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.