Sullivan 1 Education: America’s Dirty Not-So-Little Secret Sean M. Sullivan R. Spruce-Veatch ENGWR 300 20 March 2006 My memories of elementary school are a blur – maybe it had to do with the fact that I attended ten different schools between kindergarten and the eighth grade. In those formative years between 1970 and 1979, the lessons of four teachers stand out in my mind: Mrs. Roderick taught me that learning about the world could be an enjoyable experience, Mr. Brown told me that I was a stupid child who would not amount to much, Mr. Pence sparked the fire of my curiosity and taught me the beauty of language, and Mr. Prindle demonstrated that harsh discipline was the key to a well ordered classroom. By high school, I had learned to hate school as an utterly boring experience full of rote learning, most of which, after more than two decades has fallen into disuse. Growing up in a logging town in the mountains of Siskiyou County, California, did not give one many opportunities, and like many in my cohort, the public education system pushed us into the workforce or military service, like our parents before us. Most Americans see education as something valuable and the passport to realizing the American Dream, where everyone is treated equally with the same opportunities to succeed. (Colombo et al 136) On the contrary, the American education system is a reflection of our class-based society; inasmuch as children are taught on the basis of their socioeconomic status, schools maintain the status quo of the free market system by reinforcing the message, “where you are is who you are.” (Bambara 409) In the late 18th century, the world saw a grand experiment undertaken by a group of colonies of the British Empire. In a Declaration of Independence, the American

Sullivan 2 colonies broke away from the old-style European system of rule and embarked on a road of self-governance in the form of a democratic state. Men like Thomas Jefferson and John Adams understood, in spite of the new Constitution they had created, their fledgling democracy would fail without a well-educated citizenry. (Barber 284) Regarding education, George Washington pointed out, “the more homogenous our citizens can be made…the greater will be our prospect of permanent union.” (Colombo et al 137) To create a group of citizens worthy of a democratic nation, American institutions socialized young men, instilling in them American values, beliefs, and skills. Over the proceeding decades, women and African Americans struggled for a place and a voice in American society, and education was seen as the key to liberty. However, a change began taking place after the Civil War with the emergence of great corporations, and the economic system began to reorganize around private capital, labor, and markets. Colleges and universities imported European-style models focusing more on scientific research and the image of the institution. (Barber 285) The emphasis on educating students as citizens began losing importance in favor of an education system driven by the never-ending hunger of private markets and the juggernaut of bureaucracy. How did our education system become a reflection of our class-based society? To answer this question, we must first examine how stratification operates in a state-level society. On the simplest level, it is a story of haves and have-nots. Around 10,000 years ago, egalitarian groups of human beings changed their subsistence patterns from hunting and gathering to food production (i.e. farming and animal husbandry). As a result, the accumulation of resources lead to divisions within society – some people were able to control resources more effectively and others worked to produce said resources for those

Sullivan 3 in control. (Diamond 112) Over time, when a population grew, the differences became more pronounced, leading to stratification, the layering of society into classes. In complex industrial societies, as a means of reinforcing stratification, public schools make available different types of educational experiences and curriculum knowledge to students of different socioeconomic classes. Students in different social classes are rewarded for classroom behaviors that are associated with personality traits rewarded in different occupational strata – “the working classes for docility and obedience, the managerial classes for initiative and personal assertiveness.” (Anyon 195) As stratification is the natural consequence of accumulating wealth and power leading to the rise of state-level society, education functions as the tool of the state maintaining the social hierarchy. John Taylor Gatto, an award winning public school teacher, suggested that there is a “hidden curriculum,” an unwritten set of lessons about self and society that is imprinted upon every student, from elementary school to the university. (Gatto 173) Students are taught an overwhelming array of facts presented out of context, while avoiding lessons of meaning and interconnection creating confusion. Class position is taught from the very first day of school when children are assigned numbers, grouped, classified, and shown how to envy and fear the better classes while having contempt for the dumb classes; in other words, everyone has a place in the pyramid. The regimented day of schedules, bells, and life by the clock, teaches indifference, because nothing is important enough to complete. Stars, checks, smiles and frowns, prizes, honors and disgrace, teach students to surrender their will to the chain of command. Rights exist only by the will of an authority leading to emotional dependence. Given the confusing

