Anyon Reading and Class Activity

When the class was split in half, each side was clearly treated differently. It ended up being boys on one side and girls on the other. The girls lost the coin toss, which symbolized the arbitrary nature of the school system. Students across America are taught in completely different ways based on where they live and where their parents can afford to send them to school.

Girls were treated like students at a working class school. They were handed a list of works and expected to memorize them without any “attempt to relate the steps to an actual or possible thought process” (Anyon 36). They were discouraged from talking the whole time which prevented them from sharing ideas and working through problems together. Mr. Lester was very particular about how he wanted the desks lined up and even yelled at someone for having their bags on the left side of the desk. He did not allow the students to come up with an effective way of learning the words either, they had to do it his way. Essentially he was “controlling classroom time and space by making decisions without consulting the children and without explaining the basis for the decisions” (Anyon 38).

On the other hand, boys were taught like students in an elite executive school or affluent professional school. They were given food and discussed how they wanted to learn the vocabulary. They were treated more as equals with Mrs. DeSimony and she did not “give direct orders.”  Instead, her “attempt to control the class involved constant negotiation” (Anyon 42). The boys were encouraged to think creatively and at one point even thought about creating a mural. In the end it looked like they were going to make posters to learn the vocabulary because that is what they decided as a group would be the most effective way for them to learn.

This activity obviously made the boys seem superior to the girls because they were treated so differently. It was discouraging knowing that they were given opportunities that girls were not. Anyon states that the long term effect of this system is that children will develop differently based on social class and that as a result of that the system of relations in society will continue to produce unequal social relations.