Anyon: classism, remediation, and the hidden curriculum of work

Jean Anyon’s (1980) study of schools from five socioeconomic levels, The Hidden Curriculum of Work, brings to light how passive/skill-based teaching methods used in low-income communities are complicit in remedial learning programs’ failed promises to swiftly transition matriculated students into more “competitive” curriculums or occupations. Instruction at working-class schools, one of the first two tiers, is skill-based; students are rewarded on their ability to follow the correct procedure. With teacher centered pedagogies and limited attention given to accessing one’s background knowledge (cultural capital), metacognitive strategies are not emphasized. Likewise, the instruction at middle-class schools also emphasizes getting the correct answer over higher order thinking. 

With critical thinking exercises earmarked as supplementary or extra credit, working class and middle-class students are given limited opportunities to create a library of academic funds to be retrieved for assignments requiring learners to go beyond recall and demonstrate understanding through creating knowledge (Shapiro, 2011).   Granted, the ability to blindly follow orders is a valuable skill for semi-skilled occupations such as wait staff, and salesclerks:  getting it right and getting it right quickly is also needed in “middle class” professions such as fire safety. However, emphasizing accuracy compromises long term outcomes as taking risks, making mistakes, and recovering builds a grown mindset needed for academic growth.

When low income, minority and ELL learners fail to transition from remedial programs to real college classes on schedule (or at all), it is blamed on lack of motivation, time on task, or their home language as a deficit (Shapiro, 2011).  This is ludicrous. “Remedial” learners at affluent and/or professional schools are taught that their ideas are valued. The steps the affluent student takes to solve the problem are viewed as equally important as the outcome.  For example, in math classrooms for the affluent, the answers are (often) not in the back of the book, and they may be debated by the learners. Thus, the curriculum is not designed to be a series of mindless sets of skill and drill; it is a method to develop one’s analytical skills (Anyon, 1980).  If teachers do not take steps to foster a growth mindset for all through incorporating learners’ cultural wealth into the curriculum, students will only have a shallow reservoir of visible academic funds or experiences to draw upon for assignments requiring them to create knowledge such as interpreting data or crafting a thesis statement.

Remediation and the community college student

Based solely on the result of standardized tests such as the Accuplacer, remedial programming is expensive, time consuming and often not credit-bearing. ELLs, working-class students, and first-generation college students are directed to remedial coursework more often than students who are White, privileged and have a family history of completing post-secondary study (Scott-Clayton, 2018; Hanford, 2016). “According to a study of students at public colleges in Ohio, fifty percent of those with family incomes under $18,000 a year are sent to remedial classes while 18 percent of those with incomes over $100,000 a year end up in remediation” (Bettinger and Long, 2007 as cited in Hanford, 2016).   In 2008, 19.9% of Whites, 30.2 % of Blacks, 29% of Latinx, 22.8% Asian American and Pacific Islanders and 27.5% of students of two or more races were enrolled in undergraduate remedial coursework nationwide (Ramirez, 2013). Three years later, 47.3% of Blacks, 45.1% of Latinx, and 43.9% of Native Americans were required to take remedial coursework: and 37% of these remedial learners were first generation college students (Ramirez, 2013). According to the United States Department of Education, by 2016, 40% of community college students and 68% of first-generation college students were enrolled in some type of remedial coursework (Emblom-Callahan et al, 2019, p. 2).

The figures are sobering. In 2018 half of all community college students were first-generation or grew up in families from low socioeconomic backgrounds (as measured by parents’ occupations, income, and education); only 14 percent earn an associate degree (National Center of Education Statistics as cited in Soria, 2018).  This is not to suggest that learner language or family income are the sole reasons why many community college students fail to earn degrees, but student ability to master the Accuplacer should not be the sole criteria in establishing placement as mastering academic (testing) English or Algebra is not the only determining indicator of a student’s ability to understand complex concepts or think critically. Educators must ask themselves if it is more important to identify a verb in a sentence on the Accuplacer or complete tasks requiring higher order thinking (Hanford, 2016).

