I was half-listening to the radio last week when I heard an interviewer ask a question that made me pause in my work to listen. “So”, the interviewer warmly asked, “You knew even as a small child that you wanted to be a concert cellist?” “Oh yes”, the woman answered. “Since I was eight.”
Class Reproduction by Four Year Olds
Friday, April 20th, 2012I watched how class played out in a preschool classroom, creating disadvantages for the already disadvantaged and privileges for those born into privilege.
Hiding the lunch ticket
Monday, January 16th, 2012I was an outsider at my junior high school. Why was I ashamed of my family’s poverty?
From a Teenage Class Action Fan
Tuesday, June 21st, 2011My name is Liora and I’m fourteen years old. I’ve attended public schools my whole life except for the last year and half when I went to a private school. At this school, the classes were small and there was support and help anywhere and anyhow we needed. Not the case in public school. This was a sad piece of class difference that I noticed on the first day.
Learning about Class in Private School?
Tuesday, June 21st, 2011Like parents everywhere, we wanted to give our teenage daughter advantages we never had. High on our list was to provide her a much clearer class-consciousness than what we got as kids.
I’ll take the Highlander
Tuesday, May 3rd, 2011It’s almost impossible to sell anything in the United States without reinforcing the social class hierarchy. But some ads are more explicit than others.
Middle Class Brats?
Saturday, April 9th, 2011I fear I am raising spoiled-rotten, middle-class brats. I fear I am raising the very kind of children I would have hated as a child. Why? Because they are comfortable and cozy and have everything they need in their day-to-day lives.
Class in the Classroom
Tuesday, December 28th, 2010There is a loud silence about social class in U.S. public schools. The silence was deafening on the first day of the course I recently taught — a course in which teachers look closely at how education in the United States is deeply entangled with social class.
Visioning Our Way to Justice
Monday, December 13th, 2010I grew up in poverty, the daughter of a tenant farmer. I thought people were privileged if they lived in a house, had running water or even an outhouse. My family of five lived in a ten-by-forty foot trailer.
Defending my vibrant neighborhood
Thursday, November 18th, 2010Recently four people were killed about ten houses away from where I grew up in Mattapan, a neighborhood of Boston. The neighborhood was maligned by the media coverage which plastered the headlines “Massacre in Mattapan” in large print across the 6:00 news every night. That image of Mattapan was permanently emblazoned across the minds of the nation.
Living in a rich neighborhood
Thursday, November 18th, 2010I’m a kid of a single mom that works very hard to make a living and support her family’s needs. We live in a rich neighborhood. The other kids at my school are richer than us and they have a lot of things we don’t. They can get a lot of stuff that they want. Sometimes I get jealous.
The Bus Stops Here
Thursday, November 18th, 2010I have two little boys; they are very bright, good boys. They have never had a babysitter and maybe I have been a little over protective. But their innocence is refreshing. They do not understand that when a bigot sees that our car is dated, and that our address is in the flats, and they are snubbed for a play date, that it is not about them. It’s about the crappy soul of that person.
