Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work

Morgan Evans
English 1100
September 24, 2015
Prof. Young

 

Differences in Social Classes with Schooling

 

In the 1980’s the way of teaching in schools is much different than the way it is now in the 2000’s. In Jean Anyon’s research on the social classes and their behavior in classrooms she expresses a distinct way of teaching for each class; working, middle, upper, and elite. However her theory that each class gets taught based on their social class is very wrong and I strongly disagree with it.

Every teacher who graduated from college and found themselves a job at a school has a certain curriculum they follow. Even though there are many impoverished towns each teacher has lessons they follow for their grade of students. Just because a town can be full of working class citizens doesn’t mean that teacher will look at the students a certain way and teach them only what she thinks will help them being in the working class. The way Jean Anyon wrote her findings made it sound like the students in those certain classes are just being taught what they need to stay in those certain classes. The teacher doesn’t educate the students to learn and try to move higher in the social classes.

In the move the Freedom Writer’s a new teacher, Ms. Gruwell, started working at Woodrow Wilson Classical High School where it seemed only the teachers and administrators cared about the white students. Most teachers in that school passed the non-white kids and barely paid them any mind, and didn’t care what they did. However when Mrs. Gruwell came to teach she worked with her students instead of let them be to try and educate them and help them, so after high school they can do something with their life instead of be in gangs. According to Jean Anyon that school would have been made up of Working Class high schoolers, and instead of how Jean Anyon said they would have been taught Ms. Gruwell taught them a mixture of Upper and Elite classes.

Unlike Jean Anyon I believe every grade of students get taught similarly no matter what they are associated with being. For me I am a Middle Class student and in my town we have a mixture of Upper, Middle and Working, but we all get taught the same. In this day in age, you do not have a distinct line as to who Working, Middle, and Upper classes are anymore so the teaching is identical.



Resolution on Student's Right

Morgan Evans
English 1100
September 17, 2015
Prof. Young

 

Freedom to Speak

 



When you look up the First Amendment you find that it says it is the right to communicate one's opinions and ideas without fear of government retaliation or censorship. And when you look more closely at the definition of freedom of speech it says communicate, now communicate doesn't mean to only speak English. Communicate simply means that there is a sharing or an exchanging of thoughts/information. 

So to say that one must speak only English even if its in a school setting. Everyone that lives in America has the right to speak however they want. Students should have the opportunity to speak their language. For the United States we do not have an official language so why do we make non-English students learn it? From The Resolution on Student's Right to Their Own Language it states "The claim that any one dialect is unacceptable amounts to an attempt of one social group to exert ts dominance over another."

The United States is known as a melting pot of diverse people from other countries. When people migrate to the US they bring with their language. In the US it is their right to speak how they want. In schools among the US should not be any different. The schools should allow students to express their identity, language, freely. In The Resolution on Student's Right to Their Own Language it says "We affirm strongly that teachers must have the experiences and training that will enable them to respect diversity" I agree from the excerpt when it says that the teacher should have the right training to respect the students diversity. Every student has different ethnicities and even some can speak the language, and if so they should be able to speak freely in class. Each person has their own identity and even in a class situation they should be allowed to openly express it.





My Identity

Morgan Evans
English 1100
September 1, 2015
Prof. Young

 

Who I am

            Every person in the world is not exactly the same as the next, each individual is different. Yes some people may look the same, but who they truly are is not. One’s identity is made up of numerous qualities that no other person can exactly have like culture, religion, language, race, and gender. Identity is the uniqueness and perception of how one sees himself/herself. To put simply identity is you, it is who you are. Just like Gloria Anzaldua’s view of identity, I too believe it is very important. In life people always try to fit in and find people they can be comfortable around, and when someone is from two different backgrounds, or in Anzaldua’s case Hispanic but lives in America, it becomes difficult to find that feeling of belonging. Sometimes to find that feeling people will branch out of the standard normal living and create something new. For example when Azaldua states, "For a people who cannot entirely identify with neither standard Spanish nor Standard English, what recourse is left to them but to create their own language? A language whivh they can connect their identity to, one capable of communicating the realities and values true to themselves."

          When you hear people say to others that they are a mutt, it means they are made up of a lot of ethnicities, and that’s one thing many people call me. Being Czech, Irish, Welsh, Ukraine and Native American, it is somewhat hard to fit in because I am so many things. However if I wasn’t one of them I wouldn’t be who I am now. My ethnicities shaped who I am now, I take so much pride in learning my languages and my history. Anzaldua’s essay expresses this when she says,”So, if you want to really hurt me, talk badly about my language. Ethnic identity is twin to linguistic identity- I am my language. Until I can take pride in my language, I cannot take pride in myself.”