From Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work -Jean Anyon

“The four fifth grade teachers observed in the working-class schools attempted to control classroom time and space by making decisions without consulting the children and without explaining the basis for their decisions.”

Overall this sums up what was found in the working class schools. The children were always following a step to step procedure. They were not expected to be conceptual about what they were learning. The teachers weren’t looking for them to learn but rather to memorize these steps and follow the constant rules expected of them. I feel that this type of schooling is very constricted and doesn’t allow the children to branch out and fully enjoy and understand what it is that they are learning. It was not expected of them at all the teachers were not allowing their children to fully develop the learning skills taught to them.

“As one child said, what you do is "store facts up in your head like cold storage - until you need it later for a test or your job."”

I really like this quote because it sounds exactly like what my friends and I used to say all the time. I went to a middle class school so when reading this section I saw a lot of similarities that I could relate to. I even see it in the elementary school I volunteer at this semester. There is a lot of child participation and a child is expected to be able to explain what they have done and how they did it. There is the conceptual learning involved. Yet in the end it is the accumulation of children working towards a grade. I personally did not expect to use any of the knowledge that I had learned. Many times I would skip over something I loved in order to write about something that would give me the good grade.

“The foregoing analysis of differences in schoolwork in contrasting social class contexts suggests the following conclusion: the "hidden curriculum" of schoolwork is tacit preparation for relating to the process of production in a particular way.”

This quote is basically saying that the way education is taught to a child and the way the school system operates relates to the social class that they are teaching. Children are taught in the way that they will later live their lives. The way that they are taught relates to what they will face and will be expected to be like in later years. Whether they need to be very inferring or whether they need to be able to follow the basic steps perfectly without any questioning or full understanding. Like the other says later on there should be a completely wide research on all schools. Maybe they don’t all operate like this. There might be some slight variation.