t like standardized tests and she feels pressure and stress because of the accountability aspect that comes with it. • Students can be motivated by assessment, provided that they think assessment is fair. Aylin • Besides measuring students’ knowledge, Aylin thinks that assessment is a tool to look at how well she does her job as a teacher based on how well her students learned. • Doing assessment properly takes a long time. • Assessment can be used to motivate students if it is the only thing there is to motivate them. • Aylin doesn’t like standardized tests and she doesn’t value the purpose of using standardized tests. She feels pressure and stress because of the accountability aspect of it. Brian • Brian defined assessment as “a necessary evil” which has to be done. • He has a system of grading in which every assignment or test has a point value that adds toward a total. He allows his students to check where they are in terms of their total points every week so that they can make their own decisions about their grades. • Assessment can be a motivation for students. • Brian allows his students to utilize alternative assessment methods to allow them express their knowledge in different ways. • Standard testing and the accountability that comes with it is a good thing because it puts emphasis on science teaching and he believes that teachers should be hold accountable for their teaching.

190 Table 7. Participating teachers’ beliefs about science

Suzan • A simple description of science is observing natural phenomena with instrumentation and collecting data to find information or patterns about it. • Science and its disciplines as ways of looking at the world, each having a different perspective but similar set of rules for research. • There is no conflict between science and religion. • A science student needs to be well versed in the models of science in order to be successful and move ahead even if she values other ways of knowing more than science. Sara • Science is changing due to new discoveries and debates among scientists. • A lot of things in science are not exact. Scientists create theories to understand nature and these theories are approximations. • There are other ways of knowing than science, which is of value to many people. • Students need to learn scientific concepts even if they don’t believe in them. Aylin • Aylin believes that science is much more open-ended than she thought. She used to believe that science is exact, however, after she started teaching it, she appreciates that science is open-ended, meaning there are a lot of unknowns and uncertainties in science. Even failures in science activities can teach something to scientists. • Change in science takes a long time to happen, but unlike religion, science is willing to change. • Students need to learn scientific concepts even if they don’t believe in them. Brian • Science is universal and it doesn’t change from culture to culture or place to place. • Students need to understand the scientific viewpoint about nature, but it is okay for them to construct their own views in relation to scientific theories and their personal beliefs. • Science is not necessarily the only source of knowledge that Brian values.

Table 8. Participating teachers’ feelings about their jobs and school context

Suzan • Suzan her job; she likes interacting with her students and learn with them. • She is a very confident teacher in terms of content knowledge and teaching. • She thinks that she has all the resources that she needs to do her job in her school. • The main things she complaints about are the frequent interruptions and bureaucracy in her school. • She believes that schools should be places for learning and intellectual growth and all other activities - such as sports and social events - should be handled by the local community. • She is at peace with the educational system even if she doesn’t approve all aspects of it. • Seeing her students learn, make sense of something, and get into discussions gives her joy. Sara • For Sara, her job is a love-hate relationship. She is a passionate teacher and she likes her job, but she is frustrated with the pressures of state mandates, standardized testing, and accountability. • She feels like she has very little time to cover a lot of material. • She doesn’t feel confident in her content knowledge, which influences her self-efficacy beliefs. • She realizes that teaching in the real world is very different than the ideal expectations that she has in her mind before she started teaching. • She considers leaving her job if the pressures she faces increase. She said that if she were told to comply with a certain curriculum rather than doing what she wants, she would leave her job. • Seeing her students learn, make connections, and get excited about science gives her joy. Aylin • Aylin likes her job, she is a passionate teacher and she has a lot of confidence in herself. • She feels weak about her content knowledge in science, but this doesn’t affect her self-efficacy beliefs. • Aylin complains very much about the standardized testing, and the emphasis on accountability. • She wishes to do whatever she wants in her classroom without interference from others; however, her school has a very rigid management in terms of applying the procedures and policies of the school. • Aylin feels happy when she sees her students learn. Brian • Brian is a confident teacher in terms of his content knowledge. • He feels like the context he teaches in, the school structure, the student context, and material resources are not ideal for science teaching and learning. • He currently wants to become a principal. • Brian feels happy when his students learn, participate in class activities, and be interested in learning.

191 Table 9. Participating teachers’ worldviews based on Grave’s (1981) model

Suzan • Green and turquoise worldviews are Suzan’s highest scores in the Values Test. • Suzan has high rejection points for the red worldview; however, her rejection points have decreased over time. She explained that her attitude against egocentric people (that includes some of her students and parents) has changed and rather than arguing with these kind of people, she accepts them as they are. Also the September 11 events made Suzan believe that there are times to use violence against others, which is a characteristic of the red thinking. Suzan explained that these might be the reasons for the decrease in her rejection scores for the red worldview. • Suzan has high rejection points for the blue worldview. She explained that she does not necessarily reject the values of the blue thinking, but rather she rejects the attitude of people who want to impose their beliefs and values onto others. • She also has high rejection points for the orange worldview. The materialist and competition driven values of the orange worldview do not appeal to Suzan. Sara • Sara has the highest scores for the green worldview in the Values Test followed by turquoise and to a lesser extent purple. • Acceptance scores for the purple worldview result from the appeal of the idea for sacrificing each other within a community for a common goal. Strong family relations may also be the reason. • Sara rejects the red, blue, and orange worldviews for the similar reasons to Suzan, except that her rejections scores for the red worldview remained high. Aylin • Aylin gave her highest points to the yellow and turquoise worldviews. • Her acceptance points for the green worldview have decreased over time, while her rejection of it increased. She explained that the reason her acceptance scores for the green thinking decreased might be the passive feeling of the belief that every human being is equal. She started to believe that equality does not mean anything if people do not exercise their rights. So the green thinking seems passive to Aylin and she believes that individuals need to take action for their rights. • Aylin has relatively less rejection points for the red worldview compared to other teachers, which may be the result of her values being more expressive. This may also indicate that she is more comfortable with dealing with people who operate from this worldview, such as small children. • Aylin rejects the blue way of thinking which is much valued in her school and also in the education system in general. There are strict rules and procedures that Aylin is expected to follow in her school in terms of documenting her teaching and this seems to create a conflicts for Aylin. • Aylin rejects the orange worldview because of its materialist values and the purple worldview has little value for Aylin. Brian • Brian gave his highest points to the blue worldview. He explained that he has strong religious beliefs and he bases all his values to his religious beliefs and he feels comfortable with the blue values such as loyalty and respect for authority. • Brian also has high acceptance scores for the green thinking, which indicates that his worldview is community oriented. • Brian rejects the purple worldview, because of the perspective this way of thinking has about the world: a magical place where there is access to spiritual beings. • He also rejects the turquoise worldview, which doesn’t have much appeal for him. • He neither rejects nor accepts yellow and orange worldviews, which means these ways of thinking doesn’t have much meaning for him. • Brian’s rejection of the red thinking has decreased over time. He explained that when he took the Values Test the first time, it was a more stressful time for him, which made it more difficult to deal with students many of whom operate from that worldview. He explained that the second time he took the test he didn’t have that much stress which may be the reason for his decreased rejection of the red worldview.

192 Beliefs, Worldviews, Practices

Table 9 provides a brief summary of the findings about Suzan, Sara, Aylin, and Brian’s worldviews based on the Values Test and the interviews. The Values Test provides a values memes profile of people’s worldviews. It also provides information about people’s beliefs and assumptions about life, and shows how people establish priorities. It is important to note that people who take the Values Test sometimes give scores to the items that seem ideal to them and when this is the, case the test results show what people value rather than their contextual priorities. This may result in people giving similar scores to similar items in the test, but have different attitudes in reality at the same time. Kearney (1984), Nespor (1987), Pajares (1992), and Washburn (1997) argue that people can hold conflicting beliefs within their worldviews or their beliefs may be in conflict with their experiences. This is due to the way people prioritize their beliefs within their worldviews based on their perception of the world and the capacities they activate to cope with the world (Beck and Cowan, 1996; Graves, 1981). Another important note is that, as I explained in the literature review chapter, the hierarchical nature of the worldview model developed by Graves (1981) and Beck and Cowan (1996) has no intention to rank people but to understand their beliefs. The following discussion about the participating teachers’ beliefs is not meant to imply that they are either good or bad, rather it is an effort to understand how they make sense of their world and they how react on it based on the model proposed by Graves. With this explanation in mind, I make the following assertions about the relationships between participating teachers’ beliefs, worldviews, and practices based on the findings summarized in Tables 2 through 9.

