The four main questions that I asked was:
1)What kind of learning do you expect kids to learn? Or what kind of learning do you think kids should have?
2)If you were in an all gender school, how would it affect your learning and your surroundings? would you feel more pressure or different from co-ed/public schools?
3)How does the environemnt/surrounding of the school affect how you think about the school?
4)How does your experiences in elementary school to middle school to high school affect your imaginations or ideas or thinking about the society that you are going to enter in the future?
First person:
When I asked her, "what kind of learning do you expect kids to learn?", I put this question as very general because I want to see what people think of what their definition of "learning" is. So her answer was, "something that will help them in the future", "to make a living, able to make the "right decisions" and to build a "high sense of awareness". Then I asked her if what she just said follows what the Americans would say and she said yes. She explained, "Since we will be transforming to the society getting a job, and the way society goes is tat you have to be educated like having degrees to get a job regardless of what you actually learned. The numbers, papers, certificates is what really matters. Although school did not really teach us how to do everything that we need to survive in thsi society, at least they help us to learn something that will get us a job?" But when she said about the self awareness part, she doesn't think that the school had teach the students much about that because we are learning what's needed, and not really thinking about it.
Then I asked her about the curriculum because her answer sounds as if we just need to complete these steps through school and we will get what we need. "Do you think we should be learning something else besides the curriculum? Why do you think the curriculum is there for us?" I asked. She responded, "I think we should but I don't know what else, because the way I grew up was to learn from school. The school is the way i know about the world. If you were to ask me to create something, I don't know if that will be relevant or even correct? It seems everything has to based on concepts". She said it is hard to come up with something new, and the curriculum is there for us because it maps out what we need to know about the world. She thinks all the subjects that we learn are connected to the world and it make sense because she grew up with these perceptions. She also thinks that the people who dislike and complains about school would not help their future as they are not interested in the subject and disagreeing with the concepts that school gives. She believe that those people who complain wants to create something new but because it is hard to create a new rule. She said, "because of his or her inability to do so, especially now a day, it is hard to start with a new rule since these rules are just there for convenience anyway. 1+1 can equal to 3 but this new concept will be hard to get used to" and she ended the interview with, "you can say we are the victim of history?"
note: *Second and third person was chat through aim*
Second person:
When I asked her the first question, she said, "We should learn how to accept other cultures and be opened because people today still believe in racial superiority however, it is important to accept diversity and to respect other cultures." Thinking that answer was good enough, I moved on to the second question, and she answered, "If I was in an all girls school, it would probably affect my learning because girls think similar and if we have a class discussion about women in society, we would not be able to hear the males' opinion. I am not sure if i would feel pressure but probably different than co-ed schools." I asked her if she can be more opened minded in a same gender school and she thinks she can be more open minded. However, she can only speak for herself, "you can't speak for others" even though "you might have some idea what they would say but you never know their real opinion".
I asked her the third question, and she said she learn to accept and respect those who are from different cultures because her school is quite "diversely culturally". Then I asked her the fourth question and she said, "My experience from middle to high school affect my ideas about society because my teachers had taught me to accept and mainly to respect others so they would respect you." I thought it was quite funny and asked her, "What would happen if the other person dont respect you, would you still respect them? Teachers always say respect, respect but do you think they actually give us respect, they are our bosses" (note: I'm sorry, I'm not trying to offend the teachers or anything). She responded, "I would still pay my respect to them" and then to the teacher respecting questions, "I think teachers do, at least the ones that I met, because they listen to our opinions and respect our beliefs".
Third person:
She said that good quality of learning are teachers are open minded and provokes thoughts, motivates students and keeps them inspired instead of "spoon-feeding" students when I asked her what kind of learning do you expect kids should have? Then I asked her what do you want to learn, and what should other kids learn and she gave the me answer, "the subjects we have" and "it's a good thing to learn a little of everything". She also said similar things as the second person, that we should all keep an open mind as we are learning many things.
When I asked her the third question about the same gender school, she said she would be able to learn more and the "community would be more 'closed'". She also said it wouldn't "break away from the traditional 'views'". I asked her what she mean and she said, "like stereotypes and it would seem like gender segregation". She added how, "it's like guys wondering how the girls locker room would be and vice versa". However, she thinks she would feel more pressed in the same gender since she has been in a co-ed school for a long time. She feels easier communicating with the girls but she connected how in the "real society", the work site is co-ed. Then I asked her a question that just popped up in my mind, "do you think there are more bullying in same gender school or co-ed?" However, she wouldn't say since "incidents might vary".
