"Less than 30 percent of the women work, some part-time and some full-time, on assembly lines, in storerooms and stockrooms, as waitresses, barmaids, or sales clerks. Of the fifth-grade parents, none of the wives of the skilled workers had jobs." This first quote did not surprise me because this article was written in the 80's. I wonder what researchers would find if they did this same study over. New and different forms of the same outcomes to the same type of situations? Or would there be a completely different outcome? Higher education nowadays does not guarantee people jobs. Jobs once considered to be lower class and unemployment is much more common amongst people that would be considered to have a head start in society. Those very people that Johnson defines in his article.
In the affluent classrooms, "The products of work are often highly valued by the children and the teacher...The teacher's attempt to control the class involves constant negotiation." These children are encouraged to think creatively and solve problems themselves. They are not required to do much memorization and they can find the answers to different problems in different ways. It even said that if a classroom feels they are not ready to move on that they can negotiate with the teacher to remain on a subject. Working class schools are not offered this type of luxury and most of their work involves memorization!
Best of all the classes is the elite. "In the executive elite school, work is developing one's analytical intellectual powers. Children are continually asked to reason through a problem, to produce intellectual products that are both logically sound and of top academic quality. A primary goal of thought is to conceptualize rules..." These are the children who are the CEO's and executive of companies. They make the rules that people in the working class for example, have to follow. This reading reminds me very much of the Silenced Dialogue because those who have to follow the rules that the elite class is taught to make in their own schooling are silenced when it comes to their own working, social, economic, lives.
I really liked how this reading broke schools into class and honed in on how different classes of schools teach their children differently. It was interesting to see how people are shaped and the connections they have to society through the classroom. I wish Anyon had spoke more about her feelings on the topic though. I wonder what type of background she has and what type of these schools was she educated in.
