The Impact of School Environment on the Education of a Student
Introduction
The term School Environment refers to the physical, aesthetic surrounding, climate, and culture of the people living around it. A healthy and effective school environment should have the appropriate infrastructures, buildings, and ample playground for recreation. According to Anyon, a school environment plays a crucial role in a students’ learning process up until they start making their own life defining decisions. Students need to have a safe environment they can explore their abilities academically, emotionally and behaviorally. Anyon claimed that different school environments affected differently on the performance of students. In her research paper “Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work”, she investigates the link between a schools’ social environment and social class of their parents on students’ performance and future life achievements.
Evidence
From the research conducted in the article, schools in different social environments treated their students differently. The researcher observed five schools in different social classes, factors such as the way the teachers treat students, their teaching methods, availability of study materials, and parental involvement in a student’s work. In this study, teachers are the main variables that affected and produced the different results. Teachers from working class schools that represent about 39% of the American population tend to force complete control over their students. The teaching/working methods in such schools follow preset systematic procedures; students have no room to make their own choices.
A different school environment is the middle-class school; the teaching methods are result oriented, i.e. getting good grades. The students learn to follow directions and have to decipher them on their own, they must find out for themselves which steps come first. There is a limited discussion between students and teachers in these schools and the teachers are somewhat easygoing on the students. However, in another social class category of the Affluent Professional School, the school environment is different, students and teachers have a more friendly and easy relationship. Teachers are more involved in their student’s interests; they discuss ideas with the teachers more freely and their parents participate in the schoolwork.
Teachers do not control the students as they often negotiate with their students. Generally, “Work involves individual thought and expressiveness, expansion and illustration of ideas and choice of appropriate method and material” (Anyon 9). The last social environment category is the Executive Elite School; this social class has an entirely different work schedule. The teachers teach students analytic intellectual powers, this process involves letting students come up with logical solutions to real life problems outside the school environment. Moreover, students conduct individual research on their area of interest which their curriculum is considerate of. Teachers exercise no force control on students as they learn to control their actions.
Commentary
In conclusion, it is very clear that the student’s achievements in life, what he/she becomes in the future largely depend on the school environment they attended. Schools in different social environments teach different core elements and values. Students and teachers relationships are different and play a key role in evaluating this performance. Students are not only affected by their teachers but also by their parental involvement. While a student in Executive Elite School learns how to become a good leader, a student in the same grade in a different environment, say the working class school, learns how to always follow instructions and orders due to their teacher’s exercising full control on them, these students get used to following orders given by others.
Works Cited
Anyon, Jean. “Social class and the hidden curriculum of work.” Journal of education (1980): 67-92.