Sullivan 4 complexity of information foisted on students coupled with the hierarchy of authority allow teachers to separate children into successes and failures. Good children learn intellectual dependence on the expert, while bad children exert individuality, contradicting class theory. Just as markets depend on the constant dissatisfaction of consumers to keep buying goods and services, schooling depends on a similar model. Report cards, grades and testing, teach children not to trust themselves, but cultivate provisional self-esteem, on the basis of certified officials who judge the students determining who is a success and who is a failure. The final lesson taught is that one can’t hide, as students are under constant surveillance by teachers and staff, school is structured to discourage fraternization. Homework extends this to the home environment in order to keep children out of trouble. (Gatto 173-178) From Gatto’s lessons, it is easy to see that the American Dream “is governed not by education, opportunity, and hard work, but by power and fear.” (Terkel 351) Each lesson of the “hidden curriculum” is designed to discourage critical thought, self-reliance, and individual freedom. The lessons foster emotional and intellectual dependence on authority figures (i.e. the government and those in higher class positions than ourselves). Many Americans find this revelation difficult to accept because it contradicts everything we are taught about the American Dream. However, education researcher Jean Anyon found these hidden lessons evident in student work in contrasting social-class communities. Anyon observed five schools of different social-class designations based on income, occupation, and other relevant social characteristics of the students and their parents. (Anyon 195) The elementary schools were classified as follows: two working-

Sullivan 5 class schools representing unskilled and semiskilled labor, one middle-class school representing skilled blue-collar labor and white-collar workers, one affluent professional school representing professional career workers, and one executive elite school representing corporate executives. (Anyon 196-197) Anyon discovered that each school creates a curriculum of knowledge designed to imprint children with lessons according to their social-class. The working-class schools approach education in a mechanical fashion, involving rote behavior with little or no decision-making or choice left to the students. Rules emphasize that children are to follow the procedures, with little or no explanation as to the meaning of what is being taught. Deviation by students from the procedure is strongly discouraged. (Anyon 197-198) The middle-class school’s work is about getting the right answer. If a student accumulates enough right answers, he or she receives a good grade. Students follow procedures to get the right answers, though directions often call for “some figuring, some choice, some decision making.” (Anyon 200) For the affluent professional school, work is creative activity carried out independently. Children are encouraged to express and apply ideas and concepts, and choice of appropriate method and material. This is accomplished through written stories, editorials and essays, or visual representations of ideas. Good design is emphasized and students are encouraged to work at interpreting reality. (Anyon 203) The executive elite school works to develop a student’s analytical intellectual skills. Children are asked to reason through problems, produce intellectual products that are logically sound and of top academic quality. Importance is placed on conceptualizing rules by which elements of the system fit together. Students are taught to excel and achieve in preparation for life. (Anyon 205)

Sullivan 6 Anyon’s research suggests that schools reinforce the ascribed status of children by shaping the curriculum and teaching methodology according to the future social roles educators assume students will play. Lower class students are presumed to fulfill labor roles with the expectation that these jobs offer little in the way of critical thinking, independence, and choice. Upper class students are groomed for positions as certified professionals or leadership roles in the corporate and political worlds. Gatto’s seven lessons are apparent in each strata of education, directly reflecting the realities of our class-based society. Anyon concludes, “These differences may not only contribute to the development in the children in each social class of certain types of economically significant relationships and not others but would thereby help to reproduce this system of relations in society.” (Anyon 209) Other researchers have reached similar conclusions. William Sewell demonstrated a correlation between class and overall educational achievement. “In comparing the top quartile (25%) of his sample to the bottom quartile, he found that students from upper-class families were twice as likely to obtain training beyond high school and four times as likely to attain a postgraduate degree.” (Mantsios 342) It is difficult to deny that class plays a strong influence on the educational outcome of American students. Gender, race, and socioeconomic class interact in a complex web of cause and effect contributing to the unequal distribution of opportunity and success in American society. (Mantsios 344) Today, politicians claim the problem with American education lies with teachers, accusing them of short-changing children by failing to effectively teach the basic skills of reading and writing. As a result, the bureaucratic machine churns out new tests, new standards, and new guidelines for accountability in an effort to mask the real issue, the

