I found this article VERY interesting and informative! I love when readings make me think about my past experiences and it triggers “ah ha” moments and wonderings!
WORKING CLASS SCHOOLS
“There was little decision making or choices. Teachers rarely explained why work was being assigned or how it was connected to other assignments.” I distinctly remember NEVER being told why we carry the one when adding “We just do” - that crippled me for years! If we don’t know why we are doing what we are, how do we make connections on our own? As I read, it became clear that was the point - to create a group of people that don’t ask why, they just do as they are instructed. The attitude from the teachers towards the students was one of hopelessness and thinking the students would amount to nothing and they weren’t worthy of being pushed because they weren’t capable!
This reminded me of something I heard about training elephants. When they are young, they are chained and can’t escape (2:00 to the end). When they are older, they are chained and could escape but don’t because they have already experienced defeat and won’t push limits anymore! They believe that they are not capable!
THE MIDDLE CLASS SCHOOL
The teachers taught from the book, but still didn’t push students to question or go beyond. They taught that students should have the confidence to look for resources to find the answers, not for themselves to be resourceful and figure it out! They were encouraged to do more thinking here though when asked to explain how they completed something - and here they also had a choice. This is different from the working class teachers with their students. Here, at least, the children were allowed to believe in possibility based on the fact, there was more than one way to arrive at the conclusion.
Affluent Schools
Here we see the shift to creative activity and independence in one’s learning. Teacher’s became more of a facilitator versus the “sage on stage” barking the orders of “do as I say because I say it” or “that’s not what the book tells us!” Here “control involved constant negotiation. There was a degree of freedom that students had - almost an authority.
“In affluent professional school, work was not repetitious and mechanical, as it was in the working-class school; it was not knowing the correct answers, as it was in the middle school class; it was being able to manipulate what Anyon termed symbolic capital” (pg 17).
Executive Elite School
This reminds me of the school I started my career in. Santiago has a private christian school where the rich come to learn English and get a dual certification for the DR and for the United States. I had students whose parents were doctors, lawyers, politicians, and business owners (such as Fuente Cigars). I also had some students who regularly dined with the president of the country!
“While strict attention was demanded during lessons, there was little attempt to regulate the children’s movement at other times. They were allowed into classrooms when they arrived at school; they did not have to wait for the bell, as in every other school in Anyon's Study…permitted to take materials from closets and even from the teacher’s desk when they needed them” (pg 19).
I wonder why as we work our way through the system, teachers are more respectful of students. Is it because they have more respect for who their parents are or that they could get in trouble at work if they are rude to students in an Elite School due to the authority that the parent’s have?
Takeaways
I thought the question on knowledge to be interesting. To see the progression of belief and the definition change as we went through the types of schools was very telling of how they are being trained to believe and to think.
I also thought it interesting how students were released to explore, create, and think as they socio-economic class progressed
“The working-class children were learning to follow directions and do mechanical, low paying work, but at the same time they were learning to resist authority” (pg 20). In a way, learning to resist authority could help some of them to push their way up the system. I think some stubbornness gets people a long way! If they refuse to give up or believe what someone says about them…..For example, I was told by a teacher after student teaching and before I had my own teaching job, that I wouldn’t make it as a teacher because I wasn’t detail oriented. What if I listened to her opinion about my capability? My mom was told by a teacher when she was an adult pursuing her degree as an interpreter for the deaf that she needed more life experience before she could continue. My mom gave up instead of just pushing through and getting life experience as she went on. She believed that teacher.
Another example between my mom and I is that she read somewhere that X was made for Y so that is how you should use it. My response - Who says? And Who cares? If there’s a better way to do it, do it. Does our perspective on life date back to our elementary days and the type of teachers we had?
Or I think of my cousin Des who always wanted to be a writer for shows and movies and write his own things. He seemed to have everything stacked against him. He came from a single family home where his white mom was a waitress barely making enough to get by. He was one of only a handful (maybe less) of black students in the town of Westerly at the time and he decided he was going to Loyola to pursue his dream despite having no money!! What type of school was he in? Was it his stubbornness that pushed him forward? Was there a teacher who chose to cheer him on?
This should not only be a lesson in how we need to control the narrative in our minds but also that there is power of life or death in the tongue and we need to be thoughtful and wise to not tear students down. It can change their trajectory!
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