Assertions about Suzan Suzan’s dominantly turquoise worldview indicates that she is a confident and highly developed person in terms her world perspective and the coping mechanisms she utilize to deal with her life problems. She values learning through experience, looking at issues from broader perspectives, and searching for meaning and purpose in life. Her confidence in herself as a teacher and her beliefs and practices reflect her worldview. For example, she sees herself as a learner and despite her advanced degree, awards, and years of experience, she never gives up trying to learn from others and from her students and she often engages in intuitive data

193 gathering. She tries to understand how her students make sense of science and she tries to explore different ways to help them learn through discussions. She is open to outside input and opinions of others about her teaching and methods she use. During her participation in this research, her attitude was actively seeking criticism of her practice from me, which reflected in her question, “When do I get to learn?” She wanted this study to help her learn and improve her practice; an attitude conforms to her turquoise values. Suzan’s beliefs about the purpose of education and her practices associated with this belief also reflect her values in the turquoise belief system. She believes that education is an opportunity for intellectual growth rather than a task to be done and this broad perspective about education guides her teaching. She believes that intellectual growth happens through learning and open discussions in which people freely communicate ideas. She also believes that for better learning, students need to experience knowledge in multiple ways and practice it and they need to be active and take responsibility in their learning. In her practice Suzan emphasizes the notions of “learning based on understanding rather than memorizing” and “learning how to learn” more than the science content. She does so with the methods she uses and the way she utilizes assessment. For example, She rarely answers her students’ questions directly; rather she asks them many questions back to stimulate them to find their own answers. In this manner, she stresses the process of reasoning rather than the facts. She uses a variety of methods, such as hands-on activities, projects, discussions, classroom presentations, and peer teaching to allow her students to experience knowledge in multiple ways. Suzan sees herself as a co-learner with her students rather than the source of knowledge. She listens to her students’ ideas about solving problems and when she deals with a subject that she is not sure about, it does not bother her trying to figure out problems with her students. Sometimes she acts like a tutor in her classroom and helps her students individually and discusses and shares ideas with them. In her teaching, what Suzan expects from her students is just to accept the challenge of learning and take action. When it comes to assessment, Suzan believes that the purpose should be learning not ranking students. So she uses assessment as a way for students to assess their own learning rather than as a value judgment. She lets her students check their own homework and ask for help if they need, which is also a way for her to give more responsibility to the students in their learning. She wants her students to understand that the purpose of assessment is to understand their weaknesses and strengths in their knowledge and to do so she sometimes lets her students

194 grade their assignments and tests themselves. To emphasize learning over grades, she improves her students’ grades if they write a report to show her that they learned whatever they missed in a test. In this sense, Suzan incorporates a formative component in the way she utilizes assessment. Cowie and Bell (1999) define formative assessment as, “…the process used by teachers and students to recognize and respond to student learning in order to enhance that learning, during the learning” (p. 101). This is what Suzan does in her teaching, trying to enhance her students learning as they are learning. Black and Wiliam (1998) argue that this way of using assessment improves student learning significantly and they see formative assessment as a key for the reform efforts in education to succeed. Another reflection of the turquoise belief system in Suzan’s attitudes is the fact that she contributes to the field of science education and the community of science teachers by participating in research projects that involve in-service training for teachers. She tries to help science teachers grow intellectually, understand their powers, and be exposed to new ideas that may help them in their teaching. In a way, Suzan tries to improve science teacher education and in turn improve science education itself. This attitude of taking action to change the community that she is a part of is a characteristic of the turquoise belief system. Suzan also values the green belief system, which prioritize human needs and community relations. Her practice in her classroom reflects this worldview since she is attentive to her students’ needs and she respects their ideas. For example, she creates a classroom environment in which her students feel comfortable by allowing them to do whatever they want to do (i.e. bring food to the classroom, leave the classroom for few minutes if they need to, etc.) as long as they act maturely. During classroom discussions, she respects her students’ ideas and listens to them carefully and she expects her students to do the same thing for others. She communicates with her students about what they should do or what actions they need to take to learn and advance in her classes. Suzan’s students are generally high-level AP and honors students, which seem to make it easier for her in structuring her classroom environment they way she wants. Another reflection of Suzan’s values in the green belief system is her respect for other people’s beliefs. She respects other people’s beliefs; however, she expects the same from others. She values communication of ideas without anyone getting offended because of their beliefs not being shared by others. During our conversations and interviews, she expressed discomfort with people who want others to believe and act the way they do and even attack or offend others for

195 having different beliefs. An indication of Suzan’s concerns for others’ needs was also apparent in her interest in my background and my goals about the research I was conducting. She asked me many times if she could do anything to help me, which is another reflection of her values in the green belief system.

Assertions about Sara Sara mostly values the green belief system and she also highly values the turquoise belief system in her worldview. Because Sara and Suzan share similar values in their worldviews, they have similar beliefs about education and teaching and learning. For example, similar to Suzan, Sara thinks that education is about personal development of students. She believes that the purpose of education is empowering students by helping them learn new knowledge and new skills so that they can have more options in their lives. Sara also believes that students should be active and take responsibility in their learning. However, compared to Suzan, Sara has a different personality and she has different attitudes. While Suzan is a very confident teacher, Sara seems timid about her job. Teaching is not exactly what she had in mind and she is not quite sure what causes dissatisfaction in her job. She said several times during our interviews “something is missing” in her job that makes her feel this way. There seem to be a mismatch between the ideal teaching context she dreamed about and the real context she teaches in, which creates conflicts and stress for her. For example, she seems to think a lot about the reasons for some of her students’ less than ideal academic achievement in standardized tests. She asks questions like, “Are all these hands-on [activities] that we do in Villa a waste of time? Should we care that these kids do not score as high as Uptown Middle School? Does it have anything to do with hands-on versus bookwork? Is it just socioeconomics?” Sara blames herself in some of the situations in which she does not get desired results in terms of student success. She sets high standards for herself to reach the ideals in her mind and not being able to meet those ideals causes stress for her. She also recognizes that the accountability for standardized tests and additional responsibilities that she has in her school other than teaching cause additional stress. Sara has less teaching experience and lower confidence in her content knowledge compared to Suzan, which seems to be the reasons for the stress and conflicts she feels. While Suzan has figured out how to deal with the conflicts and challenges she faces, Sara still struggles with figuring out how to do just that.

196 Sara’s beliefs influence her practices and the methods she uses just like Suzan. Having values in the turquoise belief system, Sara keeps a broad perspective about the purpose of education that helps her focus her goals as a science teacher. She sees teaching science (or any other subject) as a canvas for achieving the purpose of education that she believes in, which is empowering students. She wants her students to be empowered by learning science, which means having more choices in their lives thanks to their knowledge in science. For example, as they go on with their education, Sara wants her students to be able to use their science knowledge to advance and achieve their goals. Another reflection of Sara’s values in the turquoise belief system is that she values learning based on understanding rather than memorizing. Similar to Suzan, Sara thinks that learning is the responsibility of students and she sees her role as to help students and be a guide to them in their learning. She wants to find and nurture students’ interests so that they keep being interested in learning science. She believes that students learn best when they feel responsible for what they are doing and when they are active. This is why she uses hands-on activities very often. She thinks that hands-on activities are the best way to make students feel responsible and be active in their learning. Sara also emphasizes learning in the way she uses assessment in her teaching. For example, when many students do not get good grades in a test, she re-teaches that subject until her students’ learning is improved. This is a way of incorporating formative aspects in the way she uses assessment. She does not want assessment to be a punishment for her students. One difference between Sara and Suzan is that, in all the activities and methods she uses, Sara wants to be the perfect guide for her students and be able to answer all of their questions. However, not being able to do so makes her feel that she is weak in her content knowledge. The standardized tests and state mandates require her to teach a large amount of content and she feels like she does not have enough time to cover everything properly. This situation creates conflicts and stress for Sara. She also has a tendency to internalize blame when her students’ academic achievement is less than ideal, which result in more stress. She focuses on what she might have done wrong when her students do not get good grades in tests and the way she uses assessment reflect this internal focus of responsibility (i.e. re-teaching until their grades are improved). Sara’s personality and her views about the student context in her school also influence her attitudes in her teaching. She explained that many students in her school have had bad experiences with schooling in the past and she sees her role as to provide a more caring and

197 accepting environment for them. With her passion and caring, Sara sets high standards for herself, but the state policies do not seem to be helpful to Sara in her desire to achieve those standards. In contrast, Suzan is comfortable in assuming the role of a co-learner with her students and discuss with them content that she is not sure about. She does not worry about knowing everything since she sees herself as a learner. Suzan takes the issue of responsibility seriously and when her students act irresponsibly or do not study, she is more comfortable with allowing them to suffer the consequences rather than blaming herself (unlike Sara). However, it is also important to keep in mind that the student population Suzan has is different than Sara’s students and she does not have the worries that Sara has for her students. Sara cares about her students and their feelings very much, which is an attitude common to the green belief system. She is very attentive to her students’ feelings and emotions and she is a very emotional person herself. She tries to create an environment in her classroom in which her students feel safe and comfortable. She is a successful teacher in making her classes fun and enjoyable where her students can freely express their opinions. She uses classroom discussions often in her teaching and in these discussions she respects her students’ views and listens to them even if they sound odd. Similar to Suzan, Sara also respects other peoples’ beliefs; however, She feels uncomfortable in dealing with people who force her to believe in a certain way or who offend others for their beliefs. Those who promote religious beliefs especially bother her. She explained that she is in search of spirituality in her life and she does not have strong religious beliefs. Besides the turquoise and green worldviews, Sara also values the purple belief system. She does not value the magical and mystical view of the world held by this belief system, but rather she values the sense of community among the teachers in her school where she feels like they are struggling for a common cause, which is a characteristic of the purple belief system. She also values the support that her colleagues provide for each other in her school. During our interviews, she mentioned that she appreciates the support she is getting from administration for her teaching. This sense of community valued by the purple belief system seems appealing to Sara.