Sullivan 7 hidden curriculum. Gatto argues that reading, writing, and arithmetic can be taught to an eager student in about one hundred hours. The emphasis on “basic skills,” he claims, is an effort by the education system to keep children occupied for twelve years in order to teach them the seven lessons. (Gatto 179) Paradoxically, the myth of the American Dream contributes to the enculturation of children, leading them to believe that all people, no matter the race, gender, or class, have equal opportunities for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In contrast, free market forces and privatization efforts by corporations and politicians have created a financial strain on the education system through funding cuts, discontinued long-term investment, while opening the door for schools to sell out students for corporate handouts. Corporations have seized this opportunity to lure new consumers into the marketplace under the guise of education. (Barber 288) Marketers such as Channel One Television reach more than eight million students in 12,000 classrooms by promising financially impoverished schools “free” audio-visual equipment in return for children watching advertising mixed with “educational” programming. Schools sell out to companies like Coca-Cola for millions of dollars, pushing tens of thousands of cases of Coke products a year on students. (Moore 165-167) We react with disbelief toward these revelations, like it’s some dirty little secret that has been lurking in the closet for years that we would rather ignore. Is it really so surprising? When common thinking purports free markets as the solution to many of our social problems, when children are taught that all citizens have equal access to success, and consumerism raises the value of material wealth over human relationships, one can only surmise that the state of education is a natural consequence of our economic system.

Sullivan 8 As stratification is the natural result of a society’s accumulation of wealth and power, so to, the education system must fall in line to maintain the pyramid of power. It is a system that all members of society are trapped in. If education is indeed a reflection of our class-based society, it stands to reason that the solution will not necessarily be found in funding, standardized testing, and beating up teachers in the political arena. We must, for our own sakes, and for the longterm viability of this democracy, take a hard look at our system of inequality. We must throw corporations out of the classroom, stop teaching children according to their social class, increase public funding, and create an educational environment where all children are taught to value thinking, creativity, independence, and most importantly, the value of themselves, as citizens of our great democracy. These steps alone will not fix the social inequalities of our nation; however, I believe these actions are a means in which to bring about positive changes that over time will benefit all Americans. As the founding fathers envisioned, democracy can only thrive with an educated citizenry. It is not a question of “where you are is who you are,” but instead, a question of each of us taking up the reigns of responsibility and accountability by exercising our will with our votes and our pocketbooks, telling those in power that our children are worth more than short-term profits and product branding. Otherwise, this great experiment in democracy will surely fail.

Sullivan 9 WORKS CITED Anyon, Jean. “Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work.” Colombo, Cullen and Lisle. 194-209. Bambara, Toni Cade. “The Lesson.” Colombo, Cullen and Lisle. 404-410. Barber, Benjamin R. “The Educated Student: Global Citizen or Global Consumer?” Colombo, Cullen and Lisle. 283-291. Colombo, Gary, Robert Cullen, and Bonny Lisle, eds. Rereading America: Cultural Contexts for Critical Thinking and Writing. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2004. 303-309. Diamond, Jared M. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2005. Gatto, John Taylor. “The Seven-Lesson Schoolteacher.” Colombo, Cullen and Lisle. 173-180. Mantsios, Gregory. “Class in America: Myths and Realities (2000).” Colombo, Cullen and Lisle. 331-347. Moore, Michael. “Idiot Nation.” Colombo, Cullen and Lisle. 153-170. Terkel, Studs. “Stephen Cruz.” Colombo, Cullen and Lisle. 348-353.