Jean Anyon

Jean Anyon described four different types of school. The first school described was the working class. The working class school was not the best school to receive an education. In this school, students are not challenged because educators view their students as stupid. They don’t believe that students can learn and get good grades and then strive to go to college. Some teachers would say that students get “dumber” as the years go by. In my opinion, educators should never refer to anyone as “dumb” mostly if their talking about their students.  The way the working class educators described knowledge was as something simple. Knowledge to them was simple facts and simple skills. The textbooks used in working class schools were very simple that did not challenge their students. Students in the working class had a lot of trouble when asked the definition of knowledge. The students did not know how to describe knowledge and most of them would say knowledge was “to know stuff.”   I did not like the working class schools because educators are not trying to provide a better education for their students.  The next class I will describe is the middle class school. The middle class school is different from the working class schools. It has more extracurricular activities for the students. Educators in middle class schools are trying to encourage their students to think. When students complete an assignment, educators ask the students why they completed it the way they did. Educators are more concerned with students understanding of the generalizations and other content of the books. Educators always explain to their students the readings assigned to them because it is important students understand what they are reading. Educators in the middle class are doing a great job because they are teaching their students to think. It is actually proven that students in the middle class are thinking more because they had less trouble describing the word knowledge. For the middle class students knowledge is “to remember.” Students in middle class schools believe in possibility because they educators are actually trying to challenge them in school so they can be smart enough to go to college. The third class I will describe is the affluent professional schools. The affluent professional schools have educators that want their students to “try to make sense of their experience.  Educators use questioning techniques to encourage their students to think. Another technique educators use to encourage thinking is having current event discussions.  Students enjoy having current event discussions because they are able to give their opinion. Since educators in these schools are encouraging their students to think outside the box students did not have an issue describing knowledge. It was describes as “the way one thinks.” The last class described was the executive elite school. This school was very similar to the affluent professional schools. The executive elite school believed in challenging their students to get them ready for college. However, these schools did not want lower class students enrolled. Only students from upper class could go to executive elite schools. Educators and students in these schools believed that knowledge was about teaching students to think and reason correctly, and to come up with valid conclusions. In executive elite schools students are being educated in a way that is preparing them for college. I am having issues finding examples of schools that belong to each class. I also don’t feel comfortable describing schools by classes because I find it really sad that schools are being classified by the amount of money one has. However, I will describe the high school I went to which was Elgin High School. I would classify Elgin High School as middle class. At Elgin High educators did challenge their students and cared about their education. Elgin High school also had extracurricular activities which helped students develop social skills. It also allowed them to think about different concepts and ideas