Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Karen Paine - Epilogue - Blog #6
One thing we had begun to discuss in our Literature Circle was the purpose of this epilogue. The early edition of the text appears to be a doctoral dissertation by Ruggiano-Schmidt. One of the subjects, Mrs. Starr, was in process of completing a masters dissertation and immediately after the study, created her own text. In turn, Ruggiano-Schmidt made an additional "post-script" study of Mrs. Starr's study. What would have been of more interest to the read is a post-script study of the student subjects, Raji and Peley. Unlike Mrs. Starr, they did not have their own reputation to protect and would not use the post-script to defend, refute, explain, amend, etc. their own situation within the study. The incestuous nature of the studies worries me - how is it possible to remain objective during the process when each participant's role is mutually beneficial?
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It's always tough, in my eyes, to do a study of people. It is human nature to naturally either pitty or feel some sort of connection to the "subjects". Fighting human nature is nearly impossible, but I do agree with you that it would be interesting to see how Peley and Raji's educational story went on. Also by letting these students get older within a study, they could begin telling and explaining how they feel about the educational programs. Give insite to what they think might help them, and future students, better handle the challenges they faced.
ReplyDeleteI agree that this seemed to be a nice study and further education project for both the author and teacher and I would rather have read about how Raji and Peley are doing now. I want to know what the rest of their school experience was like, in what ways did they face other challenges and in what ways did they create change? How was their education further impacted?
ReplyDeleteI think too...that since the parents were both such strong advocates of these students' education that they made perfect subjects for this study. What would have been different if the parents were not so passionate about their children's education? I think that the parent's influence on the children and their desire for them to suceed plays a very large role as well and I would like to hypothesize that both Peley and Raji went on to be sucessful students and members of society because they had the will to do so and the family support as well.