Poor and Dumb: Overcoming the Flaws of the Education System
In an idealistic world, one’s education would not be determined by their social class or living environment. Instead, those who live in the low class outskirts of an urban industrial population to those who live in ritzy suburban homes and are part of the private school system would be learning the same values and have similar if not equal curricula. However, we as a society have not managed to make this ideal applicable. Instead we find ourselves with an education system that seems to benefit those with favourable living conditions. As discussed in Anyon’s “Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work”, depending on your economic status, you may be taught to just “Follow the steps in a procedure” as per the working class schools or how to independently carry out your creative activities as found in the affluent professional school. These very different extremes have an effect on one’s future by setting you up for a life as a factory worker or as a lawyer. It is this economical and social structure that I had to overcome to get to where I am today. While many people are unable to overcome the challenge of attending a school that was not truly concerned about their education, I was able to do so and not only graduate a year early but also remain in the top 10 percent of the graduating class. Many people had dropped out to begin a minimum wage working lifestyle because to them school was unimportant and true
Getting an education is an important part of every child and teenager’s life, but not all get the same type of education. In Jean Anyon’s essay “From Social Class And The Hidden Curriculum Of Work”, she explains and talks about the four levels of education. According to Jean Anyon, the four levels of education are the Working-Class School, Middle-Class School, Affluent Professional School, and Executive Elite School. From my experience, I attended a working-class school named Santa Ana High School located in a low income and high crime neighborhood of the city of Santa Ana, CA. In the author’s words, a working-class school is, “A school for students with parents with low income jobs, and with an income at or below $12,000”(Anyon 138). I believe got a working-class education because we rarely used the textbooks in class, learned through common core, and taught an education from average standard courses. Also, I believe I attended a working-class school because my high school education just taught me the basic skills of attaining a minimum wage job, whereas in professional school, or elite school students are taught knowledge and skills that lead to higher wage jobs. My experience relates to author Jean Anyon’s essay because I felt the working-class school category matched my high school education. For example, in the essay she states, “In working-class schools, work is following the steps of a procedure. The procedure is usually mechanical, involving rote behavior and very little decision making or choice”(Anyon 140). Author Jean Anyon also states, “Available textbooks are not always used, and the teachers often prepare their own dittos or put work examples on the board”(Anyon 140). Both of these examples from the essay relate to my high school education because we would often do assignments created by the teacher rather than do assignments provided by the school textbooks. From my high school education, I received a working-class education because although we did have new buildings, new technology, and a clean school campus, the high school was located in a low income, and dangerous neighborhood, and students received an education from average standard courses. In my opinion, I received a working-class
New York City consists of five boroughs, Manhattan, the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island. The borough that I reside in is Brooklyn. Brooklyn has approximately 2.592 million people inhabiting this district and approximately 23.4 percent of individuals who reside in Brooklyn, NY come from a low-income household or in other words come from poverty. With catholic and private schools being expensive, people have to rely on the education system to provide their children with a good education. In this paper I will be discussing the public school education system ranging solely up to high school in Brooklyn New York and giving a general idea of the New York education system as well.
The article “Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work” by Jean Anyon is about research conducted in five different schools of four different social classes; the Working Class, the Middle Class, the Professional Class, and the Executive Class. In the data collected, Anyon discovered the various ways that these five schools teach the children. First, the two Working Class Schools taught the children really poorly, often telling the children to follow steps to get the right answer, and always yelling at them when they’re out of line. The Middle Class School teaches the kids a little better, by making the children actually work to get the right answer. The Professional School sought to get the children to be more creative with their work. And finally, the Executive Class school will tell the children that they are fully responsible for their work, and they will not keep up with children if they miss assignments.