198 Assertions about Aylin Aylin’s worldview is dominated by her values in the yellow and turquoise belief systems. Her worldview is also more expressive (individual-focus) compared to other teachers, mainly because of her high acceptance of the yellow belief system. This means that expression of self has a higher priority for Aylin than communal relationships. This does not mean that Aylin does not value communal relationships; it means that she sees herself more of an independent person rather than being part of a group. This is reflected in her desire not to have interference from anyone in her teaching. She wants to have complete control in deciding what to teach or what to do in her classes, especially for teaching social science. She has a high degree of self-confidence in her teaching, but when it comes to teaching science, she is more open to suggestions or help from outside due to her lower confidence in her science content knowledge. She feels like she does not have the content knowledge she needs to guide her students in science as much as she can in social science. Another reflection of Aylin’s values in the yellow belief system is her frustration with the education system she works in. People who value the yellow belief system become frustrated if they think the system they work in is inefficient. This is how Aylin feels about standardized tests, accountability, and her school’s demand for doing a lot of paperwork to show that she follows the required policies and procedures in her teaching. Even though she sometimes gets very frustrated, she has a positive attitude towards the realities of the world around her. For example, when I asked her, “How do you deal with the challenges you face?” she answered,

I laugh about them, but I don’t know if that always works. I just see what I can learn from it. Because really, whenever you feel frustrated or upset it is because you are desiring something that you are not getting and so if you can let go of that preconceived notion of what should be, you won’t feel that way quite as much. (Interview with Aylin)

This means, Aylin is willing to accept the outside world as it is, even if she feels uncomfortable with some aspects of it. In contrast, Sara internalizes the problems she faces and thus has more stress when she faces with conflicts and challenges in her job. As a reflection of her values in the turquoise belief system, Aylin also has a broad perspective about the purpose of education. She has similar beliefs about education and teaching and learning to Suzan and Sara. She believes that the purpose of education is to provide the skills

199 and knowledge students need to pursue their passions in life and she also believes that education is about personal development. Similar to Suzan and Sara, this perspective about education guides Aylin’s teaching. However, her teaching practices are different compared to Suzan and Sara. Unlike Sara, Aylin rarely uses hands-on activities because she does not want to go into activities in which she does not feel confident in guiding her students due to her low confidence in her science content knowledge. She uses classroom discussions often in her teaching and emphasizes social aspects of science and its relevance to life. She explained that her social science background may be influencing the way she teaches science. Aylin agrees to Suzan and Sara that students should take responsibility in their learning. To help them understand their responsibility, she teaches them how to behave and what are the consequences of misbehavior. She sees her role as a teacher as to model learning for her students; in other words she tries to teach them how to learn regardless of the subject she teaches. However, she is worried that in science (and mathematics) she may become too much of a learner and get into the way of her students’ learning because of her low level of content knowledge. In this sense she is comfortable with assuming the role of a co-learner; however, she thinks that teachers need to have a certain amount of content knowledge in order to guide their students. Similar to her beliefs about the roles of teachers in teaching and learning, Aylin believes that ideally schools should provide a model for students for the real life that they will face after completing their formal education by giving them more responsibility for their actions and allowing them to face the consequences of their actions. However, she thinks that students’ behaviors are controlled by the adults to protect them and schools become places that do not simulate the real life. Aylin’s beliefs about the ideal role of schools in education indicate her long-range thinking about this issue, which is a characteristic of the yellow belief system. Aylin’s belief about the roles of teachers in teaching and learning is also parallel to her beliefs about assessment. She believes that assessment is a way for her to see if she is doing a good job in her teaching. This view about assessment seems to reflect her expressive (or individual-focus) worldview. However, she admits that she does not always use assessment this way because of the pressure coming from parents. Parents want to see grades for their kids and therefore the way Aylin uses assessment ends up being more summative (judgment of success) than formative.

200 Aylin believes that part of her role as a teacher is to nurture her students. She tries to provide a safe environment for her students, where they can questions, make mistakes, and feel accepted. During class discussions, she creates scenarios to which students can respond and express their opinions freely. She values every student’s opinion even if they sound odd. Similar to Suzan, she is also successful in communicating with her students about what responsibilities they have and how should they behave in her classes. These attitudes are reflected in Aylin’s values in the green belief system. However, her acceptance of this belief system decreased in time because of the changes in her thinking about the values of this belief system (as explained in Table 9). Aylin explained that she now believes that people should accept more responsibility for their actions and exercise their rights, which is a notion lacking in the green belief system. This is what Aylin expects from her students as well.

Assertions about Brian Brian values the blue belief system more than the other belief systems in his worldview. He describes himself as a religious and conservative person and he bases all his beliefs on these two values, which is a characteristic of the blue belief system. Having a dominantly blue worldview means that he values loyalty, respect for authority, traditions and community relations. This reflects in his beliefs about education and the educational system he works in. For example, Brian did not express negative feelings about the education system he works in during our interviews. He believes that standardized testing and teacher accountability should be part of today’s education system. He thinks that it is a good thing to include science in standardized tests because it puts emphasis on science education. He also believes that teachers should be held accountable for their teaching. Standardized testing and accountability are policies that originate from a blue belief system because of the authoritarian attitude implied in these policies and the consequences imposed on schools and teachers. Therefore, the fact that Brian agrees with these policies of the educational system is consistent with his dominantly blue worldview. This is why he does not feel the stress and frustration with the policies of the education system unlike Sara and Aylin. Brian does not disagree with the other three teachers’ beliefs about the purpose of education; however, he believes that the purpose of the education also includes preparing the future citizens and the job force that the society needs. This is a belief that is not agreed by the

201 other three teachers, and it is consistent with Brian’s values in the blue belief system. Brian also believes that education starts as the responsibility of the state and at a certain stage it becomes the responsibility of students. During our interviews, Brian argued that many students do not realize this responsibility and expect continuous adult supervision in their education. He expects students to share the responsibility of their learning with the teacher and take initiatives in their learning process; however, he does so from a blue belief system perspective. In this sense, Brian’s beliefs about students’ role in the teaching and learning process are different than the other three teachers’ beliefs. One difference is that other teachers believe that most of the responsibility for learning lies with students and the role of the teachers is to help with their learning. Whereas Brian splits that responsibility more equally between teachers and students by saying “I expect them to meet me maybe not all the time half way, but at least part of the way.” What Brian means by this is that students should behave in a way they are supposed to, such as, do homework, come to class prepared, and participate in class activities. Similar to Brian, Suzan also believes that students should be responsible for their learning; however, in contrast to Brian, she uses methods to help her students to understand their responsibility whereas Brian simply expects it. She puts more emphasis on modifying the strategies she uses for teaching with the knowledge she gathers about her students’ learning and their way of making sense. Aylin also shares the belief that students should be responsible in their learning and similar to Suzan she is successful in teaching this responsibility to her students in the form of classroom rules. Sara also believes that students should be responsible in their learning; however, because of her emotional character, she blames herself for her students’ academic failures or she acts emotionally when her students behave inappropriately rather than exploring ways to help them understand their responsibilities. In brief, I argue that Suzan and Aylin have more sophisticated approaches in helping their students understand their roles and responsibilities, which is consistent with their worldviews. Another difference between Brian’s and other teachers’ beliefs is the way Brian sees his role as a teacher. He uses the “coach” metaphor to describe the ideal role of a teacher, which implies that the teacher presents the strategies and knowledge to the students and students should do their part to be successful. The role of a teacher in the coach metaphor Brian talked about also seems to imply more authority for the teacher compared to Suzan, Sara, and Aylin, who see their roles as to help students learn rather than teach them. Suzan’s beliefs about her role include

202 being a co-learner with her students and facilitating their thinking. Sara’s understanding of her role includes organizing the activities in her classes in a way to nurture her students’ interests and guiding their learning through discussions. Aylin sees her role as to be a model for her students in their learning. Brian’s beliefs about students’ and teachers’ roles in teaching and learning are compatible with his dominantly blue worldview and are different from the other three teachers. In his practice, Brian mainly uses lecturing and not many hands-on activities. He cites the unavailable resources in his school and safety concerns as the reasons for not being able to do hands-on activities. He criticizes teachers who do hands-on activities and experiments in school facilities that have incomplete safety equipment. This shows that Brian values the notion of going by the book in his practices, which is another attitude consistent with his dominantly blue worldview. One of the main differences between Brian’s beliefs about the purpose of teaching and learning compared with the other teachers is his emphasis on content. According to Brian, the purpose of teaching and learning science is to achieve scientific literacy in science. Brian wants his students to understand science so that they can make informed decisions about science related issues that affect them or their society. He wants his students to have opinions about environmental and other popular science related issues, and he often refers his students to the newspaper articles about science for this purpose. In contrast, Suzan thinks that learning the content is a natural consequence of developing a responsibility for learning. Aylin and Sara’s views on this issue are closer to Suzan’s view. The way Brian uses assessment is parallel to his emphasis on content in his teaching. He uses a system in which most assignments or tests he gives to his students worth a point that counts toward a total, which determines students’ final grades, which is a summative form of assessment. Teaching methods Brian uses and his beliefs about the purpose of science education are parallel to the way he uses assessment and compatible with his values in his worldview. Besides the blue belief system, Brian also values the green belief system. His values in the green belief system are reflected in his attitudes. For example, he takes charge in the administration of a teacher union organization and also local science fair events. During one of our interviews, Brian explained that his does not agree with all aspects of the teacher union organization that he works for; however, he values the idea that everyone should have a chance to express their opinions and be heard. This belief also conforms to Brian’s values in the green

203 belief system. He explained that unions are associated with liberal thinking, but he sees himself more of a conservative person, which shows that his values in the blue belief system are more important to him.

