Introducing Myself, Anthropologist in Training

[Taylor Bennett]

My name is Taylor Bennett and I am a third year (Junior) anthropology
major at UCLA. I have been an unschooler for as long as I can remember,
even during the brief and inconsistent periods of time that I was in
public school. I am during the spring quarter for 10 weeks I will be
taking a seminar entitled Educational Anthropology. Part of the course
requirements is to write a "mini field ethnography." An ethnography is
the systematic way anthropologists record the cultures they study. It is
the result of field work with the culture they study, and is a write up
of their field notes resulting in publication. Since this is for a ten
week seminar, it WILL NOT be published, and of course only pseudonyms
will be used.
Radical unschoolers, and unschoolers in general, are such a unique sub culture, one that doesn't and hasn't had much
attention. I was wondering if anyone would mind if I were to conduct my
field notes based on the discussions in this website, and if anyone
would be willing to be interviewed for my class? Just to clarify, I
wouldn't be anonymously reading everyone's posts and then writing my
ethnography. Part of conducting a study in anthropology is something
called "participant observation." Basically, I would be interacting with
the unschoolers in this community to get a better understanding of the
larger culture that we belong to. This would mean that I would interact,
chat, post/comment on discussions, hopefully conduct interviews over
email or chat, all the while taking "field notes" on things I gather
from my participant observation which will eventually be compiled into
my mini ethnography on Radical Unschoolers in the 00's.
Since this is an online community, anyone who is a part of this network is welcome to
participate as much or as little as they would like. If anyone would
prefer I did not conduct my study I would completely understand. Please
leave any responses/thoughts/questions in the comments section.

Thank you,
Taylor Bennett