Further complicating matters, more than 20 states have abolished remedial coursework at 4-year schools, leaving the burden of preparing students for “real” college coursework to community and junior colleges (Ramirez, 2013). In Massachusetts, this shift in responsibility to remediate underperforming students has changed the face of the remedial learner.  Developmental programs based on the prerequisite model have become a “brick wall” to public college students from all economic groups as 45% of remedial students come from middle and upper income families (Barrington, 2019). Since remedial studies can take one year or more and do not count for college credit, the likelihood of student debt increases, and the chances to close the racial wage gap (RGP) is reduced (Ramirez, 2013). In 2013, Massachusetts State Commissioner of Higher Education Dr. Carlos Santiago noted 12,000 students had been placed into remedial education, but only 2,000 “progressed to complete a credit-bearing course” and “80% of these students left school entirely” (Barrington, 2019).  With sweeping budget cuts in public education and a fragile post-pandemic economy, educators must focus on the big picture. Rather than holding students hostage with developmental programs based on the prerequisite model, co-requisite models that allow students to complete developmental courses with credit bearing offerings should be considered. A study by Belfield, Jenkins and Lahr (2016) determined that the cost of remedial education using the co-requisite model was 50% less than similar programming using the prerequisite model; and in 2018 the California Acceleration Project reported that completion rates of developmental coursework under the co-requisite model doubled (Emblom-Callahan et al, 2019, pp. 4,6).

The U-shaped curve, cultural wealth

Re-envisioning learning to take place on a U-shaped curve rather than as a linear progression can help teachers move from standardized and deficit-based approaches to teaching to accelerate. The U-shaped curve is a 3-step developmental progression: learning the skill in the target, forgetting the skill in the target, learning the skill once again. In most cases, no amount of drilling can alter this trajectory. Although the U-shaped curve is accepted by developmental psychologists it is often ignored in the college classroom. Pinker and Prince’s (1988) analysis of  students learning past tense forms in English confirmed this curve, finding that in the beginning of the U-shaped flight, learners’ control over the target skill seems to be tied to learning the rule. However, the learners’ mastery of the target was short-lived. Learners overcompensated and communicated using statements such as “I cutted” before self-correcting and climbing back to the top of the U (Pauls, Mache, & Petermann, 2013, p. 3; Carlucci & Case, 2013).  For this reason, assessments based on the prerequisite model, because they come too late or too early, provide an incomplete picture of learner growth. Disregarding the U-shaped curve is especially damaging for English language learners and students who speak non-standard English dialects at home as overcorrection of learners who are developmentally at the bottom of the curve damages self-confidence and stops them from taking risks.  Risk taking in the form of making mistakes is necessary as focusing on accuracy stymies the creation of more complex academic language. Carlucci and Case (2012) note: “If U-shapes are forbidden, strictly fewer classes of language are learnable” consequently “U-shapes are necessary for full learning power” (Carlucci, 2013, p. 58). For these reasons, learners should not be pressed to choose between the language of their community and the language of the school (Delpit, 1988).

Integrating learners’ cultural wealth and non-standard dialects of English in coursework is one method to encourage risk taking in the classroom, build background knowledge, gain a more accurate picture of student growth, and accelerate learners. In addition to English language learners, remedial students who speak dialects such as African American Vernacular English (AAVE) or Appalachian English (AE) may also benefit as standardized assessments like the Accuplacer are not user friendly to individuals whose dialects do not conjugate the verb to be and drop the ly on some adverbs. To create a curriculum that neither bores learners to tears by excessive remediation or rushes students into “real” college work before they tackle cognitively demanding texts, a cross linguistic reservoir must be created by integrating learners’ backgrounds into the coursework (Cummins, 2009).  This can be achieved by adding reflections and personal narratives to lesson plans as both put students in the position to be an authority on the subject and encourage them to take the risks needed to develop academic discourse.  To encourage learners to develop their written work and use evidence to support their claims, essays should be evaluated on content before form. Oral exercises are another vehicle for students to notice the differences between the natural break in the speech and academic text. Additionally, student generated bidialectal dictionaries also defer to cultural wealth while building academic skills. In seeing their language and culture honored in the classroom, learners will develop awareness of the features that differentiate their speech from standard English and acquire the ability to alternate between the two (Croutteau, 2007, pp. 29,31).  

