People have different natural learning abilities. However, the rate at which one learns intellectually is dependent on many other things apart from just their natural ability. The learning curriculum and the availability of various material and human resources are among the main determinants of the effectiveness of intellectual learning. This paper shades more light into the effect of these factors on the learning process of individual learners in the K-12 system, first by analyzing two epic works by Kozol and Anyon on the same issue.
Anyone’s essay is a deep analysis of the quality of education in neighborhoods of different socioeconomic statuses. The essay argues that the quality of education increases with the increase in improvement in the socioeconomic status of the surrounding neighborhood. The neighborhood of the school determines the kind of parents who bring their children to the school in question. This then determines the real meaning of education to learners and their families.
Schools in working-class areas mainly admit children whose parents are low earners. A good proportion of the parents are below the federal poverty level; at the time of the study, approximately 15% of the fathers in one of the working-class schools evaluated were jobless (Anyon 67). The parents in such schools literally hold blue-collar jobs and have low education. Education in the schools is no different. Things here are rote and mechanical and learners have little or no choice (Anyon 68). Teachers here often teach without lesson plans and emphasis is placed on the procedure.
In the middle-class school that was included in the study, things looked better. Here, the emphasis is placed on the right answer and work is graded based on the number of right answers one gets (Anyon 71). The learning and teaching are not rigid and learners have space to figure out things and make decisions for themselves. Creativity and independence while carrying out schoolwork were embraced in the affluent professional school that was included in the study. Here, learners were introduced to concepts and ideas and they were required to express these ideas in their own words and apply them (Anyon 73). The teaching in this school emphasized on the individuality of work and the learners’ own satisfaction with their work.
Schoolwork in the executive elite school that was included in the study was meant to prepare learners for life. Learners were required to reason through problems so as to come up with intellectual, logical, and high-quality products (Anyon 74). Developing intellectual analytical powers was the main goal of schoolwork. The paper thus asserts that the usefulness of education and the quality of the teaching process improves as one moves from low socioeconomic status neighborhoods to better neighborhoods.
Kozol’s work is a critique to the corporatization of privatization of education. Kozol first explains what he means with corporatization in education and its recent rise, especially in urban areas (173). Kozol argues that corporatization of education has the potential to disrupt uniform dispensation of the curriculum and instead every school will teach a curriculum which they think will give the best results (177). Disruption of the curriculum together with a change of teaching methods is meant to enhance the performance of the learners so as to keep up with competition from other schools. Competitiveness leads to stricter and stiffer curricula which are meant to enable learners to pass the tests that are given to them so as to keep the ranking of the school up there. Such changes can be distressing to learners and learners have little or no space to make decisions of their own.
In my opinion, the neighborhood in which a school is found determines the perceptions of the learners on the need of education and their general attitudes towards learning – something which Bornstein and Robert (216) agree to. It is very likely that having parents with blue-collar jobs and low education will give one the perception that school is a waste of time, which they should be using constructively by working out there. As such, school in these areas is more of a formality; people go to school just to have basic mathematical and language skills that they will need in manual work. The schools in these areas do not help in improving this perception and attitudes. The teaching methods here make school a hell for students as they are not listened to and have absolutely no space to make decisions for themselves. The teaching methods in this schools make the learning process more like or even tougher than the manual work that most of the learners’ parents do.
This lack of motivation among students coupled with further deterioration of the motivation by the teaching methods available sets in a vicious cycle. Learns are lowly motivated to work hard and thinking capacity is not enhanced. Moreover, the teaching in these schools is mainly not individual as the teacher to student ratios are dire. This is unlike the high-end schools where the teacher to student ratio is much more improved and learners can interact individually with their teachers. Moreover, in these schools, reasoning capacity is improved and the learner is involved in the learning process more. As such, the learning process in high-end schools is far more effective than that in schools whose neighborhoods are dominated by working class. Standardization of curricula and teaching methods and improvement of the teacher to learner ratio can help to resolve this disparity in quality of education in schools from different neighborhoods.
On the other hand, corporatization is more harmful than it is beneficial to the education system. Even though it has the benefit of enhancing school performance and ensuring accountability its cons are far too dangerous to the functionality of the system (Estrin et al. 711). First, privatization has the effect of disrupting the curriculum (Lam et al. 282). As earlier alluded to, various school owners will propose curricula that they think will give them the best results. As such, the standard national curricula with all its benefits will be lost.
Secondly, corporatization of education causes overemphasis of competition. Even though intra-class, inter-class, and inter-school competitions are thought to be healthy, they burden the learners. Pressure to perform and learning methods that are aimed at grinding results from learners affect the learners negatively. In essence, competitiveness causes learning to be too serious and less interesting hence breeding poor attitude.
Competitiveness due to the privatization of education has also been incriminated in reducing creativity. Overemphasis on performance in examinations give the learners little time and space to think on their own – creativity is mainly bred through private and silent meditation. Competitiveness reduces the time available for such meditation. As such, increased competitiveness makes education to be less useful to the student and much more like a formality.
Works Cited
Anyon, Jean. “Social class and the hidden curriculum of work.” Journal of education (1980): 67-92.
Bornstein, Marc H, and Robert H. Bradley. Socioeconomic Status, Parenting, and Child Development. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis, 2014. Print.
Estrin, Saul, et al. “The effects of privatization and ownership in transition economies.” Journal of Economic Literature 47.3 (2009): 699-728.
Kozol, Jonathan. “Still separate, still unequal.” Harper’s Magazine 9 (2005): 171-185.
Lam, Shui‐Fong, et al. “The effects of competition on achievement motivation in Chinese classrooms.” British Journal of Educational Psychology 74.2 (2004): 281-296.
