February 6

After responding to a Calvin and Hobbes comic for writing into the day, we got into groups based on the assigned sections of "Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work."  In these groups, answered questions (found on the PowerPoint) about the assigned section.  Then, we divided up the groups so that each of the new groups had at least one person representing each section.  These new groups shared what they had read.  In essence, after this group work, each person knew what the whole article said even though he/she hadn't read the whole thing.  We had a discussion for the rest of class.  We covered the following topics:

• Is the writer biased?  Did she let her preconceived notions about class affect what she saw?
• Should she have used students in middle or high school instead of elementary school?
• Elementary kids aren't thinking about the job market yet.
• Even in elementary school, kids are being prepared for a social class.  Those are the years that kids are being prepared for who they will be for the rest of their lives.
• She chose elementary to show that we are judged from the beginning and to show what we get exposed to from the very beginning.
• It's a study of the teacher, not the student.
• She is being general.  She is saying that, typically, working class gets the worse teachers and the elite get the better teachers.
• There is too much pressure on young children to be super smart.
• It all comes back to the teacher.  There are all different kinds of teachers in each school.  Some will teach like elite and some will teach like working class teachers.
• Someone has to help the students realize that they do have a choice (like in Freedom Writers).
• The working class teachers didn't allow their students to grow and hindered the students' opportunities.
• There is an assumed cycle in society: children will end up like their parents.
• We need to allow kids the option to step into different social classes.  Right now, they are restricted.
• There are more choices for class movement now than there was in the past (albeit still limited choices).
• We will have even more choices in the future.
• Working class doesn't get the same opportunities as the elites.
• It's not about working harder; it's about working smarter.
• It's who you know that gets you in the door, but what you know keeps you there.
• It's about your mindset.  You have to appreciate school in order to succeed in it.  You have to be will to take the initiative.
• It comes down to passion.  Whatever you are passionate about is what you will become.
• The community around you has a lot to do with how you end up being taught.
• Students should be allowed to be bused to better schools.  There needs to be a place for students where there is support and where they are pushed.
• Why are we spending so much money on categorizing people?  We should be spending money on helping kids succeed.
• We need to figure out what the problem is.  We keep looking for someone to blame.
• There isn't one person (or set of people) to blame. It's a bit of everyone's fault.
• The gap between poor and rich is formed because of the attitude that the rich are better than the poor.  So the schools will always be separated.
• Rich people put money into schools, but the poor can't.  If you put the two in the same school, the rich people would get mad that they were paying while the poor were not.
• We'd all be the same if we got the same education.  We need the different classes for society to work.
• Not everyone would want to have the education opportunity - the ones that don't want it would end up being the working class.
• We already learning generally the same material.
• Is it circumstances or initiative that determines social class?
• We keep going from blaming the teacher to the student to the government and back.  Is there a solution?

Homework:
Read "In the Basement of the Ivory Tower" and post a reading response to your blog.