Comparison of the four teachers The above assertions include comparisons of the findings about the four participating teachers. In this section, I made further comparisons among the participating teachers’ beliefs, worldviews and practices. When one looks at the assertions about each of the participating teachers, it is possible to see the commonalities and differences between their worldviews and beliefs. Comparison of these teachers shows the usefulness of the worldview model in understanding the relations between teachers’ worldviews, beliefs, and practices. Teachers who have similar worldviews also have similar beliefs. While the link between worldviews and beliefs is more evident, the influence of worldviews on attitudes and practices are also influenced by context. When there is a mismatch between the worldviews and context, teachers feel conflicts, frustration, stress, or discontent. The way they deal with these problems is different for each teacher. Starting with the yellow and turquoise worldview levels, people seem to have more confidence in their ability to bring about change around them (which is defined as self-efficacy by Bandura, 1994) and less fear of the outside world, which is the case for Suzan and Aylin. This seems to be a result of a more developed and sophisticated perception of the world (Beck and Cowan, 1996). People who operate from these levels have more of an internal locus of control in their behaviors compared to the people who operate from the purple, blue, and green belief systems; yet their concern is the development of the whole system they live in (society, country, humanity, earth) rather than their personal interests unlike the people who operate from the red and orange belief systems. Sara has an internal locus of control similar to Suzan and Aylin; however, her attitude of blaming herself and not being sure about how to bring about change in her environment seems to be where she is having difficulty. Brian on the other hand has more of an external locus of control and he tends to hold his environment responsible in bringing about change more so than himself. One example that shows the link between worldview and beliefs is that Suzan, Sara, and Aylin value the turquoise belief system in their worldviews and at the same time they all have similar beliefs and perspectives about the purpose of education. They all believe that education is

204 about personal development and they see the purpose of education as providing individuals the skills and knowledge they need to grow intellectually, pursue their goals in life, and have more options in life. Also all three of them think that the subject they are teaching is only the medium they use for achieving the bigger goals of education. Because of this belief, science education is more than delivering a certain amount of content for these teachers. These similarities in these teachers’ beliefs and worldviews seem to parallel each other, which is one of the interesting findings of this study. Another example is the attitudes of Suzan, Sara, and Aylin regarding people who have dominantly blue worldviews in particular. Suzan, Sara, and Aylin have high rejection for the blue belief system while Brian highly accepts it. This creates a difference between Brian’s beliefs and values and the other three teachers’ beliefs and values. During our interviews, Suzan, Sara, and Aylin expressed discomfort with dealing with people who have a blue worldview; however, their discomfort is not with the values of the blue belief system per se. They feel uncomfortable with dealing with people who attack others for not sharing their beliefs, which is a common attitude among people who have first-tear values. They especially reject the idea of “one true way” which is also a characteristic of the blue belief system. This is an indication that the common values in their worldviews have common influences on these teachers’ relations with people who operate from the blue belief system. Working in an education system that operates from the blue belief system with its authoritarian, going by the book, and traditional values, also creates discomfort for Suzan, Sara, and Aylin since they do not share this worldview. Suzan is very successful in dealing with her discomfort thanks to her teaching experience and her beliefs. Aylin and to a larger degree Sara feel stress and frustration with the values of the education system that they work in. In contrast, Brian’s worldview is compatible with the educational system and he did not express discomfort with it. This is why he does not share many of the frustrations and stress that Sara and Aylin have. Brian’s complaints mainly focused on the school system that he works in which went thorough a major modification to test the applicability of an academy model. Brian believes that this transition has been largely unsuccessful and as a result the physical resources of the school diminished that are necessary for quality science teaching. Brian blames this situation for many of the problems he is having in his teaching, for example not having a suitable classroom, enough laboratory materials, and enough physical space.

205 Still another example that shows the link between worldviews and beliefs is that the fact that the orange belief system is one of the least valued belief system among Suzan, Sara, Aylin, and Brian. They all share negative feelings about the success driven materialism and seeing others as competitors. During our interviews, Suzan, Sara, and Aylin explained that they see competition as a way to improve themselves, in other words they believe in competition within themselves not with others. This internal focus for development is a drive for them to try to search for new ways to improve their practice and learn new things. This similarity among these three teachers’ beliefs seems to be associated with the similarities among their worldviews. Brian did not express similar opinions because he has a different worldview. A final example is that all of the teachers share high values for the green belief system (though, Aylin’s values for this belief system has decreased over time). This similarity is evident from their beliefs and attitudes. They all respect other people’s beliefs as long as their beliefs are not attacked or offended. In their practices Suzan, Sara, and Aylin respect their students’ views and opinions and they listen to them carefully during classroom discussion. They try to address their students’ needs by creating a safe, comfortable, and enjoyable environment for them. Suzan and Brian are active in the local teacher communities and they try to contribute to these communities with their service. All of these attitudes can be associated to these teachers’ values for the green belief system in their worldviews. When it comes to the relation between worldviews and practice, teachers prioritize their beliefs based on the structure of their worldviews and with the influence of their contexts. Worldviews characterize teachers’ confidence levels and their locus of control and combined with the influence of context and teaching experience behaviors and attitudes are shaped. For example, while Suzan and Sara share similar values in their worldviews, Suzan is a more experienced and confident teacher. Sara seems unsure about the effectiveness of the methods she uses and she feels more stress with the state’s educational policies. Suzan on the other hand is not as much bothered with the educational policies even though she does not agree with all of them. She thinks that she has the power to do whatever she wants within any educational system and that other teachers have the same power too, however, they need to realize their powers. Suzan does not have fear in her behaviors and attitudes while with Sara fears failing her job. It is important to compare Suzan and Sara’s teaching contexts when comparing their practices. Suzan’s students seem to be more mature and academically high level, which probably makes it

206 easier for Suzan to actualize her beliefs in her practices. Sara’s students on the other hand are younger and less mature and they are not academically as high level as Suzan’s students. Facing a different teaching context than she imagined forces Sara to prioritize her beliefs that allow her to survive rather than actualize her ideals. Suzan explained that when she has difficult students, her classes become much more structured. These are indications of the influence of the student context on teacher behaviors. Suzan is able to adapt to her environment and the needs of her students, which shows the sophistication of her belief structures, while Sara is learning to deal with hear teaching context. Another thing that influence practices is the teaching experience and content knowledge. Suzan has almost 20 years of teaching experience and she is a confident teacher in both her content knowledge and her teaching practice. She explained that it took time for her to increase her confidence in her content knowledge during her career. Sara on the other hand, has much less experience compared to Suzan and she has lower confidence in her content knowledge and her teaching. Aylin has almost 10 years of teaching experience and she is a confident teacher, however she started teaching science only a year before this study was conducted and she does not feel confident in her science content knowledge. Because of her confidence in her teaching though, Aylin does not feel stressed in her job as much as Sara. Brian has the most teaching experience and he is a confident teacher in both his content knowledge and teaching. However, when Suzan and Brian are compared, their teaching methods and beliefs about educational issues differ because of the differences in their worldviews. A final comparison of these teachers is about their self-efficacy beliefs and how these beliefs relate to their worldviews. Self-efficacy beliefs is defined by Tschannen-Morana & Hoy (2001) as,

Teacher efficacy is a simple idea with significant implications. A teacher’s efficacy belief is a judgment of his or her capabilities to bring about desired outcomes of student engagement and learning, even among those students who may be difficult or unmotivated (Armor et al., 1976; Bandura, 1977). This judgment has powerful effects. (p. 783)

Based on this definition, it is possible to argue that Suzan and Aylin have stronger self-efficacy beliefs compared to Sara and Brian. Suzan and Aylin have high acceptance points for the turquoise and yellow belief systems. Self-confidence and the feeling of self worth is one of the

207 characteristics of these belief systems. In their practice, both Suzan and Aylin have confidence in themselves to bring about desired changes in their students. On the other hand Sara’s acceptance of the turquoise belief system is relatively less compared to Suzan and Aylin and more importantly she is a less experienced teacher. Hence her self-efficacy beliefs are not as strong as Suzan and Aylin. She puts the blame on herself more than anyone else for the problems she is facing. When it comes to Brian, he seems to believe that most of the problems he is facing originate outside of himself (especially from his school’s structure). In this sense, his self- efficacy beliefs are not as strong as Suzan and Aylin even though he has more experience than they do. This is an attitude common among people who have a dominantly blue worldview. In brief, teachers’ worldviews affect every aspect of their lives. Their beliefs, values, feelings, practices, and relationships are all influenced by their worldviews. Teachers who share similar worldviews have similar beliefs about educational issues. However, their practices are influenced by experience and context as well. Since these teachers’ beliefs are based on their worldviews, if they face with conflicts between their beliefs and their experiences, they feel stress and frustration. Based on these conclusions, it is possible that teachers having similar worldviews may also have similar attitudes and practices provided that their contexts and level of experiences are similar as well. The worldview model offer a holistic perspective of teachers’ beliefs and it is a useful tool to understand how their beliefs fit together within a structure.

