Blog #10

Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work
Jean Anyon

Anyon argues that schools in wealthy communities get a better education than those in the poor communities using many examples from this article. This article also demonstrates how these schools educate the students in a way that prepares them for which the community they live.

Jean Anyon begins talking about the communites in which the study was conducted. The first two schools observed were the working class schools where she says most parents have blue collar jobs that requires little or no skill, where the income is at or below $12,000.

The teachers at the working class schools teach students to follow procedures and steps.
"The teachers rarely explain why the work is being assigned, how it might connect to other assignments, or what the idea is that lies behind the procedure or gives it coherence and perhaps meaning or significance" (3 of 13)
While about these first two schools, I was wondering how the children stay focused in class when they are not being engaged in a way to answer questions, they don't even have the ability to come up with questions on their own. These children are going to end up like their parents. Children are supposed to go to school to acquire skills and gain knowledge but if the teacher isnt giving the knowledge or skills these students are possibly going to be making the very little money that their parents do. It actually annoyed me to read that children just take notes and do dittos that the teacher made up half of the time.

"Teachers made every effort to control the movement of the children" (5 of 13) This quote also shows that there is not trust between the teachers and the students. Everything in these two classrooms just seems so negative. Just because the community they come from isnt the best, isn't your job as a teacher to help these students learn something and be able to function and work in society???

The third school is the middle class school the population is a mixture of several social classes. The average income is $13,00-$25,000.
Unlike the other two schools, this school focuses on the students getting the right answer by listening to the teacher or reading books. The more right answers the better the grades.
The teachers in this school assing work where the students have to read and answer questions to make sure there is an understanding.
"I want to make sure you understand what you're doing-so you get it right." (5 of 13)
This method is a little better because the children are asked how they got the answer and the teacher makes sure there is an understanding of how the child arrived at the answer. I think the only problem is that the children constantly have to be under pressure to get the right answer all the time if they want to do good. A problem that is big in this classroom is that most of the work is based on book work and the students lack creativity to come up with their own ideas.

The fourth school the affluent professional school, the average income of parents in the community was $40,000-$80,000.

"In the affluent professional school, work is creative activity and carried out independently. The students are continually asked to express and apply ideas and concepts. Work involves individual thought and expressiveness, expansion and illlustration of ideas, and choice of appropriate method and material." (7 of 13)

In this community students are able to express their own thoughts and individual ideas. This is great compared to the other schools listed before becasue a person needs to be able to think on their own and have their own opinions and ideas. If a student is constantly writing down what the teacher writes down you're not allowing them to actually think about the question, while at this school in this curriculum students have that oppurtunity. This curriculum focuses more on Independent and creative learning. I think it is good to incoporate this in a classroom because children like to have fun and I think this is a great way to have fun and be learning at the same time. The other students who arent as privileged just store those "lists" in their minds and never have the thought process to go back and use them. The childrens ideas are valued, whether it is right or wrong.

The final school, the Executive Elite School
Family incomes in this community range from 100,000-$500,000 WOW haha
At this school, "Schoolwork helps one to achieve, to excel, to prepare for life."(9 of 13)
Children are challenged by this work. The are asked questions where they must come up with the reasoning on their own. I noticed the teacher has class discussions where she keeps all the children on their feet by asking random students questions, students will stay alert not knowing when the question may be put on them.
Teachers talk about current events with studenst, which i think is great, its important to know wahts going on in the world and some children may have questions or concerns they need to let out and talk about. However, I did not like how the children don't have the same oppurtunity to be creative with their writing and show their individuality. Most papers were research, which is very useful, but at such a young age children have so many ideas to express and the opppurtunity to be creative. The children are so young but are faced with adult repsonsibilites for example at the bottom of page 10 the teacher says to the students must make their own priorities, I think the teacher needs to set goals for the children or they will never know what is really expected of them, they need to know the codes of power for that classroom!

Another thing that was great about this last school was that there is so much trust in the students. " After the first two months of school, the fifth-grade teachers did not line the children up tochange classes or to go to gym, and so on, but, when the children were ready and quiet, they were told they could go--sometimes without the teachers."
"In the classroom , the children could get materials when they needed them and took what they needed from closets and from teh teacher's desk" (11of 13)
I think that being able to trust your students in a good thing, though some abuse the privilege and not be trusted. Also these students had access to materials that other students in other schools did not.

The "hidden curriculum" is that the schools make it seem like they are teaching the students about your average, history, math, science and writing skills. In reality, from reading this article it shows that the teachers are preparing the children from the social class from which they were born into. This is not good at all! We need to make all learning oppurtunities the same for every child because they didn't ask to be born in the class they were born into. Some schools dont have the same materials as others. Our system needs to come up with better ways as to where our taxes are always going and put more into our schooling system. What the students get out of their education is big because that is the future of our country. The next president could be going to the worst school right now and we just don't know it. OR maybe that student has the potential to be president but because of his social class and school he/she may never have the oppurtunity to run. Weneed to come up with a solution fast because it is unfair to the children.