Overcoming Obstacles During Your Dissertation with Dr. Sandra Ingram
Dr. Russell Strickland 21:00
I remember I was always pretty good to my teachers when I was in grade school. But I do remember we got a teacher, a science teacher when I was in ninth grade, and she did not know how to control a classroom, she did not have any sense of confidence. And I have to say we kind of took advantage of that. Well, even though I am pretty wasn’t always pretty nice to my teachers.
Dr. Sandra Ingram 21:24
What I always say is, you can’t blame kids for being smart, okay? You just have to try to be a little smarter. So we’re not gonna hold it against them because they’re smart. I’m just trying to be a little smarter. So there’s different avenues and different things you can do to hit off some things. Right and then before it starts, and it gets to where it’s already started, what to do to avert some of the same because you will be challenged I tell you I’ve had some things said to me, even like I’m going to kill you today. Oh, okay, so but you know what they want to hear that I’m gonna work? No, but you know, but I always tell my students is, every day I come school and if I come, I’m not scared. Yeah, so from here, I’m not scared. But you know, my thing was that I tried to teach other teachers is that sometimes you can diffuse a lot of things, which is humor, right? And so instead of just you get all upset and go, you just do humans. So what I told the student was I said, What’s today? And he said Wednesday, I said, Okay, so I said two things will happen today. I said, If you shoot me and kill me, go to heaven. And if you shoot me and don’t keep me I’m going to Bible study tonight. So can you please sit down and do you work? Things look at me like what are you Go Okay, well, I can I can see I’m not gonna scare her. So it’s just it’s just a little humor thing. I just tried to defuse everything with. But that takes that was because I was mature. Right? And a lot of times when you’re just starting out you’d and some of the teachers are five foot four and I taught high school so the keys can be six foot. No, you’d be able to intimidate. Yeah, no.
Dr. Russell Strickland 23:26
No, I remember my, um, my daughter on her last seat. She’s always been a little on the tall side and on her last day of elementary school, fifth grade, where where they went to school. We were able to get back and take her that morning to see and every one of her teachers. Yeah, it was really cool. Not all the teachers stick around for that long so she had the teachers were able to go see every one of them. And I think she was taller than every one of them.
Dr. Sandra Ingram 23:54
Yes, yes, yes.
Dr. Russell Strickland 23:56
But it was it was a good experience it to get to yes. So do you have any other stories of, you know, things that teachers are having trouble with or struggling in any specific incidents, you can remember that you help someone with?
Dr. Sandra Ingram 24:12
Well, my own thing because I was a science teacher, and so we always had to take even when I worked at a school with students with disabilities, they started the intercourse test and physical science. That year. I got extremely sick, and I was out of work for like three months. But I found a way in this is what I try to teach teachers. You have to find a way to teach students that are, I call them shortcuts, so that they can learn what they need to like if you’re going to do a clinic square and they gave you a grey dog and a white dog and whatever You should be able to teach them how to look at that and say that’s going to be a two to four to two. And how to do that process after you’ve taught them the basics, right? So I had to learn how to teach and get them to understand what’s going on. But one thing I will always say, I was a rebel in a classroom and I always taught holistically. Okay, never skipped. I’m never going to teach to a test. Yeah, I agree. I’m always going to teach what you need to know. Because if you get the base and we can build, and I can show you how to do other things.
Dr. Russell Strickland 25:40
So one things I really liked about math and science as I was growing up, is that in history or an English class, if you learn one thing, you knew one thing, but math or science, you could you could take that one thing that was like a tool and you could use it all over the place. You got a screwdriver and all of a sudden you start looking around at all the screws there are and you get a solid You start seeing all this wooden curtain? Yes, it was, it was really great to be able to take something that someone had taught me and then figure out all the places that I can use it.
