Talking Points #8

Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work By Jean Anyon
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Why schools need to talk another route By Jeannie Oakes
In these readings, the author talks about how schools with different classes and certain races produce the hidden curriculum. Anyon did an observation between five schools whom were from poor communities, and wealthy communities. She has certain names for the schools such as: the working class school, the middle class school, the affluent professional school, and the executive elite school.
In the working class, many of the fathers had unskilled and semiskilled jobs, and Anyon also noticed that the majority is on 85 percent white. These schools family incomes are at the federal poverty level. While she observed the teacher, she noticed that the employed teachers don’t really have a passion for their jobs. They didn’t really teach lessons, they just did their own dittos and when a student still didn’t get it, she just told them they need to keep practicing, and didn’t provide them any help. In almost every lesson the students have to copy what the teacher is writing.
1.) “At this point a girl said she had a faster was to do it and the teacher said, No, you don’t; you don’t even know what I’m making yet. Do it this way or it’s wrong.” I was very surprised at how negative the teachers were toward the students. In this quote, a teacher was writing a grid, and without telling the students what she was making, they were to copy her. When a girl student caught on to what she was doing, she thought of an easier way to do it and the teacher just put her down and practically told her she was doing it wrong. I don’t think that this is an appropriate way to teach. Always getting dittos and not a proper lesson, no wonder why students in the lower class don’t have any ambition to do anything with their lives.
2.) “ The four fifth grade teachers observed in the working class schools attempted to control classroom time and space by making decisions without consulting the children and without explaining the basis for their decisions.” I thought of this quote as interesting. If the children don’t know why the teachers do the stuff they do, how can they learn properly? The codes of power certainly aren’t being taught just by this. The teachers often ignore the school bells, they made every effort to control the children and their actions, all the materials was theirs, and they had no clocks in the room for the students to know what time it was. This school, being a lower/working class, the teachers didn’t really care about every child learning and becoming successful in society because that’s what they came from. I get the feeling that the richer get richer and the poor get poorer.
3.) “There is little excitement in schoolwork for the children, and the assignments are perceived as having little to do with their interests and feelings. As one child said, what you do is ‘store facts up in your head like cold storage-until you need it later for a test or your job’ Thus doing well is important because there are thought to be other likely rewards: a good job or college.” I think the higher class schools get the picture. With this quote, it told me that the students have ambition, and the teachers are doing a good job in educating them. The students know why they are in school and why they have to learn. The teachers honor the bells and the students work on getting the right answers as well as explaining how they got them. They teach from textbooks and use the materials provided to them.
The higher class school seem to be providing a better education for the students, than the lower class schools. The teachers have more of a passion for learning than the teachers in the lower class schools. This is the hidden curriculum, depending on the social classes of the schools Anyon observed. In the higher classes, they were very professional… they made sure the student were getting the proper education because that’s where their family came from since the elite school family income would be 100,000 to 500,000 dollars. I believe every school should be treated like an elite school. It teaches the codes of power properly and they have a higher learning rate and are well behaved. I want to teach my students one day like this, and not like those teachers who don’t really care if the kids are learning or not.