Senior year of high school was the transitional year that prepared me for the struggles and environment of college. Throughout the four years, I have made friends from different backgrounds and parts of the world and have introduced me to many hobbies that I have enjoyed over the years. Friends do come and go, but the cozy classrooms, organized poster boards, and dusty library have created an experience which has served my needs to understand the world around. On the first day of my last year of high school, I made my way through the noisy hallways energetic sophomores, I received a schedule with a list of classes that I was aware of, except this Advanced Placement Research course or AP Research. I had taken an AP course the year before and resented the load of assignments, presentation anxiety, and groupworks. The first few weeks of AP Research consisted of slides preaching about plagiarism, how to research, constructive criticism, peer review, and some basic editing skills. After that we were left with picking our research topics, but the class really turned into a busy market square with my classmates talking about what they did during the summer and how they just wanted to graduate to leave this school. Most of my 45 minutes in class was spent blasting heavy beat drill rappers or eerie electronic psychedelic rock and making jokes with friends. A month was lost , I was feeling restless of lacking any research topics and I would avoid any meetings with teachers regarding my progress of research. One evening with plates and spoons clattering I was having dinner with my family and we were watching the evening news, the anchor starting discussing the 2020 Democrats Presidential Candidates and he talked about an unfamiliar man with a presidential goal that some may say may be absurd, his name was Andrew Yang. Andrew Yang was proposing a universal basic income of providing every American citizen over 18 years with 1200 dollars every month, he believed this will boost the economy and local business around America. His ambitious proposal was my first introduction to universal basic income and other complex economic standards around the world. I was eager to share my research topic “universal basic income: with friends, but had a disorganized debate and joked around about how much debt will incur in the economy. To begin my research I created a playlist with new artists ranging from Pink Floyd to Chet Baker to create a mood of approaching something new. Using sites such as EbscoHost and Google Scholar, I read articulate articles that provided interesting statistical data regarding the impact of universal basic income among people who were unemployed or were in a lower socio-economic class. I had discovered that Andrew Yang was not the first person to propose universal basic income, but civil rights leader Martin Luther King preached for the future for granted income for poor Americas who were to pay for essentials. As I surfed webpages and got distracted by colourful advertisements, I came across a universal basic income experiment performed in Finland. I was intrigued in the beginning about the results of the experiment, and even asked my chattering classmates about their hypothesis of the research. She was fascinated by the question and keen in replying that some people might not use their money efficiently, however most results showed otherwise. Most participants, after receiving their money, were able to organize their time to search for other job opportunities available, purchase better valued food, and showed interest in attending school again. I was amazed that Finland is able to help residents with this program and the results do show the Andrew Yang future of America could be possible. To further my understanding of the economy and the universal basic income experiment in Finland, I contacted a professor or economics at a university in Finland and waited for his response. It had been about two weeks and did not received a response, and started to daydream about the last of school and graduating. I spent those two weeks researching and peer reviewing my classmates research topics, as the falling autumn leaves blew against the window. My teacher was concerned about the progress of my research and asked to explore some social science topics or other topics.
After class ended I made way to my elective course, and I observed a large gathering of freshmen around the hallway confused and nervous about where their next class might be. My high school has a large Latino community, with about 80 percent of the students being from countries that speak the Spanish language, these groups of freshmen were African American students and were part of the 20 percent who were African American in the school . This prompted me to reminisce about my year as a freshman, where I observed the school was lacking Black teachers.With these ideas I secretly spent some time in my Art class, drawing my ideas on my scrapbook to avoid losing participation points. I spent the evening researching student and teacher populations statistics in New York City and which applied research will support the thesis of my research. The purpose of the research was to truly understand how students of colour feel about the impact their white or black teachers have on their education, then I determined that transcendental phenomenology research method was the best approach in relating the students’ experience to my research. A transcendental phenomenology research is qualitative study, whereby I attempt to use the experience of my participants to understand the impact of the topic.
My teacher and I myself was surprised I was able to create new research questions through the observation of the environment, where some students would blindly ignore as a desperate attempt to present a topic that above their expectations of research. The transition of research topics between universal basic income and the Black student-teacher experience, was so abrupt creating some anxiety surrounding the process of my new research topic, I would peek unto my classmates’ documents to see their progression of research and some were exceeding or was just staring at their computer screen acting like they were researching. I dispease being the “stare at computer guy” and then would argue with my conscious about how idle the hand of the clock when boredom strikes. Scrambling through my heavy science textbooks and messy folders, I piece of looseleaf and jotted down my plans for how new research will advance. I spent a week reading research papers, watching interviews, and studying statistics revolving around the environment of black students in environments that lack diversity in the teaching position. Some of these research papers offered insightful information regarding the impact black teachers have on the future of black teachers through their proficiency in mathematical and science courses. The days approaching were unforgivably chilly as christmas and spring break vacations became the new talk of the class, chatter of expensive presents for nieces and uncles made it difficult to grasp attention towards my research, forcing me leave the room and sit outside just to think in silence. Outside of the class I rested on some couches and looked through stuffy college ruled notebook, I wrote down interview questions for my participants and which participants would show more interest in being present for the research. The winter break was unpleasant with piles of projects and time spent editing my thesis and presenting themes such as role model effect, implicit bias, and cultural competence in my research. These themes include bases of presenting the consequences lack of black teachers roles has affected how black students retain in schools, interest in STEM fields, and performance on proficiency tests. Using higher graded AP Research projects, I would compare my paper and learn a new APA format style to enhance my writing and grammar structures in research. Winter break ended with me feeling prepared to breeze through my research with ease; quickly diving back into plans I searched the school for participants which were teachers and students.
