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Taylor Glazebrook

Dr. Rieman

English 1101x

2/9/2010

Critical Interpretation of “The Hidden Curriculum of work”

While reading “Social class and the hidden curriculum of work” by Jean Anyon, I

learned a lot and also questioned some things. I never knew that social class played such a

big role in the education system. In this article it talks about how there are different levels

of education that young 5th graders can go through. The first two schools were called the

“working class” schools. This school is for mainly children who have parents that work

blue-collar jobs. I found this statistic kind of shocking, I would of never thought that it

would be so high. “Approximately fifteen percent of the families in each school are at or

below the federal “poverty” level, most of the rest of the family incomes are at or below

$12,000, except some of the skilled workers incomes are higher” (Anyon, 230). The third

school is called the “middle-class” schools; these are with children that have parents with

incomes between $13,000 and $25,000 with a few higher. The fourth school is called

“affluent professional school”. This school is with families with incomes between $40,000

and $50,000. This income span represents approximately seven percent of families in the

United States. The fifth school is called the “Executive Elite Schools”. Most fathers are top

executives in major U.S.-based multinational corporations. Almost all family incomes are

over $100,000 with some in the $500,000 range.

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In my opinion I think putting schools into these categories is just a tad overdone. To

me children should be able to receive the best education there is, no matter what there

social class is. I feel that this is just a bit stereotypical, because it is taking the families and

putting them into different categories due to the money the make. In the working class and

middle class schools the teachers aren’t the best out there because the school can’t afford

any better. These teachers aren’t making it any easier on the students to get the best

education possible. There are not always textbooks available and they don’t have all the

necessary tools that they need to learn. The students would ask questions and try to learn

but the teacher would just ignore the child’s request. They feel that as long as they get their

job done they don’t really care how it gets done just as long as it does. In the affluent

professional and executive elite schools they have a little bit better teaching staff because

they can afford it. With the quote that you are about to read you will already see that this

school has better teachers because they get their students to do some out-of-the-box

thinking. According to Anyon,”The teacher’s questions ask the children to expand what

they say, to give more detail, and, to be more specific” (240). This quote is a way for

children to be more elaborate on their thinking. It also helps students be more detailed in

their writing and any other assignments that they do. Another quote that you could

compare to the one before would be the complete opposite, “While teachers spend a lot of

time explaining and expanding on what the textbooks say, there is little attempt to analyze

how or why things happen, or give thought to how pieces of a culture, or, say, a system of

numbers or elements of a language fit together or an be analyzed” (237). This quote

contradicts every thing that was said in the previous quote. This one shows that the

teachers just go by what the textbook says and they aren’t putting any opinion into it. They
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aren’t letting the students put their own “spin” on things. The Affluent Professional

classrooms are more structured and have a fun learning environment. For me, I think that

the affluent professional schools would be the best because the individuals can express

themselves and learning can be fun. Rather than not having a very structured classroom to

having one that is way to structured. Children should want to go to school everyday and be

excited to learn something new, and the executive elite schools to me seems way to over

the top for an elementary school. When I think of an elite school I think more of a college or

maybe a private high school, definitely not an elementary school.

Overall all children should be offered the same education and should not be

penalized for what their family income is based on. The students should want to go to

school and be excited, especially at the young age they are. I also think that research

should of went further and talked to maybe some of the parents of the students to see what

they feel about where there child is going to school. I would have liked to see more of what

the students had to say just to see if they were happy being put into those schools, and if

they had a choice which school they would choose.

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Work Cited

Lu, Min-Zhan and Horner, Bruce. Writing Conventions. New York: Pearson Education, 2008

Print.
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Self-Assessment

In my paper, I feel that my biggest strengths would be my opinion on the situation

and the topic. I also was able to back up what I had to say and used examples from the

book. Some things that might need to be looked out for are careless mistakes, and possibly

not having the best sentence structure. I don’t think that this is my best paper that I have

written before. I know that it would be easier to write about something that interested me

more. This was fairly interesting, but it wasn’t the easiest to write about.

Taylor,

I appreciate your thoughtful self-assessment. You do choose some wonderfully

supportive quotes from Anyon to illustrate your points. You are also right to think that

you’ll need to find ways to read for and hear when you have careless mistakes and

awkward phrasing. Reading aloud can be a great tool for this activity.

Many topics are hard to write about, as you acknowledge. Generally, the more

familiar you become with a topic, the easier (and more complex) the writing gets. As you

work toward revision on this essay (if you are going to work on this paper more), I’d

encourage you to clarify your point and work your whole paper toward proving that point.

Your conclusion does a good job of summarizing your paper, and as you can see there, you

really have two main ideas you put forth, so think how they are connected to one another.

Some questions to consider: Is what you’re asking of Anyon’s research to do within her

realm of investigation? Can you go beyond just saying that all kids deserve the same type

of education and what type that should be? Why do you think what you propose is the best?

See where this revision takes you.

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