Dr. Sandra Ingram 26:10
When I taught physical science also at the university level, so I had a lot of athletes. So if I wanted to teach torque or whatever, I use ice skaters, you know, force and mass I use a football I think, football player who’s a genius. How do you figure out with how much this bonus when the force you’re going to put on that ball to get all the way down to feel that? I think that’s a genius. You’re a genius. And they will go like, I never thought about it that way, in case you’re smart. But you have to wake up their mind and their curiosity and you have to do things different. And you cannot it is no longer I used to say well, you know, it’s like talk, talk, talk, talk. We can’t do that.
Dr. Russell Strickland 26:58
Yeah. Gotta keep them engaged, you got to have things that we do again working on, they have to learn as much as you’re teaching.
Dr. Sandra Ingram 27:04
Yes, absolutely. And one of the other things I did was, we had a chapter on atomic physics. And everybody always had a hard time. So what I did was I broke down that each section. So I explained to the students and everybody has a section that you have to teach. Now how you teach it is going to be in because I’m not going to teach this chapter. Yeah, so it’s all on you. So you have to know your one part. But as everybody else teaches, you have to take notes and ask them questions. And so I was always there to get something off for a living. But this was a surprising thing. When they came to class with their turn to teach. The guys had on dress pants and a tie. And the girls were dress,
Dr. Russell Strickland 27:53
and you never told them what to do.
Dr. Sandra Ingram 27:54
No, never.
Dr. Russell Strickland 27:56
No, that’s that’s something. Did you guys talk about that in class.
Dr. Sandra Ingram 28:00
Yes, we did. What What did they say about that? It made them feel important. And they said, that was the best chapter. And they learned so much they learn from each other. Right? And so and I told him, I said, if you don’t teach dude, when I’ma give you the same test that I gave him that All right, so if you do not teach your one section whale, the other class, the class is going to suffer. Yeah. And if you don’t ask questions that you don’t understand, you have to ask them in a part of their Gray was not only just the presentation, but could they answer the questions? Yeah, they didn’t have to be perfect, but they had to make five. And even when I got my evaluation that year, they all wrote that on the values
Dr. Russell Strickland 28:44
that is so important to to, to give students an opportunity to show what they can do. Yes, not just to tell them to do something and make them do it. But to give them the freedom to go out and go figure out how to Do this. Yes. When I was in college, we used to call this notion I mean, the fact that they learned this material very well, because they were teaching it.
Dr. Sandra Ingram 29:08
Right. Absolutely.
Dr. Russell Strickland 29:10
Absolutely. And we call that when I was in school, the grandma theorem. And it was, you don’t know anything unless you can explain it to your grandmother. I love it. I was a, you know, I majored in physics in in as an undergrad. And so we were assuming that there weren’t a lot of grandmothers out there. Who were physicists. There were a few but not a whole lot. And, and that’s the thing and I remember, you know, occasionally like over Christmas, my grandmother asked, What are you doing in school? And I would tell her, and she would understand it. Yeah, I knew that I was doing all right.
Dr. Sandra Ingram 29:47
Yes.
Dr. Russell Strickland 29:48
It actually makes me remember another little story My, my, one of my teachers taught about electromagnetics, the light and all this different stuff and She he tells a story about how he was spending an afternoon with his grandchildren and they after after talked with him for a while they ran into find his wife and she came in a few minutes later she was like these kids like you have done something to them what did you do? He said nothing she’s like Tell me what happened. And she said they asked me why the sky was blue. She said What did you do? She said he said I told them and he explained to his his grandkids all about all the diffraction and and and why the sunsets red The sky is blue and all this kind of stuff, which I I just thought was really, really funny. Yeah, he always had this grin on his face.
Dr. Sandra Ingram 30:47
Yes, that is awesome.
Dr. Russell Strickland 30:50
Well, I think you’ve got another book and he with with some of these great stories from from teaching, and that’ll only help your business as well. So I’m excited to hear about that. sometime soon as well, I think you mentioned Have you also been doing some work with folks who are working on their dissertation or maybe a master’s thesis as well?
Dr. Sandra Ingram 31:09
Yes. Yes. I have been. Some of my colleagues have called on me to mentor some young people. And it is. And I’ve done several. And it’s interesting in that I don’t know how to say it, but how much students don’t know about writing and the English language but then I understand that we don’t teach a lot of things in school anymore. That’s true. Know Me. I’m old school so I know how to diagram a sentence.