Changes In Worldviews

Even though worldviews form in long time periods and are resistant to change, people do modify their worldviews in the face of changing life conditions provided that the conditions Beck and Cowan (1996) suggest are met. Change in teachers’ worldviews is desired within the framework of reform efforts in science education. Educating science teachers so that they utilize inquiry in their teaching, understand the notions of learning how to learn and becoming life long learners, and use formative methods of assessment more often is the goal of current reform. The worldview model suggested by Graves (1981) and Beck and Cowan (1996) provide a framework for how desired changes may happen within teachers’ worldviews and consequently their beliefs and behaviors. While this study did not go into the process of change, their framework may be useful for teacher educators. The first condition Beck and Cowan talk about for change is

208 “potential,” which means individuals tendency to change. They categorize people as “open, arrested, or closed” in terms of their potential to change. Based on the findings of this study, I assert that Suzan is the most open participant to change since she seeks change herself. Aylin is also an open person to change, because she is willing to accept the world as it is and try to understand it rather than feel stressed by it. Sara probably fits in the arrested category, which means, she has potential to change but because of the constraints that exist within her context, she does not now how to change. In order for change to happen within Sara’s worldview, she needs to resolve her immediate problems by eliminating the barriers she faces. A supervision of a mentor might be useful for Sara to break out of constrains and stress she feels. When it comes to Brian, it seems he fits within the closed category. He believes that most of the problems he faces in his teaching originate from outside of himself, which indicates that his potential to change is less than the other three teachers. Beck and Cowan (1996) provide more detailed explanation the dynamics of change in their book Spiral Dynamics. Based on the framework they provide, I argue that one of the goals of education should be promoting openness to change both for students and teachers. Change within people’s worldviews may happen as a natural consequence of changes in their life conditions or when there is a deliberate attempt to change people worldviews in order to achieve a more sophisticated understanding of the world and other worldviews, hence achieve harmony. The results of the Values Test provided some insight into what changes have occurred within the participating teachers worldview during an eight-month period. Suzan, Sara, Aylin, and Brian took the Values Test with about eight months interval. When the results of the test scores for each time compared during interviews, it became evident that there was not too much variation. Some of the variations were caused because of random reasons, such as giving the wrong score to the wrong item, misreading a question, or making a momentary judgment about an item that changed later. However, some of the variations seemed to have causes within recent experiences of the teachers. For example for Suzan, the most notable change in her scores is the decreased rejection of the red worldview. To explain this change, she talked about her recent encounter with one of her student’s parent about an event that took place in her classroom that involved cheating. Suzan described the parent as rude and egocentric who reflected behaviors of a person with a red belief system. She said that in the past she would try to argue with this kind of a person trying to convince him about her opinions. She explained that her attitude against this

209 type of people has changed and rather than falling into the reactive trap the parent was setting up, she responded by saying the student was in her class by choice and that if the parents were uncomfortable they should remove the student and get another teacher. She did not want to argue with the parent because she saw the futility in doing so. Also the September 11 events made Suzan believe that there are times to use violence against others, which is a characteristic of the red thinking and as a result her rejection of this belief system decreased. Another notable change in Suzan’s scores is her increased rejection of the blue worldview. This is also the most significant change in Sara’s scores. Both Suzan and Sara talked about their recent encounters with strongly religious people who criticized them for their beliefs. They both feel very negatively about people who attack or bother others for not sharing similar beliefs with them. Suzan and Sara are open-minded when it comes to religion and they question religious constructs, which is a different way of thinking than the blue worldview. Both Suzan and Sara explain that they respect other people’s beliefs, but they don’t share the “one true way, loyalty, respect for authority” kind of thinking of the blue worldview. In Aylin’s scores, the most significant change is the decrease in her acceptance scores for green worldview and also the increase in her rejection scores for the green worldview. She explained the reason for this difference as a recent change in her thinking about the issues that are important for the green belief system, such as “every human being is equal.” She explained that a book that she read recently made her think that equality for everyone in itself does not grant equal life conditions for every people. People need to take actions and exercise their equal rights so that equality has a meaning. Aylin explained that this change in her thinking made the green worldview less appealing to her because of the lack of emphasis for action in that way of thinking. For Brian, the main change in his scores is the decreased rejection of the red worldview. During our interview, he explained that the time of the year might have been the reason for the difference in his scoring. He explained that when the first time he took the Values Test, it was a more stressful time for him, when he did not have a classroom of his own and he had to move around the school building for his classes. My interpretation of this is that more stress made it difficult for Brian to deal with people who operate from the red worldview (many students do) and his rejection was higher. The second time he took the test, he had a classroom of his own and he did not have as much stress and his rejection scores decreased.

210 In brief, these findings show that environment and experiences cause changes in people’s worldviews. These changes may be temporary or overtime they may become more permanent. These results only show short-term fluctuations in worldviews; however, overall worldviews seem to be robust constructs that do not change easily since they are formed over long periods of time with immeasurable amounts of experience.

211 CHAPTER 6

DISCUSSION

Conclusions

In terms of systems engineering, present policy seems to treat the classroom as a black box. Certain inputs from the outside are fed in or make demands - pupils, teachers, other resources, management rules and requirements, parental anxieties, tests with pressures to score highly, and so on. Some outputs follow, hopefully pupils who are more knowledgeable and competent, better test results, teachers who are more or less satisfied, and more or less exhausted. But what is happening inside? How can anyone be sure that a particular set of new inputs will produce better outputs if we don’t at least study what happens inside? The answer usually given is that it is up to teachers - they have to make the inside work better. This answer is not good enough for two reasons. First, it is at least possible that some changes in the inputs may be counter-productive - making it harder for teachers to raise standards. Secondly, it seems strange, even unfair, to leave the most difficult piece of the standards-raising task entirely to teachers. If there are possible ways in which policy makers and others can give direct help and support to the everyday classroom task of achieving better learning, then surely these ways ought to be pursued vigorously. (Black and Wiliam, 1998, p. 1)

Black and Wiliam (1998) very nicely explain the current status of educational reform. In the United States, National Science Education Standards (National Research Council, 1996), Benchmarks for Science Literacy (American Association for the Advancement of Sscience, 1993), and Standards for Science Teacher Preparation (National Science Teachers Association, 2003) outline the reform suggestions in science education. These suggestions include inquiry based teaching, aiming for scientific-literacy, and encouraging teachers and students to become life-long learners. Science teachers are expected to implement these suggestions in the teaching and learning methods they use. In the United States, a common approach for implementing the reform suggestions has focused on content knowledge through the policy of standardization and accountability. This approach determines the expected outcomes while providing little or no help

212 to teachers and schools, and it holds them accountable for achieving the expected outcomes. Hart (2001) and Pinar (2004) argue that current emphasis on standardization and accountability in education has an adverse affect on teaching and learning in schools. Pinar argues that the standardization and accountability turns teachers into technicians and schools into “skill-and- knowledge” factories. He explains that politicians took control of the curriculum and turned it into an examination driven curricula and educators’ influence on curricula has decreased. Hart agrees by arguing that contemporary education mainly focuses on “downloading facts” and “fostering compliance.” How to apply suggestions for reform is an important issue. Some see teachers as the main agents of implementing the reform in science education (Bybee, 1993). As Pinar (2004) argues, educational policies that see teachers as technicians makes it difficult for teachers to realize their roles in educational reform. Therefore, educators should assist teachers to help them examine their beliefs about science teaching and learning in relation to reform suggestions to understand what needs to be done and take action to achieve success in reforming science education. To do so, teachers should be critical and reflective of their practice, which means they should become practitioners of their profession rather than technicians. Cox-Petersen (2001) and van Zee (1998) explain that teachers become practitioners when they engage in research activities to understand their own practice, their context, and their students. The idea of teachers doing research to improve their practice and their students’ learning is referred to as action research in the literature (Hewson et al., 1999; Kyle, 1997; Tabachnick & Zeichner, 1999). Reflection is a very important aspect of action research. Cox-Petersen (2001) argue, “When teachers reflect about their practice, they clarify their thinking, and anticipate decisions and future action” (p. 107). She goes on to say that reflecting on their practice “encourage teachers to take responsibility for professional growth” and “facilitate teachers' development of their own philosophy of education” (p. 107). Tabachnick & Zeichner (1999) explain,

A voluminous literature representing work in several countries has consistently reported that teachers who engage in action research generally become more aware of their own practices, of the gaps between their beliefs and practices, and of what their pupils are thinking, feeling, and learning. Research also shows that action research helps sharpen teachers’ reasoning capabilities and facilitates the development of dispositions to self- monitor one’s teaching practice over time (Biott, 1983; Elliott, 1980; Noffke & Zeichner, 1987; Ruddick, 1985; Zeichner, 1993). (p. 310)