Here in America every single child is sent to school starting at the age of five years old for kindergarten, and sometimes as early as two years old for pre-school and continue on to get an education late into their twenties, some even going on to take classes the rest of their lives. Education in America is something that is readily available and even is required by law, but taken for granted by many children. On flip side third world countries often do not have schools or public education mandated by government, and most times it is not even available when most children yearn for it. Education is taken for granted in America, and in third world countries where education is almost completely absent something can be learned from their
According to Bynner and Joshi (1999) class differences have persisted since the late 1950’s. It can be seen that all studies carried out by various theorist came to the same conclusion that middle class pupils tend to do a lot better than working class in terms of educational achievement. Pupils from middle class backgrounds tend to pass more exams, stay on at school for longer and are five times more likely to go to university. This gap in achievement widens with age as right from nursery school to university, processes like labelling or the self fulfilling prophecy take
In the article “From Social Class to the Hidden Curriculum of Work,” written by Jean Anyon, he argues that the working-class and affluent communities both receive a learning-based education, the working-class lacks the fundamentals. Supporting this claim is Diane Ravitch in “The Essentials of a Good education” stating affluent communities provide classes beyond the essentials, including extra-curricular classes and activities with well-equipped material for their children to obtain. Contrastively, the working class community only receives the “basic” courses that consist of mathematics and English for their children. It has become evident that working-class communities in comparison to affluent communities cannot afford an open-handed and
One in seven adults in America will not be able to read this paper (Toppo). This is an alarming fact to me, because if they can’t read this then what can they read? There are many factors which have led to the failed education system of the United States. Some of the main factors that have led to this ongoing problem have connections with this economic hardship we are facing. Teachers and schools budgets are being cut which is harshly affecting education. Schools are leaning towards standardized tests to determine if a student has learned what they should through the curriculum. By these testing methods being forced on students and teachers, this affects what is taught in a class room by forcing teachers to lean more towards teaching
Despite students possessing a variety of needs and learning styles, the education system was designed for a “one-size-fits-all” in an attempt to meet every child’s needs and abilities. However, this is not the common perception by those who investigate further into the diverse environments of numerous, differing schools. Jean Anyon, in “Social Class and The Hidden Curriculum of Work,”argues that the style of education students receive is decided by the social class of their community and is not uniform when concerning students of all types. Instead, working class, middle class, affluent professionals, and executive elites experience significantly dissimilar school environments. Not only are they treated differently, and taught differently, but they’re prepared for a certain future that corresponds with their social class. Anyon’s synthesis is validated by my own experience at the Windham schools in Willimantic, where the demographics of the school corresponded with the confining, restrictive, and strict teaching style described by Anyon as ‘working class’. My account depicts the harsh reality of how my disadvantaged community suffers through a school system that does not prepare them for a future beyond a life of blue-collar jobs. However, my experience also disproves Anyon’s model through several details in the style of learning, such as going out of a textbook, or also being graded on a right answer.
The intellectual education as a means of removing poverty and securing abundance is often seen as the road to success, but how much of its truth still applies today? Like in any job, no matter how much hard work put into it, an employee would still be considered an employee and would never become the owner of that company. Could it also be true that the same road education offers to success could also offer a limit to the success you could accomplish in life? An article titled “From Social Class And The Hidden Curriculum Of Work” done by Jean Anyon a professor in the Graduate Center of the City University of New York suggests that “School experience…differed qualitatively by social class...may not only contribute
Theories provide the foundation for educational practices, and many of them exist. While I consider my personal theory or philosophy of education to be one that is something of an ever-changing conglomerate of ideas, I realize that some of my guiding principals are directly attributed to well a well established theory.
Education and learning are important in today's society. It seems America has a wonderful education system, but if we think deeply, we can figure out that most part in American education is broken. This is a sad truth that the educational system is not working as is supposed to be. Now it becomes messy and it mostly became a business place where money matters. And people should do something to improve it again. This paper will continue to discuss on education in the United States based on the videos depicting the broken education system, the Common Core, and Dan Rather's analysis of the Detroit Education system.
Education is a very important aspect of the lives of all people all over the world. What we learn, not just in the classroom, shapes who we are. We take our education everywhere we go. We use it when talking to our buddies about sports or music, we use it while solving a math problem, we use our education while debating with our family whether or not we should watch TV or go to the movies. Our education is the foundation of who we are, since every decision we make and every thought we think is dependent on what we know. Imagine how different the world would be if everyone craved learning to such a degree that at lunch tables all over the world the topic of conversation isn't who likes who, or how drunk
The first week of this unit I had a mix of emotions, excitement and stress . The topics covered each week have giving me the opportunity to increase my knowledge in many areas. Having an interest in teaching when I started this course has now grown to having an interest in learning as well. Reflecting on my education as a child has shown me the growth in teaching and our current education system.
America is a blessed country in numerous ways, and its citizens reap the benefits. Free education is one major benefit that not many other countries provide for their citizens. While it is only a privilege to many, but in the States, people have the right to be educated. However, free education cannot be translated to success for all. For those motivated ones who cherish the privilege to be educated are those who climb up the success ladders later in life. For a certain majority of students in the States, our current educational system may not seem to serve its purpose. In this paper, I will explore two possible adjustments that could be made to improve our system to benefit our next generation. Academic improvement and class size
The education system has been a controversial issue among educators. Requirements of school do not let student choose what they want to study for their future. It’s a big issue to force student study specific curriculums, which don’t help them improve, and what they like to create something. Educators choose a general system for education to all students which based on general knowledge. Intelligent or genius students have to be in that system of education, which doesn’t let them improve their creativity. Educators attempt to change that system to make it better, but their changing was not that great to be an example for the world. Also, did that change qualify education system to compete other systems or not? In some examples and