Summary Of From Social Class And The Hidden Curriculum Of Work By Jean Anyon

The middle class students tend to outperform their peers, with this group being predominantly white but not entirely. Lower class students, however, are made up of black, Hispanic and white students, and often are more inclined to be off task. There was one lower class white student, for example, who was off task for the entire class period and more focused on socializing with his friends than completing any sort of assignment. The most troubling thing about this individual was, judging by the half-completed assignment in front of them, they barely knew who to write and could not even compile a complete

1. From Social Class and The Hidden Curriculum of Work by Jean Anyon 2. In the article, “From Social Class and The Hidden Curriculum of Work by jean Anyon states that being in different social classes results in different educational experiences. People in higher classes are taught to be more doctors and more elite positions, while working classes are taught to have more particular curriculum to basically keep them in their class.

Social class matters and in fact it is a big marker on the identity of a child. In Where We Stand: Class Matters, bell books states, “Three important things I learned in school: 1) money matters, 2) status goods matters, 3) where you live matters” (p.10). Here we see that systems of power work against working class children by constantly questioning their values, and talents causing them to be torn between two worlds. It is only after attending school that children see the difference between themselves and their peers. For instance in the story Juice struggles with reading.

In the article, “Stop Blaming Black Parents for Underachieving Kids”, Dr. Andre Perry defends the negative comments being thrown at black parents based on their child’s academic success. He expresses his feelings and ideas in forms of anecdotes and factual evidence. He also uses his knowledge as a dean of urban education. In his article “Stop Blaming Black Parents for Underachieving Kids”, published in the Washington Post, Dr. Andre Perry defends black parents’ participation in their kids’ education by providing facts and anecdotes discussing what the parents are willing to provide for their children’s education.

Nick Tingle’s article discusses David Bartholomae’s theory on Inventing the University's, where he takes Bartholomae’s article and discusses beyond, in explaining how class conflicts create tension within writing. He brings forward his values, views, and personal experiences from both sides of the working class and middle class debate. Tingle discusses and agree’s with Basil Bernstein that middle class and working class children learn different perceptual activity and uses the example that speech “becomes an object of special perceptual activity”(225). To discuss this, Tingle agrees that speech and language is evidently different from children in the working class home compared to the middle class families. In the middle class family, the role

In preparation for this paper I chose to read Fire in the ashes: twenty five years among the poorest children in America by Jonathan Kozol. In this book Kozol has followed these children and their family’s lives for the past twenty five years. In his writing Kozol portrays a point of view most from his background and standing would not be capable of having. He portrays what life is like for those who have been let down by the system that was meant to protect them. Kozols writing style can be very blunt at times, not for shock value, but for the sake of portraying these children’s realities, and not sugarcoating the inequalities that they are faced with.

My personal experience as a ‘case study’ to evaluate the validity of either Freire or Anyons theory about the theory of the educational systems and I picked Anyons theory. For a long time education has been imagined as one of the biggest sources and mobility towards success in America. There are people who find education worthless or as Mike Rose said that it is Bullshit and that the education experience they had wasn’t really as well ask they thought it would be or that could have been. Other people think educationist depends on what type of class the person is taking depending on the school the person is in and how the teachers teach is the most important feature of them all. Education nowadays is something that is very important because if you don’t have an education nowadays it is hard to be successful.

The lack of exposure of education in working class communities revolves around constant judgment and misunderstandings. Many people will not understand when you have to say “no” to going out on a night of drinking, or rejecting the offer to a family reunion to finish studying for a midterm. It is difficult to explain to family members and friends that my education comes first. It is also difficult to constantly remain in a dedicated mindset to continue my education. The stigma behind the school name I carry brings a lot of stereotyping as well.

Most presidential candidates that have come and gone, have came from all classes of society. But one you will not find is the average citizen or working class. These people for whom if they do run for office are really never mentioned or credited on any news networks, press publications or media and are blotched out by those who have ties with organizations and Super PACs to sway public opinion and attention towards these presidential candidates. When I took up running for office, as an independent I knew public attention would be a little if nonexistent but, due to the ability to self publish this manifesto I have overrided the unguided efforts of such controlled bias press and corrupt media and bypassed all such obstacles and straight into the Americans heart, unfiltered and straight from the source. I write this manifesto not for the pure profit or sale but to ensure my message to the public unscrewed and distorted by media.

In Jonathan Kozol’s “Still Separate, Still Unequal: America’s Educational Apartheid” he explains that the difference between the low class schools and the urban class schools inequality by the lack of importance, the low funds, and the segregation. Kozol admits that no effort is put into the minority public schools that are isolated and deeply segregated. “At a middle school named for Dr. King in Boston, black and Hispanic children make up 98 percent of the enrollment”(Kozol 349). The schools that are named after Civil Rights leaders shows no proof of what these people were trying to succeed. Kozol comments on the extremely low funds in these minority schools.

In James W. Loewen’s “The Land of Opportunity,” he states that social class affects the way children are raised. He discusses the inequality in today’s society and how the textbooks in high school do not give any social class information. The students in today’s time are not taught everything they should be taught. He states that your family’s wealth is what makes up your future. Loewen discusses that people with more money can study for the SATs more productively and get a better score than someone who has less money.

Similarities and Differences between the Films An apparent similarity in both Won’t Back Down and Children in America’s Schools is that they both focus on disadvantaged schools. The failing schools in both films can be described with some of the same characteristics, such as overcrowded classrooms, unmotivated teachers, insufficient funding, and lack of school resources. Children in America’s Schools begins by showing several schools in impoverished districts that are certainly not suitable learning environments for children. These schools have molded walls, collapsed ceilings, and torn textbooks compared to the wealthier schools districts that possess advanced facilities such as computer labs, Olympic sized pools, robotic labs and advance courses.

Within the reading of chapter four of Our Kids by Robert Putnam one key point of his argument is that it really matters where kids attend school and who they are attending school with. The overall growing class gap is extremely evident within the American school system. However, schools are not responsible for the creation of the opportunity gap because the gap already exists before schools are put into the picture. While this may be true, the schools that kids from affluent families are attending are significantly different than schools that children from poorer families are attending. This could be a product of the fact that affluent and poor families are usually not living in the same areas.

In the working class schools, the student’s attitudes reflected what the teachers felt about their job. The teachers lacked passion for their job and did not want to be there anymore than the students. The principal not knowing the history of the school plays a role on why the school was poorly maintained. The middle class school had more parents involved than working class school. This can be the result of the parents socioeconomic status since middle class parents have better paying jobs allowing them more participation in their child’s school.

When taking a look into Jean Anyon’s “Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work”, readers are apprised of the hidden agendas many schools have. In this article, Anyon focuses on the curriculum and student-teacher interaction from five New Jersey elementary schools located in different communities with different levels of socioeconomic status. Anyon attempts to find evidence of the differences in student work in schools in wealthy communities versus those in poor communities, in an effort to bolster the argument that public schools in society provide different forms of knowledge. Through her researcher, she was able to determine that working class schools limited students; the students were given steps to follow and they were graded based on how well they followed directions—this level of education was preparing students for the labor force as blue collar workers. In addition, the affluent professional school and the middle-class school focused on attaining the correct answer, but allowed individuals to have a choice of appropriate method and material.