Wise’s early schooling experience, in relation to his early awareness of racial constructs propelled me to think about my own schooling system and the fact that I have been betrayed by the school system which consistently reminded me of the “perfect” nature of history when, in truth, this was never the case. I could not help but connect his narrative to my own life and consequently an article titled Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work by Jean Anyon. She observed five elementary schools over the course of a full school year and concluded that fifth-graders of different economic backgrounds (which correlates with race) are already being prepared to occupy particular rungs on the social ladder. Anyon describes that in two working-class schools (observed for the sake of her study), work is following the steps of a procedure. The procedure is usually mechanical, involving rote behavior and very little decision making or choice. The teachers rarely explain why the work is being assigned, how it might connect to other assignments, or what the idea is that lies behind the procedure or gives it coherence and perhaps meaning or significance. Available textbooks are not always used, and the teachers often prepare their own dittos or put work examples on the board. Most of the rules regarding work are designations of what the children are to do - the rules are steps to follow. These steps are told to the children by the teachers and are often written on the board. The children are usually told to copy the steps as notes. These notes are to be studied and work is often evaluated not according to whether it is right or wrong but according to whether the children followed the right steps. Now, if this is contrasted to the executive elite school, work is developing one's analytical intellectual powers. Children are continually asked to reason through a problem, to produce intellectual products that are both logically sound and of top academic quality. A primary goal of thought is to conceptualize rules by which elements may fit together in systems and then to apply these rules in solving a problem. 

School work helps one to achieve, to excel, to prepare for life. School experience, differed qualitatively by social class and race because the lower class schools/classes are almost always occupied predominately by minority students. In most instances, education the primary factor that influences one’s schema regarding social structures, race being one of them. Thus, by improving the "good" and disregarding the "bad" schools is creating the disparity among races even further, especially because education and income are tightly knit. All attempts to reform urban education are doomed to failure unless and until racism is remedied. There is a generational and systemic dysfunction, abusiveness, low expectations and incompetence within the school systems and an even more fundamental truth is that almost all schooling in the United States is inherently oppressive and dehumanizing. Wise states, “Even as my mother had stood up against the obvious bigot, she had dropped the ball just like everyone else when it came to institutionalized racism” (49). Education is indubitably one aspect where institutionalized racism is ubiquitous. Especially in scenarios where some students are given more preference over others: “Rudo confirmed everything they needed to believe about their nation. She was like a soothing balm, allowing them not only to push away concerns about institutional racism, but also avoid confronting their own biases, which played out against the other black students in their classes every day” (51). This is precisely what the majority of pre-secondary education serves to do today – instead of providing factual and realistic occurrences, the focus in on maintaining the “harmonious” status quo, no matter how fallacious. It is extremely difficult to dismantle oppressive systems. The oppressors and the oppressed are equally captive, equally invested. A loving, life-affirming education system would be threatening to the established order, and many vested interests would be dislodged by a truly revolutionary education consciousness.

“Hold fast to dreams,

For if dreams die

Life is a broken-winged bird,

That cannot fly.”

― Langston Hughes