Response to Jean Anyon's "Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work"

Sebriana Ciarcia
September 23, 2015
English 1100_35
Professor Young

            In my educational experience I was fortunate enough to go to a magnet school, where students came in from all over the state to attend. There were students that came from middle, lower, and high-class areas of Connecticut. When I first read Jean Anyon’s Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work, I thought that there would be no way I could connect to this, but as I looked back on my freshmen year of high school, on the first day of math class I can very clearly make a connection. 

            On the first day there were a lot of students in the class from all different towns. The teacher was still trying to figure out where we all were in math. And the levels were all over the place. I began to notice that the students that came from middle class towns, like me, kind of had an understanding of how to the problem, while the students from lower income towns didn’t understand at all, and those from higher income families understood the problem inside and out and came up with different ways to solve the problem. This a prime example of what Anyon was talking about in her essay. There is a huge difference in the way schools prepare you based on your social class.

            I think her positions holds merit today in schools all across the country. There are countless of times where we see on the news that schools with students who come from lower income families tend to do worse on standardized tests than students from middle or higher income families. I’ve even seen in my school where even though students came from all different social class, the students who were from high class areas, who had better educational experiences, would be expected to excel more and were even favored more by the teachers and encouraged to grow more, while the other students were expected to just follow the steps on the board and hopefully get the answers and if not, “they just need more practice”, like stated in Anyon’s essay. After reading her essay though and reflecting my own experience I begin to wonder if they need more practice or more of an opportunity.