Dan Williams

English 1100_3J

September 25, 2015

Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work

            I agree with Jean Anyon that there is a hidden curriculum in school about social class.  There are differences between the working class schools, middle class schools, affluent professional schools and executive elite schools. Teaching is different between these schools. The social working and middle class schools tend to follow the teacher’s directions. The affluent profession and executive elite schools use more independent critical thinking. The more expensive schools have more perks than other schools. Today, the more expensive schools can buy more technology than the social working class schools and middle class.

My educational experience has been above average. During my preschool years I went to a private catholic school in my town. We learned the basics. For my elementary school year I went to the same catholic school. I could have gone to one of the local public elementary schools in the town but my Mom decided not to attend those schools. There was only one class per grade, which was good to have a small learning environment. The class had about twenty kids in the classroom. We learned grammar, vocabulary, science, math, social studies and religion. We were taught the basics in each subject. The teachers explained the subjects visually, orally and had hands on activities. The teachers made us participate to see if we learned the information right away. I learned the basics and some more information about these subjects.

 During my middle school years, I went to my town’s middle school. I became intimidated with being with other kids who were bigger than me. The subjects went more in depth with learning new information. The teachers were very helpful with teaching new things to their students. The teachers made us use critical thinking to solve the problems. We also had to do more group work to solve problem. Sometimes we did our work independently so we could learn the information. Sometimes I would not pay attention in class and I would have to learn the information on my own. I had trouble learning new things on my own. I like when teachers show how you can do the problems.

I went to my town’s high school. During my freshman year, I did not have the best grades. The learning was a little more harder than I suspected. Grading was a little harder and so were the tests. During the years the teachers did help students learn but learning was more laid back. We did have group projects. We also did work individual work.