213 They also argue that for action research to be useful for teachers, they need to share what they learned with others and listen to others’ suggestions and ideas and integrate all these into their thinking. Ultimately action needs to be taken based on what is learned as a result of action research and its findings need to be communicated to improve practice and student learning (Tabachnick & Zeichner, 1999). In brief, action research is a way for teachers to be critical and reflective of their beliefs and practice and it allows them to become learners through inquiry and research. There are of course other tools to help teachers to be reflective about their practice and beliefs, such as autobiographies, journals, and (Cox-Petersen, 2001). Helly (1993) provides a nice example of the usefulness of reflection as a way for improving a science teacher’s practice through action research and autobiography. Combined with these available tools, I argue that the worldview model suggested by Graves (1981) and Beck and Cowan (1996) provides an extra perspective and depth for teachers to understand their beliefs and values relative to their social and political context in a process of reflection. Their model also provides a framework of how change occurs within teachers’ worldviews and its necessary conditions. This framework can be a guide to educators who want to change teachers’ beliefs and practices through the use of reflective practices. Among the participants in this study, Suzan provides an excellent example of a teacher who has spent a lot of time reflecting on her practice through many research activities. Her values within her worldview parallel her highly developed understanding of her own practice and goals. She sees herself as a learner, she seeks criticism of her practice from others, she engages in action research to improve her practice and her students’ learning, and she is a confident teacher. In a sense, Suzan represents an ideal model of a teacher that the reform efforts in science education strive. Every teacher thinks about his or her own practice in one-way or another. However, in a reflective process they do so purposefully to study, understand, and improve their practice and their students’ learning. Such a process should include using certain methods of data collection, sharing of ideas, analysis, and action. In this sense, Suzan seems to be the only teacher who utilizes reflection effectively in her teaching among the four participants. Another argument that I have based on the analysis of findings is that reflective practices are more compatible with the more sophisticated levels in the worldview model proposed by Graves (1981) and Beck and Cowan (1996). The motivation for self-reflection in the turquoise

214 level can be the desire for understanding, in the yellow level it can be strategic long-range thinking, in the green level it can be the desire to meet the students’ needs, and in the orange level it can be success driven. It seems like blue and lower levels may not see a value in reflective practices because of their value structures. In the blue level, compliance for rules and directions from authority are the most important drive for practices. The common external locus of control in this level may also make it difficult for teachers to see a value in self-reflection if they operate from this level. In the purple level, teaching may be seen from a survival perspective, in other words, trying to get by through the day rather than thinking about improvement through reflection. In the red level, dominance is the desire and there is no room or need for self-reflection in this worldview perspective. Therefore I argue that teacher education programs, whether pre-service or in-service, should promote a developmental model for change in teachers’ thinking toward upper levels to help them become practitioners of their profession. The upper levels seem to be better fitted with a belief structure that may see a need or value in critical and reflective practices. The way to promote development toward up the levels in Grave’s (1981) worldview model may be possible through learning about this model itself. The case studies that I wrote for each participating teacher in this study, which include characterizations of their worldviews, could be used as a tool for reflection through another person’s eyes. During our interviews, all four teachers agreed with the comments that I wrote about them in their case studies (Sara and Brian made minor changes). Suzan and Aylin thought I did a very good job of depicting their beliefs and practice; Sara admitted that conflicts are the dominant theme between her beliefs and practice; Brian wanted me to change some wording in his case study but other than that he agreed with what I wrote. Ideally, I hope that the case studies that I wrote for each teacher would be a reference point for them to engage in further reflective activities in order to better understand their own beliefs and practices. However as I explained in the previous section, not all of the teachers have the same potential to change and engage in reflective practices. As Beck and Cowan (1996) argue, people only change their beliefs and worldviews when the necessary conditions exist, such as when they are faced with conflicts or when they see a need for change. If people do not see a need for change, their worldviews remain relatively unchanged over time. Changing teacher beliefs based on the reform suggestions is possible with teacher education, either in-service or pre-service. Hewson, Tabachnick, Zeichner, & Lemberger (1999)

215 argue that the idea of life-long learning and reflective practices should be part of every teacher education program. They provide a series of articles that outline results of a research study about teacher education with these components. Ultimately, the purpose of such teacher education programs is to turn schools into places of learning both for teachers and students, not factories of skill and knowledge. Therefore, a teacher education program that is designed to promote change through understanding worldviews and helping teachers reflect on their beliefs and practices through this understanding. In such programs, openness should be the central theme for helping teachers understand their context, others’ worldviews, and develop more sophisticated thinking to deal with their problems.

Implications

This study showed that every teacher has a different way of reacting to their environment and to the problems they face. For example, every teacher who participated in this study has different reactions and feelings about the standardization and accountability in education. This suggests that the idea of “one size fits all” is not be the best approach for reform in education. While standardization and using standard tests to assess students’ knowledge is an effort of increasing efficiency in an educational system, considering the pressure many teachers feel, perhaps the consequences of accountability on teachers (especially new teachers) need to be revised. Policies that put less pressure on teachers and emphasize learning more than test scores should be developed. The analysis of the findings shows that studying teacher beliefs from a worldview perspective is a useful model that can contribute to the research about teacher beliefs. Participating teachers’ beliefs about certain educational issues could have been investigated separately in different studies, but the worldview perspective provides a broader, more holistic picture of their belief systems. The worldview model takes into consideration not only what beliefs teachers have in relation to education, but also how these beliefs fit into a larger belief system, i.e. their worldview. Based on the findings of this research, it is possible to see that teachers held their beliefs about education related issues because these beliefs fit within their worldview.

216 Since it is argued in the literature that beliefs influence behavior more than knowledge, teacher beliefs and how these beliefs can be changed need to be understood (Kagan, 1992; Nespor, 1987; Pajares, 1992). As Pajares (1992) argue, teacher education programs have to pay attention to entering teachers’ beliefs and adjust their curriculum accordingly. Pre-service teachers may have naïve and idealistic ideas about teaching and learning. When they start teaching and realize that it is not what they imagined, they feel stress and their long held beliefs from their student years become the dominant factor that influence their behaviors rather than what they learned in a teacher education program (Pajares, 1992). In these situations, reflective and critical practices may help teachers to better understand their context and their beliefs and take action to improve their teaching. Assistance should be provided to teachers from educators to help them engage in such practices. Among the participating teachers especially Sara and also Aylin can use reflective practices to better understand and eliminate the conflicts they feel and take action to eliminate those conflicts. Brian may be less open to critical reflection in his teaching because of his worldview and personality. His years of experience allowed him to establish his beliefs and perceptions about himself and his environment in a way that is difficult to change. He matured within the thinking system of the blue worldview and since this thinking system works for him, he has no need to change it. Finally, another implication of this study is the suggestions that I have for the participating teachers. While Suzan is an ideal teacher who is able to break away from the constraints of the educational system in which she works, my suggestion to Suzan is political involvement in improving educational policy rather than just being involved in teacher education research. Based on the findings of this research, it seems Sara would appreciate help from someone who can help her adopt and utilize reflective practices in her teaching, such as action research, and with whom she can share her frustration and exchange ideas about her teaching. Sara is a passionate teacher who needs to understand her powers and become more confident in herself. I believe this will happen in time as she reflects on her teaching and gains more experience. Aylin should take more risks in teaching science and get into activities that she avoids. The experience she may gain with these activities may help her improve her self-efficacy beliefs in teaching science and in using hands on activities. Similar to Sara, Aylin can make use of reflection to improve her teaching. Brian has a very long teaching career and he wants to

217 move on and change his career to educational leadership. My suggestion to Brian is to pursue his goals and do what he wants to do.

Suggestions For Future Research

The main suggestion I have for future research is further investigation of teachers’ beliefs from the worldview perspective suggested by Graves (1981) and Beck and Cowan (1996) and testing the usefulness of this model in understanding teacher beliefs and its utility as a tool for reflective practices and change. Once the nature of teachers’ beliefs is better understood based on the worldview perspective, it is possible to develop critical and reflective methods that help teachers understand their beliefs in relation to their social and political context and use this understanding for improving their practice and their students’ learning. These methods may also catalyze change in teachers’ worldviews toward upper developmental levels, in other words, toward more open minded, questioning, and accepting attitude. Such methods should be an integral part of teacher education programs.

What Have I Learned?

During this research process, one thing that I understand better is the difficulty in working with teachers (or any other people). This difficulty arises from the responsibility on the shoulders of the researcher who should respect the research participants’ feelings and address their concerns during the research process. People who participate in a research study similar to this one may worry about how others will see them or what judgments will be made about them. The researcher has the responsibility to report his findings accurately, however, at the same time the researcher should not hurt the participants’ feelings. In this sense, there is a fine line between writing up the findings of a research and the language being used. Some simple semantics may have different meanings for different people and the researcher should be careful about the language he uses. This is something I learned when I gave the case studies back to teachers and asked them respond to it. I also struggled through writing the analysis and conclusions sections of this dissertation because of the fear of hurting participants’ feelings. I was always thinking

218 what they may think when they read what I wrote about them. This thinking coupled with the responsibility of reporting the results accurately proved to be a bigger challenge than I thought. Another thing that I learned during this research is that, some research participants may have different expectations about the outcome of the research than those of the researcher. For example, while they may wish to learn something from the research being done, the researcher may feel that there is not much he can offer to the research participants in terms of helping them learn new ideas or worse, he may not care. Not caring was certainly not the case in my study, however, I felt overwhelmed when Suzan asked me, “When do I get to learn?” What she meant was she wanted to get something out of this research process rather than seeing me just come into her classroom, collect data, ask questions, and leave eventually. Because of her worldview, she values and expects input from someone who observes her classes, however, I felt like, without any teaching experience and as a novice researcher I did not have much to offer her. In this study, since I studied teachers’ worldviews, I also had the chance to look at my worldview in comparison to others. I appreciated the insight the Grave’s (1981) and Beck and Cowan’s (1996) worldview model provided about my and other’s worldviews. I think thinking about my own worldview relative to others’ worldviews alone challenged my beliefs and forced me to question some of my own attitudes. Especially during my conversations with my friends about their beliefs and assumptions about life, I realized that no matter how logical my beliefs may be for me, they may make little sense to others. I learned that people’s worldviews are strong constructions that are not easily changed. Every person’s worldview makes as much sense to him or her as my worldview makes sense to me. Now I see better that there is no “one true way” that every body can agree about life. Or maybe I should say, “My one true way works only for me.” Therefore I am not as eager as I used to be to talk about my beliefs or discuss others’ beliefs about life.

