First of all, I would like to begin by acknowledging how cringey my title is (believe me I know). Unfortunately though, that's all I could think of, so oh well.
So for today’s blog post, I am going to be focusing on three main things: something about my project that gives me hope, something that I feel meh about, and something that makes me want to curl up in a ball and cry myself to sleep.
Although crying in a ball sounds like a lot of fun, I am going to try and start this post of on a cheerful note about what is going well with my project and gives me hope for the months to come. In this category, the first thing I want to talk about is my interest in the project. We are almost two months into this class, and I am still intrigued by my topic and the nuance and complexity that comes along with it. Even after all of the time and work I have spent reading sources, taking notes, and working on assignments, I am still just as curious about the answers I am looking for as when I began. And while this may seem not that important, to me it is not only important, but also encouraging because I tend to lose interest in projects fairly quickly if I am not intrigued by the subject. Additionally, I am also happy about the general progress that is being made. I believe that for the time that we have spent on everything so far, I think that I am at a pretty good spot. While there are still concerns that I certainly need to address (which I will), I think that I am at least managing what is expected of me pretty well.
So now from the good to the meh.
Right now I feel pretty meh about my list of sources. On one hand, I am pretty proud of all of the sources that I have already collected and annotated, but on the other hand, I still feel like there are a couple more sources that I need to find. Luckily, I do not need any more core sources for my paper, but instead I only need a couple supporting sources to clarify or substantiate a couple sections that need more evidence.
And now to the part where I talk about what makes me want to hide under the table and pretend like my project doesn't exist.
(Me when I was writing this part of my post)
For this section, there are three main things that I want to focus on: my methodology, how I will overcome bias, and how I will overcome the legal troubles of writing about basis. Regarding my methodology, I know that we do not need to know what exactly we intend to for our primary research, however it has been brought up to me that this is something that I should start thinking about now. Being that my project is about charter schools, I intend to spend time within some charter school/schools to try and draw conclusions about what it is that makes them successful. With that in mind though, I do not know whether I will be focusing solely on Basis Scottsdale, or if I will be analyzing other schools as well.
Additionally, another aspect of my project that worries me is how I will overcome bias in my analysis. Because I will most likely be spending a large amount of time looking at BASIS Scottsdale, I will need to find a way of justifying why I can still do qualitative analysis about the school, even though I have attended this school for many years. Because I already have preconceived notions about the school, I feel as if it may affect my results. As of right now, the only way of overcoming this bias that I have thought of is by justifying BASIS’ position as a good school, which I can use to explain why I want to look at it.
Lastly, I am concerned with the legal implications of looking at BASIS Scottsdale. Being that BASIS is a highly ranked and well regarded school, they want to maintain this high reputation. With that being said though, I want to try and perform as realistic of an analysis of the school as I can, even if that means that I find faults with the BASIS system (which I’m sure I will as no system is perfect). Being that I attend BASIS though, I feel as if there will be a conflict of interest if I am publishing results about a school which not only has power over me, but wants to project a certain image about their school which I may not fully support.
So with all of that being said, if you guys could help me with some ideas on how to overcome these setbacks that I have, then I will pretty much love you forever.
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