investigaciones

my way and they realized I had been listening to their
whole conversation. Just as quickly the conversation
resumed, but it had a new theme. Moments before, the
class would have been improved by the addition of this
friend but now his impending arrival was an imposition.
Instead of listing all the reasons why his presence would be
welcome, they began listing how his presence would upset
the balance of the class. I was alarmed by how quickly they
changed their point of view. The point of the exercise was
to give them a sense of ownership and to begin building a
community, not to create a group of students who would
always agree with me. I was also alarmed as I realized that
this group was my database for my research project—there
was no way I was going to get valid data if they said what
they thought I wanted to hear. I realized that my data
might never truly be valid; it will always have the human
quality of bias to it. I had struggled with the concept of
validity for a few months. I had felt frustrated because I did
not have a source for my data. Then I realized that their
bias is what made the data valid. I wanted to take the pulse
of the classroom community, I wanted to know if what I
was doing was making a difference, and I wanted to know
what the students thought about what I was doing as a
teacher. Their bias is the one objective source I can trust
because they do not willingly manipulate their bias. The
students said what they thought I wanted to hear because
we had begun to form a community together. We had
spent three days listening to each other’s needs, discussing
solutions, and compromising. When I said that I liked the
class as it was, their sacrifice of a friend was their way of
addressing the needs of an individual within that
blossoming community—my needs.
But, as I said earlier, I can only focus on the factors that I
can control and the transfer of students into my class is not
one of them. The friend was transferred in and found his
own place in the community; and as promised, we did
revisit the rules. It took two months to get back to them
because the class was running so smoothly, so the
momentary panic over a potential problem was for naught.
When we did discuss the rules and how the class was going,
we agreed to leave the rules just as they were. Only one
class wanted a rule change when we discussed it. They had
heard that the other class was allowed to convert locker
trips to trips to the vending machine. I explained that this
rule was a difficult one for me because I am opposed to
14
Teacher Research in the Backyard