Limitations

The most important limitation of this study is the complexity of people’s worldviews. Worldviews cannot be directly observed; however, since worldviews are belief systems, it is possible to make inferences about people’s worldview from their beliefs. Beliefs are inherently held constructs and therefore the only way to understand peoples’ beliefs is to talk with them and

219 observe their behaviors. As Wilber (1997) argues, studying beliefs has an interior focus, in other words the interior of people’s mind is the focus of research. Since the only access to people’s interior is communication, the researcher has to trust what people say about their beliefs. Wilber argues trustworthiness becomes the quality criteria in this type of research. In other words, individuals have to be trusted that that they are telling the truth about their beliefs. However, individuals may be fooling themselves about what they believe. It is possible that they have not given considerable thought to what they believe about a certain issue, they may lack the language to talk about exactly what they believe, they may want to give a certain image about themselves to others, or they may not want others to know what they believe. All these possibilities makes it difficult to access people’s belief and hence their worldviews. Because of this complexity, the information obtained about people’s worldview can only be partial and limited. Despite this complexity, it is possible to achieve trust in the quality of data obtained in research about beliefs or worldviews by using the quality criteria suggested by Guba and Lincoln (1989). Their suggestions for quality include trustworthiness, which is grounded in credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability. To ensure credibility in this study, I used multiple methods of data collection that included interviews, observations, surveys, and casual communications. Prolonged engagement was also another method I used to ensure credibility. I addressed the transferability criteria by using thick descriptions of participants’ beliefs, practices, and their context. This way, readers of this study can make judgments about the applicability of this study in other situations. The dependability criterion is addressed through clear description of methods I used in this study, which did not change since the planning period of this study. To address confirmability criteria, I tried to form a hermeneutic circle between the participants and me through communication of interpretations and I asked for feedback from each one of them. This allowed me to correct some misunderstandings and mistakes in my interpretations and writings. Also establishing a level of trust with the research participants is an important issue. The fact that the participants knew me before this study provided some of that trust. Despite these quality criteria that I utilized, I cannot claim that my understanding of the participating teachers’ worldviews is absolute.

220 APPENDIX A

THE VALUES TEST: MAPPING THE CURRENTS OF CHANGE Written by Don Edward Beck and Christopher C. Cowan (2000)

Instructions

There are 20 separate questions with seven options under each. You will have a total of 15 (fifteen) points to distribute or “spend” among the 7 options in each of the questions. For example, you may choose to put all 15 points on a single statement, or divide the points between just two statements, or break up the 15 points in any other distribution you find appropriate. Be sure the total set adds up to 15. There will be a total of 300 points used in the test.

1. I LIKE A JOB WHERE . . . a. loyalty earns greater job security and we are treated fairly. b. I make lots of cash, people stay off of my back, and I can do what I want. c. our primary concern is the health of the planetary living system. d. our circle is stronger as we work together and sacrifice for each other. e. successful performance advances my career and I can get ahead. f. human feelings and needs come first as we all share equally in a caring community. g. systemic and long-range thinking count more than people, money, traditions, or quick fixes.

221 2. THE WORDS AND PHRASES DESCRIBE ME BEST . . . a. a world citizen; interested in a grand synthesis of all energy, matter, and life in the universe. b. a person who loves power; lives for the moment; likes to be respected for feats of strength, intelligence, or conquest. c. a kindred spirit; clannish and superstitious; senses the spirits in nature, objects, animals. d. a humanist egalitarian; believes every human being should have an equal opportunity for development. e. a competitor who values material possessions and technology; thinks pragmatically; pursues success. f. a person with strong moral convictions; patriotic; caught up in culture pride; a true believer. g. a non-materialist; non-compulsive; internally-driven; variety seeking; accepts life as what it is.

3. I PREFER AN ORGANIZATION THAT . . . a. treats everybody by the same rules and is committed to going by the book. b. lets me cream what I can off the top and gives me the respect I deserve. c. adapts to its natural environments so the organizational form is determined by its current functions. d. connects to a global network of information and makes decisions based on nature's ordered systems. e. preserves our traditional customs, observes seasonal celebrations, and protects our close-knit groups. f. tend to the inner and outer health of all of its people so they can become fully human. g. thinks strategically and acts competitively to be successful in its niche.

222 4. PAY AND REWARDS SHOULD BE DETERMINED BY . . . a. what people like me need to keep the wolf away from the door. b. individual contributions based on knowledge, levels of competency, and degree of importance to the function. c. what you're powerful and quick enough to get, since it's everybody for themselves in this dog- eat-dog world. d. the collective needs of the entire human community so they benefit everyone instead of the select few. e. personal ambition and initiative, successful accomplishments, and the willingness to risk. f. what fosters the development of perspectives and programs that contribute to global survival. g. the need to maintain our standard of living, honor seniority and loyal service, and provide for rainy days ahead.

5. MY OWN CAREER PRIORITIES ARE DETERMINED BY . . . a. whatever will allow my work group to stay together like a family. b. what I have to do to get what I want without having to give in to anybody or conform to any system. c. what is just and proper, since my job and profession should reflect my rightful place in society. d. the goals I have set for myself in my pursuit of the good things in life. e. how I can dedicate myself on behalf of human causes that work to reduce hunger, poverty, racism, and violence. f. what I really want to be doing, now, even if it may mean charting a whole new course. g. a need to unite with other minds around the planet to work for a new global order.

223 6. THE WORLD IS . . . a. under the control of destiny and the direction of the Higher Power. b. like a jungle where the strongest and most cunning must exploit to survive. c. an elegantly balanced system of interlocking forces. d. a magical place alive with spirit beings where there’s safety and security in tribal ways. e. a pool of unlimited possibilities and opportunities for those willing to take some risks. f. the human habitat in which we share the experiences of living. g. a chaotic organism driven by differences and change, but with no guarantees.

7. IN AN IDEAL WORLD . . . a. we feel safe knowing the spirits of our ancestors watch over us. b. I’ve been heroic in conquest and my name will live forever. c. righteousness triumphs over evil and the faithful receive their just rewards. d. I have achieved material success and enjoy the very finest this world has to offer. e. we all join hands and hearts to prosper equally in peace and togetherness. f. our population matches the available natural resources, as each person learns to do more with less. g. all living things cohabit Earth in balance and harmony as part of the universal order.

224 8. WHENEVER I’M CRITICIZED, IT’S USUALLY FOR BEING . . . a. too rebellious and self-centered, a power-seeker who likes to rock the boat and gratify senses. b. too ambitious and materialistic, a wheeler-dealer game-player who exploits others in an attempt to “win.” c. too abstract and metaphysical, something of a spiritual wanderer caught up with planetary issues. d. too sensitive and caring with people, a naïve social worker type who is blind to the realities of life. e. too rigid and judgmental, a person who is such a true believer life becomes narrow, restrictive, and unforgiving. f. too superstitious and mystical, a person plagued by charms, spirits, fortune, and spells. g. too aloof and detached, an individual who does his own thing. Lacking self-sacrifice and commitment to others’ good.

9. WHEN UNDER REAL STRESS I . . . a. rely on my faith and convictions to see me through adversity. b. get down and fight even harder to survive in the world where “the toughest get the mostest.” c. recognize why it’s there and decide whether to live with it or remove it, even if it means a complete life style change. d. shift to another plane of consciousness to transcend the animalistic elements producing it. e. do things to make fortune smile on me and go to where I feel safe. f. maneuver strategically to influence both people and events to get back in control of the situation. g. seek support and assistance from others to explore and deal with my feelings and fears.

225 10. MY DEEPEST BELIEFS AND VALUES . . . a. come from the customs of my people and our ancestral folk ways. b. are what I want them to be and its nobody’s business but my own. c. stand on the firm foundation of my faith and the One True Way. d. grow from confidence that we have the power to shape tomorrow. e. emerge from an acceptance of our need for interdependency and sharing. f. reflect very personal views of what will work in a complex and changing world. g. blend my energies with natural forces in the universe beyond time and space.

11. IN MY JOB, IT’S LESS IMORTANT THAT. . . a. loyalty earns greater job security and we are treated fairly. b. I make lots of cash, people stay off of my back, and I can do what I want. c. our primary concern is the health of the planetary living system. d. our circle is stronger as we work together and sacrifice for each other. e. successful performance advances my career and I can get ahead. f. human feelings and needs come first as we all share equally in a caring community. g. systemic and long-range thinking count more than people, money, traditions, or quick fixes.