Dr. Russell Strickland 31:47
And I was just gonna bring that up. We were watching this a Weird Al Yankovic video this thing called Word crimes. I don’t know if you haven’t seen it. Look up word crimes on YouTube. It’s really funny. But he shows diagramming sentences and my son asked me what is that man? school next year and they have never showed him that at all.
Dr. Sandra Ingram 32:03
No. So it’s how do you write a sentence if you don’t know what a subject is and a noun and a pronoun and verb and a participle, participle phrase or a dangling participle? How do you know how to why it’s not taught in school. So, and then even though I was a science teacher, we always had to do one paper. And so everybody had to do that. And that was it was a little bit depressing about the level of writing but then I realized, and even though I was at the university level, I would get very upset with people who would say, I don’t know why these kids are coming out of high school and don’t know how to write well. Number one, you’ve never been in high school and try to handle the class, which do the math on everything but but that’s right. You’re trying to keep them, keep them quiet, teach, stop Johnny from hitting Sue stop the gangs from passing self stop drugs. And it’s a gamut of things that you invest in another thing that, you know, when you’re working with working with teachers, what do you do to see drugs being passed? Or what do you do if you see things, you know? And some of these students are very confrontational, and they will tell you, you can’t make me do nothing. Right? I just tell them you know what, I just do what I do, because one thing about I am too cute to go to jail, so that won’t be happening. So but it’s a lot of things to face and I do hope and pray that students continue to want to teach.
Dr. Russell Strickland 33:50
Yeah, I think we’ll always have those teachers out there, but it’s a good thing that we have people like you to try to help them through. Some of those some of those, particularly early issues, and, and definitely, you know, we are in the middle of COVID-19 right now, as we’re recording this. We don’t know what’s going to happen with schools reopening in the fall, it’s summertime right now. But eventually, the schools will reopen. And even though they don’t, there will still be teaching and there will still be issues and concerns and things that they have to deal with. And so having someone who’s been there before, to help them through that is a great blessing. And I’m glad that we have you to do that. And, and that your doctoral journey has in some way empowered you to be able to do this to put you in that position where people will ask you for this type of help and support.
Dr. Sandra Ingram 34:44
And it’s absolutely true. And there were some people who told me that they just sail through their doctoral journey and dissertation, they had no problems and I want like that is not my testimony. But I see it But the thing is, I am glad of what I had to go through because when I can do it take what I learned to help somebody else, right.
Dr. Russell Strickland 35:08
It’s not the fault. that defines us as the getting back up.
Dr. Sandra Ingram 35:12
Yes, yes. Absolutely. Awesome.
Dr. Russell Strickland 35:15
Well, Dr. Ingram, if someone wanted to find you for help with any of these things that we’ve been talking about to hear about your book later on, or yes, no, any of the things we’ve been talking about how would they best get in touch with you?
Dr. Sandra Ingram 35:28
Okay, they can email me at deingram333@gmail.com. All right,
Dr. Russell Strickland 35:40
we’re gonna get that in the notes. But say it to us one more time.
Dr. Sandra Ingram 35:49
deingram333@gmail.com.
Dr. Russell Strickland 35:54
All right, that is awesome. Well, Dr. Ingram, thank you so much for being here with us today, I just want to remind everyone that this episode was brought to you by Dissertation Done. So if you are struggling through your dissertation process wherever you are in the process, from just thinking about getting started on your dissertation to I’ve been stuck for a year, haven’t moved on my dissertation, reach out to us at wwwdissertationdone.com. We’ll see if you’re a good fit for our Fast Track Your Dissertation Program, and we’ll get you from here to graduation as soon as possible. So once again, Dr. Ingram, thank you so much for joining us here today. Please reach out to Dr. Ingram for more information about anything she talked about on the podcast. She’s absolutely wonderful to work with. And we will see you here next time.
Dr. Sandra Ingram 36:40
Thank you so much. Thank you.
Outro 36:48
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