Differentiating instruction and English language learners

To gain a basic understanding of learner funds, instructors should use a well-constructed needs assessment to get to know the learners, their backgrounds, and their unique skill sets. Using data from the assessments enables teachers to create student groups with members possessing different strengths and abilities such as background knowledge of the content, fluency in academic English or willingness to communicate. Balanced groups will allow learners to tackle academic tasks while simultaneously sharing skills and information. To minimize status problems within the groups and prevent one or more individuals from dominating, assignments will center around clearly written and measurable tasks that account for growth in content, academic literacy, and critical thinking. Each member of the group will have a specific job. Clear objectives and roles for each group member assures that everyone is engaged.   Thus, the age-old practice of teaching to the middle, otherwise known as institutionalized sameness, will be abandoned.  The more skilled learner will accelerate, and the developing learner will be brought into the fold (Kalantzis, 2021).

Differentiating instruction accepts student variance, supports individual learners and creates a classroom community (Subban, 2006). For example, while emerging learners work on short content comprehension exercises, more advanced learners have the option to forgo scaffolding and/or expand upon the course theme. The more skilled group would then explain critical thinking points to developing learners who in turn paraphrase the information.  Learning through teaching not only forces a “skilled” group member to refine his or her academic language use for clarity, but the retrieval process boosts both academic literacy and knowledge in the content. Moreover, when students are engaged, interest is elevated and motivation is awakened  (Dosch & Zidon, 2014). Curriculum can also be differentiated by allowing learners to choose between readings, paper topics, or projects.  Although integrating learner funds and differentiating instruction requires a shift in preparation and classroom protocol, it is tailor made for the 21-century learner who is accustomed to both multitasking and receiving instantaneous feedback via technology.  It is only impossible to implement if educators are resistant to change (Subban, 2006, p. 943). 

Another approach to differentiated instruction is sustained content language teaching (SCLT). SCLT integrates academic content with the language learning skills associated with the discipline (Bunch et al, 2001). Although SCLT may be confused with the developmental English for Academic Purposes coursework, the former is more rigorous. With SCLT, students are expected to demonstrate comprehension, answer open ended questions, and interpret data. With SCLT, English language learners are exposed to a wide variety of input that bolsters both speaking and listening skills because they are integrated with native speakers. Additionally, SCLT can be adapted to most content classes that are student-centered, but not lecture based (Bunch et al, 2001). However, solely using language in the content will not create a learning environment whereby students can cross the bridge from basic communication skills to academic fluency.  “As Bartolomé (1998) puts it, teachers actively need to ‘apprentice their linguistic-minority students into more academic ways of communicating’” (Bunch et al, 2001, p. 31).  Guided annotations or teacher generated outlines support the organization of the material, prevent the watering down of content and support language growth through collaboration whereby students share ideas and create knowledge. Because of its ability to be integrated into a wide range of academic tasks and disciplines, SCLT with guided annotations is suitable for native speakers and English language learners at various levels (Valdes, 1998, 2001 as cited in Bunch et al, 2001).  Since the homogeneous classroom is both unrealistic and no longer a requirement for learning, “every learner does not have to be on the same page at the same time, nor complete the task at the same pace; nor do they even need to be doing the same task” (Cope & Kalantzis, 2021).

Although there are few studies on differentiated learning in the college classroom, Dosch and Zidon’s (2014) work on differentiated instruction with undergraduates makes a connection between differentiation, engagement, and learner outcomes.  Their synopsis of Ernst and Ernst’s (2005) study of an undergraduate political science course taught with various differentiated methods showed that a majority of the 35 students in the course believed that the personalized instruction and open-ended questions helped them reach their learning goals. Similarly, their analysis of Livingston’s (2005) study of an undergraduate education course indicates that the 33 enrolled learners appreciated being able to complete course assignments according to their learning styles and to reflect on their progress.  Finally, the data regarding Chamberlin and Powers’ (2010) study of seven college math courses proved to be the most interesting. Three professors differentiated their instruction while seven taught with traditional methods. “On average, the treatment group participants scored 1.7 higher on math scores from pretest to posttest compared to an average gain of .3 items scored higher for the control group” (Dosch & Zidon, 2014, p. 345)  

Differentiated instruction is not foolproof. However, it may be the difference between student engagement and apathy. By implementing differentiation alongside other asset-based methods of instruction, the issue will no longer be what to do about any type or category of learner as the gains of all students will be valued. Creating a learning environment that incorporates student cultural wealth into the curriculum heightens student interest and helps them move forward by measuring outcomes by what has been achieved rather than against a norm referenced test (Subban, 2006, p. 941). Ultimately, when teachers share power, students become invested in their own learning (Bartolome L., 1994, p. 186).