Running head: RESEARCHER IDENTITY MEMO
The Interconnectivity and Role of Culture and Religion on Brain-based Instruction
A Researcher Identity Memo
Nora H. El-Bilawi
EDRS 812
Dr. Earle Reybold
George Mason University
October 9, 2008
Beliefs and Assumptions
The experiences I have had that I feel have the most direct bearing on my current path of research and teaching practice are closely connected to my sense of self, sexuality and “otherness.” Which sounds very pretentious and off-putting which in turn makes me a bit nervous really. Because I think my greatest assumption stemming from my prior experiences is that there really is a disconnect between myself (and the people I most identify with) and everybody else. I believe that this disconnect is real, but somehow simultaneously artificial, and that it can be bridged with contact and willingness. I have a suspicion that we are all much more similar than dissimilar underneath it all but that our experiences and contextual understandings of our surroundings/society are what makes it feel as though we are so essentially and necessarily different. I think what I mean to say is that the instincts and motivations which drive us as people are very much the same. It is the ways in which we follow these instincts that defines us as “different.” Bringing these sets of beliefs to the educational arena, I assume the solution to bridge this disconnect would be in integrating theories like the funds of knowledge, critical race theory, and multiple intelligences into our educational system including curriculum design and teacher preparation programs. Studying the interconnectivity between nature and a person’s brain biology with relation to nurture, race, culture, and religion, is essential.
Personal background and experiences
I grew up in a house in which education was held in high regard; both my parents are professors in education. Thus, I inherited a great passion for teaching. My interest in teaching ESOL specifically dates back to the years of my undergraduate study of English Literature. Since my first language is not English, I had to develop my own methods to help myself master that language. As an analytical person, I discovered various strategies and language acquisition techniques that helped me acquire English both linguistically and orally. This led me to realize that with my personal experience as a speaker of other languages is greatly related to my background and that every person’s way of knowing is deeply inhabited from their unique funds of knowledge.
From there, my interest of learning more about teaching English to speakers of other languages grew. I moved to the United States to gain more experience and educational background in this field so I applied for my master’s degree in Multilingual Multicultural Education/ESOL at George Mason University and I earned my M.ED. in Education in May 2005. Throughout my learning experience here in the States I went through a very tough; yet, enlightening experience; my learning abilities or how my brain was functioning was not enabling me to subsist with the learning and teaching styles even at a graduate level. Things looked different felt different; my ability to understand, interpret, and communicate with the learned materials was different Teachers or professors used a variety of intelligences in the classroom that i might have preferred them; for example, visual and interpersonal intelligences. However, the way I perceived them and some how worked in my brain needed me to keep reformatting and reinterpreting things to reach for a better understanding. Such an experience was my first step in thinking analytically and questioning some preconceived facts about students intelligences.
Then, I started teaching Adult Education with Prince William County Schools in September 2002. Through my teaching I tried to apply all that I was learning in my masters together with integrating my own experience as a second language speaker. I found myself to anecdote the same problem and learning barrier facing my adult students. They were eager to learn, but language was not the only barrier; however, the lack of my understanding to their background made both of us (teacher and students) striving to reach out for a common ground. Still, things were not clear as of what the problem was, but the situation drove me to a second level of awareness of what i wanted to explore and research more.
My progress and achievements lead me to start in teaching ESOL in Price William County Schools’ (PWCS) elementary level. I taught in the PWCS system for 6 years; through out this teaching experience my consciousness had elevated to the third level of analytical research awareness. The story began when I was in a mainstream classroom and I was co-teaching with the mainstream teacher in a science class. We were working in a regular cooperative groups’ activity and I saw an ESOL student, who is an Iranian Muslim girl, was shutting from participating in the activity. I asked the teacher if she has a background on what was that students’ problem and she told me that she does not know, but she has been experiencing the same situation form this student frequently. The teacher went on talking about how she has been using all the ESOL strategies that we both have been talking about and that the girl would still show some hesitance in participating especially when they are in groups or if they are learning kinesthetically and using songs to learn a material. I decided to put on my investigator's hat to learn more about this student’s background; being a muslim woman myself did not help me much in learning what the problem might be, it was too personal and essential to this girl’s funds of knowledge that had me dig deeper. This girl was in third grade and veiled, which told me something about her background, so I went in that direction and I found out that she did not like group work because she was raised that mingling with boys was a taboo which shut her down form the learning process immediately. Music, jumping and dancing around, and going to PE classes were also forbidden activities from where she is coming from. Even though this girl might have the kinesthetic, musical, and/or interpersonal intelligences; yet, her culture and religion influenced her brain functions and interfere in her learning process.
Research goals and interests
Due to the sequential progress of my experiences and backgrounds, my research interest started to proliferate. My interest started to focus on the concept of the differentiated teaching and curriculum design geared towards the wide range of diverse students in any classroom. Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences is the best resource to provide a planning tool for curriculum differentiation. However, I found that the theory lacked the most important part that I had passion for that is the cultural and religious influence and role in shaping such intelligences. The reason behind this unique linkage was based on the previously narrated situations the raised my researcher intuition.
Some of the most interesting research topics to me at this stage are: Culture and multiple intelligences, discourse analysis, international mindedness, diaspora and identity loss, and acculturation and hybridity. My primary research goals are in building my background understanding within those topics on how education and the learning process are both part of an interwoven paradigm with culture, religion, and students’ funds of knowledge.
My plan is to hold a pilot study in one the American schools’ title one schools (more diverse) on teacher’s perspective on brain-based learning, application of multiple intelligences (MI) activities, and observing MI application and whether or not culture is usually playing a role in how these intelligences are perceived. The dissertation research with not be implemented in the USA, though. I am planning to take the data from this study and move further to research it in Egypt. I would like to research egyptian teachers’ perspective about MI theory, whether it is applicable in our Egyptian schools’ settings, and experiment the possibility of redesigning the MI theory to fit the Egyptian cultural and religious funds of knowledge, and whether this twist of design would make a difference in the application.
So what. From this research I will be able to prove that there is a role of cultural influence in the MI and brain based instruction. The research should benefit schools in the USA as well as schools in Egypt. As for the US schools and university (schools of education); I want to provide effective instruction to children with different funds of knowledge from those who Howard Gardner might have been addressing in his MI theory. Additionally, I want to develop international mindedness in our schools, curriculum, and our staff development. Also, teaching the next generation of educators in schools of education is an important venue to carry out my unique message of changing some of our curriculum instructions to a more culturally sensitive and accessible knowledge to “the others.” As for Egypt, the research will achieve my ultimate goal that is to improve the teaching practices and curriculum design in the Egyptian school system.
Concerns and disadvantages
As well as I am aware of my deep connection to this research topic and as much as I feel a great passion towards this matter- since I have personally experienced these learning issues, I am aware of my potential biases too. Conducting the dissertation research in Egypt might be an advantage and disadvantage. The advantages would be knowing the language, the culture, and the religious backgrounds of the teachers and students, and being able to access facilities easier than an outsider researcher. I can put myself in any of the researched and observed students and teachers very easily. However, the disadvantage would be that I can be very subjective and might fall in a trap of dominating the research by interpreting the outcomes through MY personal experiences and not the interviewees’.
It is my responsibility as a researcher to be very cautious when interviewing not to follow my prejudices and not to take things for granted to assume certain findings. Moreover, one of the possible ways to avoid this is to ask my community of practice to review my data analysis and interpretations.
I believe in this research topic not only because it is unique in its nature and design, but also because I have a great personal passion for it and passion to find rich analysis for a greater educational cause.
Identity memo PAGE 1
Identity memo PAGE 1