Interview With Lucas

On October 8th, I interviewed Lucas.  I decided to ask Lucas a few questions that would hopefully start to help me understand Lucas's learning preferences.  How he felt that he liked to learn best.  The following is a script of our conversation and my feelings as we talked.

I pulled him aside during enrichment and asked Lucas a series of five questions.  When Ms. A asked Lucas to come and talk with me, he said, “Okay, I guess.”  He was reading at the time.  (OC: Lucas loves to read and so pulling him out when he is doing something he loves made him not so excited to talk to me.)  I asked Lucas whether he wanted to go in the hall to answer the questions or find a quiet area in the room.  He said, “I don’t care.”  So we walked to an empty table in the classroom that was separated from everyone else.  After we sat down, I prefaced the interview with, “Hi Lucas, so I am going to ask you a few questions about school but if you ever feel like you do not want to answer a question, just say pass, okay?”  (OC: I did not want Lucas to feel pressured to answer something he was uncomfortable with.  If something was too personal for him, I wanted him to feel like he had an easy way to “get out.”)  He said, “Okay,” and we began. 

I proceeded to ask the first question, “What do you like about school.”  Lucas replied, “Nothing.”  (OC: This took me by surprise.  I was not expecting him to say that he liked nothing.  I thought he would say he liked gym class or he liked being with his friends, but not nothing.)  I stumbled over my next words as I was thinking how to proceed and what questions would still be relevant.  I decided to just go as originally planned.  “Nothing, why?” I asked.  Lucas thought for a moment and then said, “Because it is all too hard.”  I nodded my head and jotted his answers down in my notebook.  “Now, what do you not like about school?”  (OC: I felt like I knew what his answer was going to be.  If he just said that he liked nothing, he was probably going to say that he did not like everything.  I was right.)  “Everything,” Lucas stated.  (OC: At this point, I was beginning to feel really bad for Lucas.  To think that there was absolutely nothing about school that he liked made me sad.  It made me feel a sense of helplessness.)  I asked Lucas why this was and he replied with the exact same answer as before, “Because it is all too hard.” 

Continuing with my interview, I asked Lucas the next question, “How do you think you learn best?”  He replied rather quickly, “I do not know.”  I wanted to be able to ask Lucas a follow up question on this like why don’t you know, get him to actually stop and think about how he learns, but I could not think that quickly on my feet.  (OC: The next question I had been planning on asking was, “Do any of your teachers do this for you?”  But I felt that since he did not know how he best learned, this question was irrelevant.  If you do not know how you learn best, how would you know if this is happening in a class?)  From there I jumped to asking Lucas, “Do you think you would be more willing to do something if you were given options or just told one thing to do?”  Immediately after I asked the question, Lucas stated, “Yea, options are better.”  (OC: Not only did his answer match up with what my prediction was but his enthusiasm for the answer made me believe that he really felt that options were better.)  The final question I asked Lucas was, “Does anyone at home help you with your homework?”  Lucas said, “Yes, my grandma.”  I thanked Lucas for his time and he walked back to his desk to read.

Before the interview, I assumed that options do help Lucas learn, that having more possibilities helps him to feel like he is in control of something.  But the interview helped me to solidify this theory.  Lucas stated himself that he feels he would learn better with more options rather than just being told one thing to do.  I do, however, still want to figure out a way that I can test this theory.  I feel bad for Lucas.  Lucas saying that he does not like one thing about school because it is all too hard for him indicates that he feels disappointed and frustrated with himself.  He feels like a failure because he has not had any success.  In my special education class, we talk about how students with disabilities, like Lucas, often experience a lot of failure in the classroom and this contributes to their self-image.  For Lucas to already feel like he cannot do anything in school just shows how much he feels defeated.  Feeling such defeat will make it really hard for Lucas to succeed in the classroom.