English 1101x

MW 9:30 10:45

Critical Interpretation paper Jean Anyon

An Unstoppable process

I believe the Jean Anyons “Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum” is one of the better

essays I have read. It shows how kids who attend different income schools are given different

educational experiences. She also believes that the students who attend those schools are

taught in a ways in which will lead them to stay in the same income bracket as their parents.

Anyon obtained this theory by interviewing teachers, principals and children from different

schools; she also sits in on different classrooms in different schools to see if she can get a better

understanding of the educational experience for each student. I will be explaining the different

classes the effects of those classes and do we see this today.

There are four different types of schools; the first is working class were blue collar

families make up the majority of the school. The second school is middle class school which has

“a mixture of several social classes.”(230). The third school is Affluent Professional School this

school is made up of capitalist children with which make up the majority of that school. The last

school is Executive elite which most of the children’s parents make in six figures. She believes

that the students in Executive elite schools are being taught to run the other students in the

lower schools. This makes the educational system more like a cast system and this traps the
students in their parent’s economic class. If she is right then the American dream of social

mobility for the masses is a sham.

I believe that her theory is true because I went to Executive elite school in elementary

school and a lot was asked of me. In that school it seemed as though they were preparing me to

make something of myself. In this school students controlled the classroom teachers felt more

like babysitters than educators. Eventually the kids would break the teachers will and they

would give up on the class. The teachers would pass us so they would not have to deal with us.

Not only that but they would lose their temper very easily. This made for a very hostile

environment and the classroom was turn into a battlefield. This caused the students to lose

trust with the teachers. If one of my classes had a substitute the students became sharks. They

would smell the blood in the water and attack the teacher until they would give up trying to

teach them. They could see the teacher’s lack of experience as a weakness and would verbally

attack them. In one case I was in a class where there was a substitute teacher and the students

went crazy. I don’t through around that term lightly they started screaming at her. Suddenly

she started to cry so one of the students grabbed the fire extinguisher and sprayed the teacher.

This was a extreme case but minor incidents happened all throughout high school.

I think one major factor in Anyon’s theory is does no child left behind act affected her

theory in the present. NCLB was a act that was put into effect in 2002 it put a emphasis on test

results in states. It helps parents keep up with the school test results and it requires material be

state approved. The negatives of NCLB are that it forces the teachers teach to the test. That

hinders the student’s education because students who are in private school are not taught this
way. This affects the teachers because they are forced to pass kids who are not qualified to

pass in the first place. In turn it makes the school hurt as whole because it puts a premium on

schools to pass kids so they will not fall behind making it harder for that kid to further their

education. This hurts the kid compete against other kids who were not assisted in their

education and once that kid gets to college they are farther behind. No child left behind does

not only hurt the students but it hurts the school as a whole because schools have to set up

class for them to catch up with the pace of school. I have had firsthand experience of this

because at my high school they had to have math classes set up for students who were not able

to keep up with algebra or pre algebra. This class was used to catch the students up but they

were already so far behind that they could not catch up by the time they graduate high school.

So NCLB act only widens the gap between the economic classes by the quality of education that

is provided.

NCLB act proves that even over time the quality of education is different for student we

more money. If this is true the knowledge will be useless to students who go through this

education system. Students will be stuck in the same social class that parents because of the

lack of social mobility. It is making the educational and economic divide only grow with time

between the social classes. If we do not do something very quickly this problem will never be

solved and the consequences will be that social class will be passed on through our education

system.
 Works Cited Page

Anyon,Jean. “Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work.” Writing Conventions.Eds.Lu and

Horner. Pearson: New York, 2008 .225-251.