The first few students I asked rejected my offer and told me to bug off, some of the students in the school were preparing for SAT and others just wanted to avoid the overheated school and blissful cold just to go home. My success came from the juniors and seniors in academic clubs who were eager to research and questioned my stress. These interviews had peculiar answers and exposed how these students of colour felt among classes that had white teachers. Grasping to understand their responses, I jotted their most unique quotes detailing their experience within the relationships they have created their teachers. The interview was constructed by the hallways, which attracted attention from some of the students going home or to after school activities. Some of the students interrupted with curiosity about the interview, as I explain the purpose of the interview, they were quick to engage with me about the experience of teachers around the school and its influence on their education. This created an argument between seven students about how the school is not representative of its environment. Each student questioned themselves about how different schools would look like with more Black teachers, who they claim are easier to relate to and are most likely role models in their academic progress. The month of February was quick, my draft was in the process of peer review among my classmates and editing based on APA guidelines. A peer review partener suggested that I needed more students for my research to broaden my understanding of the impact of Black teachers; took this advice and proceeded to meeting with about four students during March. However, the pandemic hit and it seemed like my progress was going down hill with stress and confusion about structuring my essay. I did not write anything on paper for a week just to relax and keep away from it. To continue my interviews, I texted my participants about the interviews and called them on their cellphones, with the conversation lasting for about an hour, and each student exclaiming about their history with white teachers and black teachers. The teachers were the last participants left to engage in the research, and contacted them through their emails to converse about their observance in an environment such as our school with its lack of Black teachers. Some these interview were eye opening testimonies revealing teachers view about the schools, some of the Black teachers I interview talked about how their Black and Latino would always gravitate towards when they are depressed or struggling emotionally, also these teachers do claim that they give more expectation to their students of colour, because their teaching position has allowed them to motivate students. With all the information gathered, my conclusion dawned on me as the most difficult part of the research, there were many themes that I could browse through, but ended with these themes’ sense of comfortability, cultural competence and teacher expectations. Through themes I concluded with claiming that “Untimely, through my participation and compelling findings the presence of black teachers in classrooms populated with students of minorities is essential for understanding their compelling environment in which a lack of a diversified teaching workforce is necessary for the educational progression of students. Any Black and Latino student who attends school with a diverse teaching workforce has become keen to benefit from having a role model who shares the same appearance and experience, this cultural identity recognized by teachers is fundamental in an educational environment that aims to close the achievement gap” (Frimpong, 202,p.19).Completed my research essay, then requested a previous english teacher of mine to proofread and give his thoughts about my research, and he was profound about how writing had progressed and the research topic I chose to present. I submitted my research essay on May 25 and received my grade in two months and had passed the AP test. This the third Advanced Placement course where I was part of the few students in my class that passed.
Writing will be the subject, where overthinking motivates the need for me to gather ideas and expand, the stress of sitting on my down on a chair for four hours to edit, engage, organize just ends with paper exclusively extracting every thought from you to make writing beautiful. A classmate asked me why I wrote so much for my research, and I responded with “ This topic is a universal problem in America, and surprisingly New York City is the most segregated school system in the United States, my research just shows yall the tip of what is behind our books”. This response led to a thirty minute talk about how stressful this project was and if we could continue under this pressure in college.
Postscript
According to my critics and readers, I have demonstrated an interesting atmosphere in my essay which incorporates my personality and emotions in high school. These descriptions help make the essay more attentive and positions the reader. However, they have pointed out that some sentences sound vague and the transitioning between storylines need either compelling background info or where too confusing to understand. Apart from that, some readers were impressed with the narrative and wanted to explore my narrative from different perspectives.
Works Cited
- Frimpong, Nana “Role Model Effect: A Phenomenological Study of Black Teacher Presence on the Educational Experience of Minority Students” 2020,pp 19, Unpublished
Lu, Donna. “Universal Basic Income Seems to Improve Employment and Well-Being.” New Scientist, 6 May 2020, www.newscientist.com/article/2242937-universal-basic-income-seems-to-improve-employment-and-well-being/.