226 12. THESE WORDS AND PHRASES DO NOT DESCRIBE ME . . . a. a world citizen; interested in a grand synthesis of all energy, matter, and life in the universe. b. a person who loves power; lives for the moment; likes to be respected for feats of strength, intelligence, or conquest. c. a kindred spirit; clannish and superstitious; senses the spirits in nature, objects, animals. d. a humanist egalitarian; believes every human being should have an equal opportunity for development. e. a competitor who values material possessions and technology; thinks pragmatically; pursues success. f. a person with strong moral convictions; patriotic; caught up in culture pride; a true believer. g. a non-materialist; non-compulsive; internally-driven; variety seeking; accepts life as what it is.

13. I DON’T THINK IT’S IMPORTANT FOR ME TO WORK FOR AN ORGANIZATION THAT . . . a. treats everybody by the same rules and is committed to going by the book. b. lets me cream what I can off the top and gives me the respect I deserve. c. adapts to its natural environments so the organizational form is determined by its current functions. d. connects to a global network of information and makes decisions based on nature's ordered systems. e. preserves our traditional customs, observes seasonal celebrations, and protects our close-knit groups. f. tend to the inner and outer health of all of its people so they can become fully human. g. thinks strategically and acts competitively to be successful in its niche.

227 14. IT’S LESS IMPORTANT THAT PAY AND REWARDS BE DETERMINED BY… a. what people like me need to keep the wolf away from the door. b. individual contributions based on knowledge, levels of competency, and degree of importance to the function. c. what you're powerful and quick enough to get, since it's everybody for themselves in this dog- eat-dog world. d. the collective needs of the entire human community so they benefit everyone instead of the select few. e. personal ambition and initiative, successful accomplishments, and the willingness to risk. f. what fosters the development of perspectives and programs that contribute to global survival. g. the need to maintain our standard of living, honor seniority and loyal service, and provide for rainy days ahead.

15. MY OWN CAREER PRIORITIES ARE LEAST DETERMINED BY . . . a. whatever will allow my work group to stay together like a family. b. what I have to do to get what I want without having to give in to anybody or conform to any system. c. what is just and proper, since my job and profession should reflect my rightful place in society. d. the goals I have set for myself in my pursuit of the good things in life. e. how I can dedicate myself on behalf of human causes that work to reduce hunger, poverty, racism, and violence. f. what I really want to be doing, now, even if it may mean charting a whole new course. g. a need to unite with other minds around the planet to work for a new global order.

228 16. I DON’T SHARE THE VIEW THAT THE WORLD IS . . . a. under the control of destiny and the direction of the Higher Power. b. like a jungle where the strongest and most cunning must exploit to survive. c. an elegantly balanced system of interlocking forces. d. a magical place alive with spirit beings where there’s safety and security in tribal ways. e. a pool of unlimited possibilities and opportunities for those willing to take some risks. f. the human habitat in which we share the experiences of living. g. a chaotic organism driven by differences and change, but with no guarantees.

17. IN AN IDEAL WORLD IT’S LESS IMPORTANT THAT . . . a. we feel safe knowing the spirits of our ancestors watch over us. b. I’ve been heroic in conquest and my name will live forever. c. righteousness triumphs over evil and the faithful receive their just rewards. d. I have achieved material success and enjoy the very finest this world has to offer. e. we all join hands and hearts to prosper equally in peace and togetherness. f. our population matches the available natural resources, as each person learns to do more with less. g. all living things cohabit Earth in balance and harmony as part of the universal order.

229 18. WHENEVER I’M CRITICIZED, IT’S SELDOM FOR BEING . . . a. too rebellious and self-centered, a power-seeker who likes to rock the boat and gratify senses. b. too ambitious and materialistic, a wheeler-dealer game-player who exploits others in an attempt to “win.” c. too abstract and metaphysical, something of a spiritual wanderer caught up with planetary issues. d. too sensitive and caring with people, a naïve social worker type who is blind to the realities of life. e. too rigid and judgmental, a person who is such a true believer life becomes narrow, restrictive, and unforgiving. f. too superstitious and mystical, a person plagued by charms, spirits, fortune, and spells. g. too aloof and detached, an individual who does his own thing. Lacking self-sacrifice and commitment to others’ good.

19. WHEN UNDER REAL STRESS I RARELY. . . a. rely on my faith and convictions to see me through adversity. b. get down and fight even harder to survive in the world where “the toughest get the mostest.” c. recognize why it’s there and decide whether to live with it or remove it, even if it means a complete life style change. d. shift to another plane of consciousness to transcend the animalistic elements producing it. e. do things to make fortune smile on me and go to where I feel safe. f. maneuver strategically to influence both people and events to get back in control of the situation. g. seek support and assistance from others to explore and deal with my feelings and fears.

230 20. FEW OF MY DEEPEST BELIEFS AND VALUES . . . a. come from the customs of my people and our ancestral folk ways. b. are what I want them to be and its nobody’s business but my own. c. stand on the firm foundation of my faith and the One True Way. d. grow from confidence that we have the power to shape tomorrow. e. emerge from an acceptance of our need for interdependency and sharing. f. reflect very personal views of what will work in a complex and changing world. g. blend my energies with natural forces in the universe beyond time and space.

231 APPENDIX B

EXAMPLE INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

1- Education a. What is the purpose of education? b. What should be the outcome of education?

2- Teaching & learning science a. What is the purpose of teaching science? b. What is the role of teachers in science teaching and learning? c. What should be included and excluded in science teaching? d. What activities are most useful for learning science?

3- Assessment a. What is the ideal role of assessment? b. How do you use assessment in your practice? c. Should assessment be used to motivate students?

4- Their own practices a. Have you noticed any changes in your teaching over the years? b. What caused these changes? c. Why do you utilize this particular teaching style (based on observations)?

232 5- Science a. What type of knowledge is of most value? b. Have you ever dealt with controversial issues in science in your classroom? c. How did you deal with controversial issues?

6- Their students a. What is the role of students in learning science? b. How do students learn best? c. Do you think every student can learn science?

7- Feelings about their job a. What do you enjoy the most in your teaching? b. What is the biggest challenge for you in teaching? c. How do you deal with these challenges? d. What frustrates you the most in your job? e. What are the conflicts between what you believe about teaching and learning and what you are able to do?

8- Context a. How does the school environment influence your teaching? b. What would you want to change in your school or classroom? c. How does the student context affect your teaching?

233 APPENDIX C

HUMAN SUBJECTS APPROVAL LETTER AND LETTER OF INFORMED CONSENT

234

LETTER OF INFORMED CONSENT

Dear Science Teacher,

I am a graduate student under the direction of Dr. Nancy Davis, in the Department of Middle and Secondary Education/Science Education Program, College of Education, Florida State University. I am conducting a research study to investigate the relationship between teacher beliefs about science, teaching, and learning and teacher practices. Your participation in this study will involve filling out a 10-item questionnaire, permitting me to observe some of your classes and collect field notes during these observations, and participating in several open-ended interviews, which will be audiotaped and transcribed. Your participation to this study will continue from February 2003 until the end of spring 2003 semester for secondary schools. Your participation in this study is voluntary. If you choose not to participate or to withdraw from the study at any time, there will be no penalty. There are no experimental aspects of this study. The results of the research study may be published, but your name will not be used. I will refer to you with a code name for your responses to the questionnaire. This code name will also be used in the collected observation field notes and in the interview transcripts. This code name will not be linked to you in any way and I will not keep a master list of names and code names. Only I will have access to these documents and audiotapes. I will keep the questionnaire results, observation field notes, interview transcripts, and audiotapes in a locked file cabinet and I will destroy them two years after the completion of this research, which is August 31, 2005. All confidentiality will be maintained to the extent allowed by law. There are no foreseeable risks or discomforts if you agree to participate in this study. Although there may be no direct benefit to you, the possible benefit of your participation in this research is improving the quality of science teacher education programs and also professional development programs for science teachers through understanding the relationship between teacher beliefs and practices. If you have any questions concerning this research study please call me at (850) 504 1244 or send e-mail to [email protected]. You may also contact Dr. Nancy Davis at (850) 644 7804 or send e-mail to [email protected].

Sincerely,

Yalcin Yalaki

**********

I give my consent to participate in the above study. I understand that I will be tape recorded by the researcher. These tapes will be kept by the researcher in a locked filing cabinet. I understand that only the researcher will have access to these tapes and that they will be destroyed by August 31, 2005. I understand that all confidentiality will be maintained to the extent allowed by law.

______(Signature) ______(Date)

If you have any questions about your rights as a subject/participant in this research, or if you feel you have been placed at risk, you can contact the Chair of the Human Subjects Committee, Institutional Review Board, through the Vice President for the Office of Research at (850) 644-8633.

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244 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Yalçın Yalaki was born in Adana - Turkey in 1975. He earned his Bachelors degree in chemistry from Çukurova University (Adana - Turkey) in 1997. The following year, he was awarded with a scholarship by the Republic of Turkey National Ministry of Education. After being accepted to Florida State University as a graduate student in 1998, he earned his Master’s degree in science education in 2000 and his Ph.D. degree in 2004. Currently he works as a chemistry educator at a university in Turkey.

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