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Oliver Robinson

Dr. Reiman

English 1101x

September 23rd 2009

Interpretation of Anyon

Jean Anyon’s essay “Hidden curriculum of work” is an in depth look

into five elementary schools that are in different social classes. Anyon

believes that by observing the students and teachers at each of these

schools she will be able to see a difference in the curriculum and teaching

styles. Anyon is searching for an answer as to why our society has different

classes and how people are placed in them. As the essay progresses Anyon’s

observations seem to be only scratching the surface of the social class

debate. I believe Anyon is not fully investigating these schools and does not

follow the children long enough. Anyon’s essay is lacking follow through and

has become almost an irrelevant essay due to the time period in which it was

written.

As Anyon comments on each school, starting with the working class,

she uses quotes from the teachers to show how each class of school is

different to one another. From reading the quotes I realized that Anyon

wanted the reader to agree with the idea that the teachers got better as the

schools went higher up the social class ladder. “Their questions are tolerated

and usually answered perfunctorily.” (237). I believe in this sentence Anyon

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is being too harsh on the teacher’s response, she is referring to the middle

class school teacher’s ability to interact with her students. This is merely an

opinion of a teacher’s response. Anyon is creating these statements so that,

from a reader point of view, it seems the higher the social class the better

the teachers. There is no evidence to prove this, and even before the essay

Anyon describes each teacher as one of the best and having taught for no

less than four years. Another example of this is an aside quote to one of the

observers regarding the lesson she was teaching “Simple punctuation is all

they’ll ever use” (233). This is just one teachers opinion on the students, but

Anyon quotes it as though it is an unchangeable truth. There is no way of

determining what fifth graders will only ever use.

After thinking about the essay and the time it was written I came to the

conclusion that although many of the topics Anyon discussed could still be

relevant, the essay itself is quite out of date. Today, schools across the

United States strive to be equal and have students enrolled from almost

every social bracket. Because of this there is no longer the idea of schools

being just for one social class. From my own experiences of being in Public

schools both in America and England, Social class never gets mentioned. In

England uniforms create an environment that eliminates the competition of

class based on clothes. In the states class is not a factor in teaching. All

teachers must be certified up to a certain point and must give each student

and equal opportunity to the curriculum. Anyon’s findings, that the schools

observed taught only what the students needed to know to stay in their
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social bracket is a good point but Anyon never followed through and backed

up this point. Anyon could have compared the schooling of the students with

that of their parents to see if there were any similarities. Anyon could have

also returned to the students to do a follow up observation. There was a lack

of closure of this essay. The Hidden curriculum was certainly found and

shown, but whether or not this curriculum stood for anything is yet to be

seen.

Finally Jean Anyon’s essay merely scratched the surface of social class

affecting students. The whole essay felt as if it was an overview of just the

schools and practices. I would have like to see more in depth studies into the

schools around the country instead of just one state. A quote from Anyon

confirms that even she thought the study should have been larger “However,

the examples of school work which follow will suggest characteristics of

education in each social setting that appear to have theoretical and social

significance and to be worth investigation in a larger number of

schools.”(231). Also, Anyon could have used other studies done on schools

and related them to her observation. In conclusion Anyon’s essay was an

interesting look into how our society creates social class and aims to keep

people in those classes. Although this study was done years ago, some of the

findings are still relevant.

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