GEMS project

I interviewed my six-year-old niece Emily. She has just finished the first grade. The interview took place in her home on a sunny afternoon. One of Emily's favorite things to do is “"flit” around" she has lots of energy! After “"flitting"” for a while, I told her that we would be talking about mysteries. She got excited and settled down.

I wanted to make sure that Emily understood the basic concepts that are involved in the Mystery Festival. I wanted to make sure that she knew what a mystery was, who solves mysteries, and how they go about solving them. When I asked her “"Do you know what a mystery is?"” she replied, “"Yes I do." It's when something happens and no one knows what happened.” After reading the story of Mr. Bear I asked her why our story was a mystery. She said, “"Well because they didn't know what happened to Mr. Bear and so they had to use clues to find him."” Since she brought up clues, I thought we should go on to the next question. I asked her who solves mysteries and how they do it. She relied, “"Policemen solve them. They are very nice and they help us. They have to look for clues that are things that are left behind to help them solve the mystery."”

I asked her if she knew that sometimes she could be a detective and solve a mystery and she said, “"Yes I can. I read books that have mysteries and I try to think of what happened before I finish the book."” (*She reads on a fourth grade level*) I then asked her how she would go about solving a mystery. She said that she would first look at the crime scene and collect all the evidence. Then she would take all of the “"stuff"” she collected into the kitchen (“"because I don't really have another special place to do it"”) and study her evidence. Then she said she would know who solved the mystery.

I thought we had a good interview and it was good to be able to get a child's perspective on this activity. I think Emily would really enjoy the activity itself if it was done in her classroom at school. She enjoys role playing, and instead of drawing me a picture she literally walked through the steps she would take as a detective so that I could see “"how it's done."”

Ruth Frei

Clinical Interview – CI 5329

06/18/2008

My clinical interview was with my seven year old son who’s name is Noah. Noah just finished second grade at Schertz Elementary in Schertz, Texas. The interview was conducted on June 15, 2008 at home in San Marcos. Noah was very much energetic about helping me but at times he was very hard headed and wanted to play.

Before meeting with Noah, I thought about what I wanted to discover through the interview with him. I thought of questions like, “How will a student approach an experiment like “Who borrowed Mr. Bear?”, “How much excitement might the children have?”, “How will this interfere with the experiment?”, and “Will he grasp the important concepts needed to solve the mystery?” I expected Noah would be all over the place because of his ADHD but he sat there and listened very closely while paying very close attention. He was very excited and inquisitive about finding out who took Mr. Bear.

Some Misconceptions I thought Noah would encounter might be: would he understand what a mystery was? , would he be able to focus on the task at hand when solving a mystery? , would there be any conclusions that Noah would jump to after completing only one or two stations of the crime scene, and would he have disagreements with other students on the data collected and how it was represented on the data sheets?

When the time came to interview Noah, I opened with the following questions: “What is a Mystery?”, “How are they solved” What television shows have you seen that solves mysteries?”, “What do you think suspects are in a mystery?”, and last but not least “Who solves mysteries?” Noah replied, “I think a mystery is solve a murder or kidnapping”. He told me “suspects are the people who hurt somebody.”

He said he had seen mystery shows on T.V. Shows like Scooby Doo and CSI. He went on to tell me that special police officers solve cases along with special scientist.

Next, I read “Who borrowed Mr. Bear?” to Noah and I asked him, “How can you as detectives solve the mystery of who borrowed Mr. Bear?” He explained, I would have to look very carefully at the scene and to be careful not to touch anything to spoil the evidence. I asked him what he meant by “spoiling” and he stated, “that you can not touch the evidence without special gloves and sometimes special powders to make the finger prints come out of hiding.”

We moved on to guessing who could have possibly borrowed Mr. Bear and what he thought guessing is? Noah response was that Al had borrowed Mr. Bear and that he did not steal him. I told him that I felt the same way.

Noah and I had talked about they way he had figured out who borrowed Mr. Bear and I ask him if he would change any way that he solved it and he told me know. When I asked him why he would not change anything, he responded that he figured out the person and that because he did, he did every step right.

After interviewing Noah, I asked him to draw out some clues for me and describe a crime scene to me. He refused to do this and he was ready for a heated argument stating that he was not in school and he did not want to do it and I could not make it. I had to end the session with him because it was not worth the battle.