Appendix A: Interview Protocols

Adulthood Interview

Do you consider yourself to be an adult?
This is an interview about the story of your growth from adolescence to adulthood. I am interested in hearing your story, including parts of the past as you remember them and the future as you imagine it. You don’t need to include everything that has ever happened to you. Instead, I will ask you to focus on a few key things in your life. Your task is simply to tell me about some of the most important things that have happened in your life between adolescence and now and how you imagine your life developing in the future. I will guide you through the interview so that we finish it all in about ninety minutes or less. Do you have any questions?
Life Chapters: Please begin by thinking about your life since adolescence as if it were a book or novel telling a story about your journey towards adulthood. Imagine that the book has a table of contents containing the titles of the main chapters in the story. To begin here, please describe very briefly what the main chapters in the book might be. Please give each chapter a title, tell me just a little bit about what each chapter is about, and say a word or two about how we get from one chapter to the next. As a storyteller here, what you want to do is to give me an overall plot summary of your story, going chapter by chapter. You may have as many chapters as you want, but I would suggest having between about 2 and 7 of them. We will want to spend no more than about 20 minutes on this first section of the interview, so please keep your descriptions of the chapters relatively brief.
Key Scenes:Now that you have described the overall plot outline for your life, I would like you to focus in on a few key scenes that stand out in the story. A key scene would be an event or specific incident that took place at a particular time and place. Consider a key scene to be a moment in your life story that stands out for a particular reason – perhaps because it was especially good or bad, particularly vivid, important, or memorable. For each of the eight key events we will consider, I ask that you describe in detail
what happened,
when and where it happened,
who was involved,
what you were thinking and feeling in the event,
why you think this particular scene is important or significant in your life,
what does the scene say about you as a person?
Turning points. In looking back over your life since adolescence, what are some key moments that stand out as turning points -- episodes that marked an important change in you especially related to being or becoming an adult.
Please identify 3-4 particular episodes in your life story that you now see as turning points in your life. Tell the story of each episode (interviewer refer back to list above for follow-ups.)
High point. Please describe a scene, episode, or moment in your life since adolescence that stands out as an especially positive experience, particularly in relation to being/becoming adult. This might be the high point scene of your entire life, or else an especially happy, joyous, exciting, or wonderful moment in the story.
(Refer back to guide above for follow-up questions.)
Please say a word or two about why you think this particular moment was so good and what the scene may say about who you are as a person.
Low point. Thinking back over your entire life since adolescence, please identify a scene that stands out as a low point, if not the low point in your story, particularly if it relates to being/becoming an adult. Even though this event is unpleasant, I would appreciate your providing as much detail as you can about it.
[Interviewer note: If the participants balks at doing this, tell him or her that the event does not really have to be the lowest point in the story but merely a very bad experience of some kind.]
(Refer back to guide above for follow-up questions.)
The next chapter. Your life story includes key chapters and scenes from your past, as you have described them. Please describe what you see to be the next chapter in your life. What is going to come next in your life story, especially in terms of being/becoming an adult?
Dreams, hopes, and plans for the future. Please describe your plans, dreams, or hopes for the future. What do you hope to accomplish in the future in your life story?
Life challenge. Looking back over your life since adolescence, please identify and describe what you now consider to be the greatest single challenge you have faced in that time.
What is or was the challenge or problem?
How did the challenge or problem develop?
How did you address or deal with this challenge or problem?
What is the significance of this challenge or problem in your own life story?
Life accomplishment.Looking back over your life since adolescence, please identify and describe what you now consider to be the greatest single accomplishment or achievement.
What is or was the accomplishment?
How did you reach it?
What is the significance of this accomplishment in your own life story?
Failure, regret. Everybody experiences failure and regrets in life, even for the happiest and luckiest lives. Looking back over your life since adolescence, please identify and describe the greatest failure or regret you have experienced. The failure or regret can occur in any area of your life – work, family, friendships, or any other area.
Please describe the failure or regret and the way in which the failure or regret came to be.
How have you coped with this failure or regret?
What effect has this failure or regret had on you and your life story?
Life Theme. Looking back over your life story you’ve shared, with all its chapters, scenes, and challenges, and extending back into the past and ahead into the future, do you discern a central theme, message, or idea that runs throughout the story? What is the major theme in your story? Please explain.

Alternate/additional questions
IMPORTANT: Based on their particular answers to the survey:
What does it mean to you to feel/not feel like an adult most of the time?
What does it mean to you to feel/not feel like an adult when [insert teaching contexts]
Is being/becoming an adult something that is important to you? Why/why not? Can you tell a story of an episode in your life where this was important?
Who decides whether or not a person is an adult? Can you tell a story of a time where there was a conflict between you and another person over whether you were an adult?
(Refer above for follow-up questions to this story.)
If you don’t currently feel like an adult, what do you imagine would need to happen to make you feel like an adult?
What people in your life do you feel consider you to be an adult? How do you know? What people still consider you not to be an adult? How do they see you? How do you know?