The last question I asked her was, "How does the systems of the school affect how you think about the school and your learning?" Then I clarified that the system can be grading system, rule system or class system and she chose how the students are "grade driven especially with numerical grades". I asked, "how does that affect ur learning?" and she said she had to study for exams, mostly studying every night and had to cram the night before an exam. And she said these kinds of habits of cramming and staying late have become an habit for students because of the grading system. She also said how we are turning into machines because we are just memorizing, not understanding it mainly. "Especially at times, there is just no answer to why, we just have to know the rules", she explained. And I asked if the rules are set up by the world or is it for us and she said, "humans". "Universe doesn't care necessarily about education, just about surviving and reproducing," she said clearly. Lastly I asked her, "How does your experiences in middle school to junior school to high school affect your imaginations or ideas or thinking about the society that you are going to enter in the future?" And her answer was, "I was thinking of homo sapiens that don't have clothes and they survive...umm I'd say it became more practical, less fantasies and dreams. More realistic and planning, mature".
Fourth Person: I find this interview very funny.
When I interview this person, I asked specifically about the third question, "If you were in an all gender school, how would it affect your learning and your surroundings? would you feel more pressure or different from co-ed/public schools?" And his answer was, "It would affect my learning and my surroundings because I won't be able to date anyone unless I was 'gay'". However, he thinks it wouldn't affect his learning because he is just going to sit there and listen to the teachers. Unless someone bothers him and mostly likely his friends who are boys and comparing with going to an all boys school, it will be the same bothering so there are not much difference. He said, "we tend to do stupid things and not focus on our grades...and I don't pay much attention to surroundings".
I asked him, "why do you think we have same gender school?" and he answered that, "to keep young guys from having to do "it" when they are young" but that can lead to becoming "gay" if it is in an all boys school. Then he told me that it is better to be heterosexual than homosexual since he had something against gay marriage but it is because if there are too many gay couples, heterosexuals will have no one to be with. And I laughed at his comment, not offending him but I feel that his answer is very simple. When I ask if his answer connects with the society's answer, or is it his own answer through how he see gay marriage, he said it's his own. He said some may agree but he feels that his answer was made from his own point of view.
Fifth person:
This person is currently attending in an all girls school and I find that some of her answers are different from people who went to co-ed schools. Though I told her I am going to interview her, I didn't ask the main questions straight ahead as I did with the other four. I asked her to tell me the experience in her school and the big difference she felt between same gender and coed schools (since she went to a co-ed school before) is that girls there don't really care about their appearances. Since there are not many people to impress with (especially towards the boys), she said, "we're all messy". Also she said how there are more gossips and the girls are rather "mean". (This is in school news ->) When I asked her if there are bullying in the school, she said yes, because of/from Facebook and the girl who was bullied left. Then I asked if she is scared about the safety, but she answered no, though there are girls who are scared. She explained bullying happens in every school, it is just more or less bullying that happens.
When I asked if she feels more pressure in her school, she answered "no" and her explanation was that she was not "into the trends they have at school". Like the popular trends, she said she is not that into it or the songs. She said, "I don't really care what I listen too =D As long as I like it". Then I ask if the school's surrounding affect her learning and she said no, "As long as it's not near a nuclear power plant, I'm fine". Finally, I asked her about the first question, What kind of learning do you expect kids to have? or what kind of things do you think kids should have? However, her answer was different from the other three people I interviewed. Her answer was, "I guess I'm not sure o.o".
End of Interviews
Part B:
I guess the two aspects that I focused on was the learning and the gender of the school and I am going to focus on learning. For the first three people, I focus mostly on the learning and their answers are quite similar. I think that it's important to know that we are learning to know what needs to be generally known but not as deep of the subject as we could have gone. Because there are many topics within the subjects that needs to be gone over that we should just learn the rules and move on. Since the basic laws, how we, humans have seen the world already that even if we ask why does this fundamental thing does what it does, there are no answer to it. That basic and fundamental concept is just like life and the process of what we do in our educational life and in society. We just have to follow these rules and steps, trying not to ask too much whys and we can be like everyone else. Of course, there are people who think about it but is there a point in going too in depth with it? Can we find the answer? Because we don't even know if what we are doing is the reality.
Then, there is the curriculum that has been the backbone of education and is always changing but I find that everybody just follows it. We might complain about it, that it should be more fun, should be changed; we had protests against many things but not exactly towards the curriculum, but towards the people who have made it. We may be learning a little bit of everything, just like the third person said, but I find that those little bit of everything loses its value as we would begin to forget it. I find it sad how we are all living our childhood lives to look forward to the future. When I asked what kind of learning do you expect kids to learn, most of them gave the same answer but the fifth person said, "I don't know". When I created that answer, I thought that if people say what majority of society say, then I would think they are not looking at the real picture. But when the fifth person said, "I don't know", which is kind of the answer I was looking for, I start feeling that education and learning are the same but it is different. Education is by rules, and steps, but learning is not. There are steps in learning about this one thing but there are no rules in learning. We learn because we want to learn. But somehow we are always looking that education is for society, not really for our own sake since everybody connects with everybody. Though we may think it is for our own sake when we are concerning with ourselves but in society wise, we are putting ourselves in education to benefit others or not.
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