Interview Project Part 6: Submit Memo Report

Sample Memo This sample memo demonstrates correct memo format. You will need to provide your own content. DATE: October 3, 2015 TO: Professor Shirene McKay FROM: Orlo Manning SUBJECT: Information-Gathering Interview I interviewed Glenda Sumsion, an elementary school teacher, to learn about teaching Elementary Education, Special Education, and Sign Language. We met right after school in her classroom where it was most convenient for her. The large amount of work required to teach surprised me, however, Ms. Sumsion’s love for the students and dedication inspired me to continue with a teaching career. I was also motivated to rehearse my questions more the next time I do an interview so the interview flows better. Elementary Education Ms. Sumsion thought that the teachers and experiences you have as a child have a great impact on your desire to be a teacher later in life. Almost everyone can remember their favorite teacher as a child and the influence they were to them. Teaching takes a lot of dedication. Many projects are required and many classes prepared. I never realized all of the preparation that goes into preparing the curriculum and making it memorable for the students. Teachers deal with many difficult tasks each day. One of these tasks is to keep a child’s attention for a long period of time. Another challenge is to deal with the few uncooperative children. Many different discipline actions have to be tried until one is found to work. Despite these challenges, teaching seems very rewarding. Ms. Sumsion has loved children all her life. Nothing could stop her from accomplishing her dream of being a teacher. The ability to teach a young child is priceless to her, and she wouldn’t change anything. Special Education Special Education takes a lot more work and dedication than teaching a regular class of children. These children have special needs, and all of their needs require special attention, which sounds very difficult to me. Parents are more involved with these children and sometimes can be overbearing. Each of these children has such different needs that it seems impossible to teach them all at the same time. The curriculum is not as advanced and fast-paced as that of a normal class. Communicating with these students is harder and definitely takes a lot of patience. These children seem harder to discipline, although I don’t think they would need to be disciplined as often. Getting attached to these children seems to be easy because they

could grow so close to you and sometimes even become dependent on you. To me, teaching Special Education seems emotionally draining compared to other classes. I takes a very special person to teach Special Education. Sign Language My interviewee doesn’t teach sign language, but she uses it in school a lot. I would think learning how to sign would be hard for a deaf person because they can’t speak. However, it is just like a young child learning to speak English or any other language. Learning Sign languages takes time and a good example. The language consists of signs and symbols representing words. They have an alphabet that can be used to spell anything if the sign for it is unknown. There are no set signs for names of people. Usually they are just spelled out by signing the letters of the alphabet, or the person can make up a sign for themselves. Signing can be done fast or slow just like speaking fast or slow. Tones and expressions can also be shown in signing by the look on the signer’s face or the body language they use while signing. Sign language is fascinating, and I think everyone should learn some of it. Interview Analysis From this interview I learned a lot about a teaching career. I had always known that teaching requires a good deal of patience and that the monetary rewards are not great. The information Ms. Sumsion gave me verified that view. I think this is something I can live with. I was inspired by her ability to reach out to these students, and I feel I could contribute a lot in this area. I think I learned even more about how to conduct an information-gathering interview. What surprised me most was the difficulty of conducting an interview that flows well. I had written my questions ahead of time, but I hadn’t really practiced saying them out loud. Sometimes Ms. Sumsion would answer part of one of my later questions while I was asking her one of my original questions. This interrupted my logical organization of the interview. It was all really good information, but it didn’t seem very organized. I ended up losing track and skipping a few of my question. Also, it was hard to maintain eye contact with her, listen to what she was saying, remember her points, and get ready to ask my next question all at the same time. I ended up just reading my questions from the paper. It sounded kind of stiff. Next time I conduct an interview I will become very familiar with all my questions so I can orchestrate the interviewer better.