Classroom Management Interview

This is an interview about the story of you as a teacher, specifically, your experiences with students misbehaving and disrupting class.Just like in our first interview, I will ask you to focus on a few key scenes. Again, there are no right or wrong answers—your task is simply to tell me about some of the most important things that have happened to you as a teacher in dealing with misbehavior and conflict in your classroom.
Typical experience.Please describe a scene, episode, or moment as a teacher in responding to student misbehavior that you would say represents a typical experience in your classroom. If you need to, you can tell stories of 2-3 incidents that represent the way things usually go in your classes when students disrupt or misbehave. Please describe these scenes in as much detail as you can, including:
What happened,
when and where,
who was involved,
what were you thinking and feeling
what about this scene is representative or typical
why do you think this scene unfolded as it did
how did you feel after this event was over
what does the scene say about who you are as a teacher.
High point. Please describe 2 scenes, episodes, or moments as a teacher in responding to student misbehavior that stands out as an especially positive experience. These might be incidents that you feel you handled particularly well, or where the students responded particularly well. Please describe these high point scenes in detail.
(Refer to list above for follow up questions)
Additional: What about this scene makes it stand out for you as a high point?
Low point. The next scene is the opposite of the last. Thinking back over your teaching experiences, please identify 2 scenes responding to student misbehavior that stand out as low points, if not the low points in your teaching history. They could be incidents in which you felt you responded badly, or that the outcome was particularly bad. Even though these events are unpleasant, I would appreciate your providing as much detail as you can.
(Refer to list above for follow up questions.)
Please say a word or two about why you think this particular moment was so bad and what the scene may say about you or your life.
[Interviewer note: If the participants balks at doing this, tell him or her that the event does not really have to be the lowest point in the story but merely a very bad experience of some kind.]
Turning point. In looking back over your experiences responding to misbehavior, it may be possible to identify certain key moments that stand out as turning points -- episodes that marked an important change in you or your life as a teacher. Please identify 2 episodes in your experiences responding to student misbehavior/disruption that you now see as turning points.
If you cannot identify a key turning point that stands out clearly, please describe some event in your teaching wherein you went through an important change of some kind.
(See list above for follow-up questions.)
Please say a word or two about what you think each event says about you as a person or as a teacher.
Vivid memory. Please identify one scene that you have not already described in this section (in other words, do not repeat your high point, low point, or turning point scene) that stands out as especially vivid or meaningful in your teaching experience. This may be a scene involving student misbehavior, or it may not—what is important is that it is a scene that stands out in your mind.
(Refer to list above for follow up questions)
What does this memory say about you as a person or as a teacher?
Wisdom event. Please describe an event in your teaching experience in which you displayed wisdom. The episode might be one in which you acted or interacted in an especially wise way or provided wise counsel or advice, made a wise decision, or otherwise behaved in a particularly wise manner.
(Refer to list above for follow up questions)
What does this memory say about you as a person or as a teacher?
The next chapter. You’ve shared several key scenes from your teaching experience. Please describe what you see to be the next chapter in your life as a teacher. What is going to come next in your teaching story?
In what ways will you grow and change as a teacher?
In what ways will you respond to students who disrupt or misbehave? What will remain the same and what will change in the future?
How will your relationships with students look in the future? Will they be the same as they are now? In what ways will they change?
Teaching challenge. Looking back over your teaching experiences, please identify and describe what you now consider to be the greatest single challenge you have faced.
What is or was the challenge or problem?
How did the challenge or problem develop?
How did you address or deal with this challenge or problem?
What is the significance of this challenge or problem in your own teaching story?
Teaching accomplishment.Looking back over your teaching experience, please identify and describe what you now consider to be the greatest single accomplishment or achievement.
What is or was the accomplishment?
How did you reach it?
What is the significance of this accomplishment in your own teaching story?
Overall Theme. Looking back over all the stories you’ve shared about teaching, do you discern a central theme, message, or idea that runs throughout your stories? What is the major theme in your life as a teacher? Please explain.

Alternate/additional questions
What do you see as an ideal relationship between you and your students? What factors do you feel get in the way of you having this type of relationship with your students?
Can you tell a story of an event where you felt like you had this relationship with your students?
Can you tell a story of an event where you felt you had a poor relationship with your students?
Do you feel like the issues of adulthood and classroom management are connected? How so? How has that worked for you? How have you seen that working for other new teachers?
Do you feel you have more, less, or the same level of difficulty as other teachers in dealing with student misbehavior and disruption?

If different from other teachers, what is the source of this difference?