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Lana O’Neill
Jan Rieman
English 1101X
February 5, 2010

Critical Inquiry

Jean Anyon is a professor at the City University of New York, has written several

books, and is the author of “Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work” (225).

This article is a result of an experiment of five elementary schools in New Jersey. After

observing the interaction of teachers with students and their teaching practices in varying

social class communities, it is discovered that there is a “hidden curriculum”. Basically,

Anyon describes this hidden curriculum as a change in the teacher’s attitude toward

students, how they teach the information, and the use of resources based on the social

class of the area that the school is located. Anyon reveals that the teachers are changing

to prepare the students for the jobs that they think, based on their social class, and the

social class of their parents, that they will have in the future. The first two schools were

“working class schools”, in which the majority of the parents had blue collared jobs, 15%

were unemployed, less than 30% of the mothers worked, and 15% of the families were

considered to be at or below the federal poverty line (230). The third school was

considered a “middle class school”, where most of the parents had blue collared jobs but

the jobs were mostly middle management (230). The fourth school was an “upper class

school” and the fifth school is called an “Executive Elite school” (231). The similarities

between the schools were that the teachers asked questions, they had rules, homework,

textbooks, and tests (231). Despite the similarities, Anyon found that each school was

teaching its children differently. The working class school students had little decision

making or choice, the textbooks weren’t used, the teacher referred to classroom objects as
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hers, learning wasn’t interactive with the majority of the class being spent copying notes,

and following the right steps to find the answer was the main concern (234-235). The

middle class school focused on getting the right answer, some choice and decision

making was involved, textbooks were used, and the teacher asked more questions to

involve the students (236). The upper class school used a lot of independent but creative

learning assignments, a lot of explanations and expressions of ideas, they do more

activities instead of just copying notes, and the children’s opinion is very valued (240-

241). In the Executive Elite School children are required to use reasoning to figure out

the problems, correct answers are not important, bells are not used to announce the end of

class, and the children’s movement is rarely monitored (242-245). Anyon believes that

the different methods of teaching are determined by the area of which the school is

located and as the social class improves, so does the teaching.

It wasn’t surprising to learn about this hidden curriculum because it appears to

me that the teaching does differ depending on the location of the school but I don’t think

that it is intentional. I think that if the school is in a less fortunate neighborhood then it

doesn’t have as much money, therefore it cant afford the best teachers. Anyon mentions

that the children in the working class schools are “developing abilities and skills of

resistance” (247) which I think can pose a problem for the teacher if students are resisting

the work assigned. According to this article, the teachers in the working class schools

rarely involved the students and their opinions, which makes me wonder if this is because

the students have behavior problems, or if the students have behavior problems because

they are not being taken seriously. Also, if the school has the materials needed, such as

textbooks, it makes sense to give them to the students, but the lower class schools didn’t.
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I think that the teachers are afraid to use the books because they think that the students

wont respect them, which is probably true, however I think that they wouldn’t respect

them because they feel the teacher doesn’t trust them. This is the same situation as the

movie Freedom Writers. In this movie, a teacher starts working at a very poor school and

is told she is not allowed to let the kids use the textbooks because they wont respect them

and the school cant afford to buy new ones. The school feels this way because the books

they have are already torn and the students have a history of being disrespectful towards

the school’s property. When the teacher raises the money herself and buys brand new

books for the students, they take care of them because they feel trusted and they

appreciate the effort that the teacher has made.

The best school, in my opinion is the middle class school because it taught the

students how to get the right answer but also allowed for some creativity. The teacher

explained her decision making process and involved students when teaching. The

teacher and students still relied on bells to change classes, which means that some rules

and structure were still visible. Also, the students respected the teacher and the

classroom materials because they were given a chance to use them and the teacher

offered them respect in return, unlike the working class schools. The middle class school

sounds most like the schools that I have always gone to and it seems to have been an

effective system. It is a good mixture of rules and freedom; it allows the students to be

creative, yet getting the correct answer is still important.

I think that the Executive Elite School is too high quality thinking for fifth

graders. I wouldn’t want my kids to go to this school because as Anyon said, it is

“reasoning through a problem, to produce intellectual products that are both logically
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sound and of top academic quality” (242). I don’t think that this is an effective way to

teach such young children because they aren’t ready for this type of deep thinking. At

such a young age, I think in order for them to learn, children must stay entertained and

interested. Also this article mentions that the correct answers are not given by the book

or the teacher (243) which I think could pose a problem in later school years because

correct answers are going to become important at some point in one’s educational career.

At a college level, I think that this teaching method would be appropriate, but until then I

think that the middle class school is the best choice.

Resources

Anyon, Jean. "Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work." Writing Conventions.

Eds. Lu and Horner. New York: Pearson, 2008. 225-51. Print.