Robin MacPherson MacPherson 1

Jan Reiman

English 1101X

800687036

Two Sides to a Story: Critical Interpretation of Jean Anyon's "Social Class and

the Hidden Curriculum of Work"

When reading Jean Anyon's "Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work", I

always find myself in a disagreement with the fairness of our modern society. In fact, it

is not modern society at all, it's the past, present, and most probably the future of the

world's society, in a sense that old "forgotten" ways still exist very much so. Selfishness,

deceit and misleading intentions will always be here, as shown in this piece of Jean

Anyon's work. Most of the ideas that spring to my mind regard the way that our

hierarchal society is so biased and people are subjected to such brutal prejudice on a

daily biases in their opportunities to be what is defined as successful. I do not like how

one person is born into a household that is not so fortunate and not to be able to live in

the best of neighborhoods, and just because of this, the guidelines of their future are

already set to fail in terms of what most people consider "successful". I am by no means

saying that living in a "bad" neighborhood or not having a lot of money is failure or

unsuccessful. Happiness is something that I believe consists of far more complex, yet at

the same time very simple things, like family, friends,

 MacPherson 2

feelings, and the traditional stamp of supposed American morals; freedom.

Should a person want to become one of the leading members of what Jean

Anyon describes as "capitalists", it is an up hill struggle from the get-go. Anyon gives us

some staggering statistical information, such as "A mere 1.6 percent of the population

owns 82.2 percent of all stock, and the wealthiest one-fifth owns almost all the rest"

(227). As we can clearly see from the subjected essay and it's results, young children at

the elementary level are placed into schooling situations that are parallel to their social

class. For instance, the so-called "working class" school clearly used teaching methods

in which the students did not get to have any input or opinion, and they were told exactly

what to do and how to do it, without necessarily being told why. This is shown when

Anyon says "The working class children are developing a potential conflict relationship

with capital. Their present school work is appropriate preparation for future wage labor

that is mechanical and routine" (247). This is what I personally believe to be wrong with

modern society, people are taught to be silenced, trained not to ask questions, and they

are told what their (unjustly) "superiors" want them to believe. Most people that fall into

todays category of working class do not ask too many questions about why or how, they

just accept what is reality. They are afraid to challenge fate and step outside the box

that is often nine until five shifts and achieve the unquestionable potential that ALL
 MacPherson 3

human beings possess. Reading Jean Anyon's work has made me ponder the

possibilities of this silencing of the people stemming from times as early as their

elementary school experience.

On the contrary, it is always necessary to look at things from different

perspectives in order to understand why things are the way that they are. I can

understand that without some sort of hierarchy in our society regarding the social class

of its people, there would be no structure or order within it. I also can see when looking

at things differently, that the filtration of certain information can be very necessary in

many cases in order to prevent chaos or misunderstanding with people. The thing that I

have the biggest problem with when talking about information that is shown to the

people of america is the MEDIA, and the way that it controls exactly what many people

think. People are praised when they DO come outside of their box and be something

that is different to what the so-called "guid lines" want them to be, and they make great

stories. Things probably will not change in the future when talking about social class,

but maybe it is for the best when looking at things from a different perspective. I have

tried to imagine how the world would be if every person really DID have the exact same

chance to be the richest man in the world, the most successful athlete, etc... Although I

don't particularly like to admit it to myself, that kind of a utopian world simply could not

work.
 MacPherson 4

My initial reaction to the information that I found out from studying Jean Anyon's

essay is still that I do not agree at all with this seemingly clear-cut "hidden curriculum",

but when looking at it from a different perspective I could see the reasons or somewhat

good intentions behind it. Perhaps the people behind the decisions that shape these

hidden curriculums and systems want to protect people from certain information that

they can not handle? I do not and can not know for sure but I hope that there are good

intentions with the people's best interests at heart, whatever they might be.

Works Cited

Anyon, Jean. "Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work." Writing Conventions.
Eds. Lu and
Horner. Pearson. New York, 2008. 225 - 51.