The Caste System in School

As much as I complain about my students, they really surprise me, and today we took that Marxism discussion even further as we compared the characters in three textx by talking about how their class levels influence their actions.

The first story is Born Worker, by Gary Soto, where we meet young Jose and his cousin Arnie. Jose is poor and Arnie is middle class and the rich cousin talks the poor cousin into a get-rich-quick scheme that will inevitably leave Arnie on top. As the story progresses we fall in love with Jose who is a strong worker, takes pride in his work, and who does Arnie’s jobs without complaint. Arnie, on the other hand, is lazy and mopes around complaining about the work while doing nothing. In the end, one of their jobs leaves an old man hurt and bleeding and Jose saves the day, but when the cops show up Arnie takes all the credit, and Jose walks away without saying a word because he knows he’s stuck in his class level and can never move out.

It’s fitting Jose feels this way because that’s how the caste system (the kids described earlier) works, and it’s often how real life turns out. The people who make themselves look important are the people who excel in life. Those who do all the grunt work do so without complaint, and are often left in the dust.

Then we read the poem “Oranges”, also by Gary Soto, where we meet a boy and a girl, both from different backgrounds and yet they make it work. They don’t succumb to the pressures of others to fit within their classes; they just igfnore all that stuff and go for love instead.

And we finally finished with a reading of the short story “Checkouts”, by Cynthia Rylant, about a rich girl who moves to a new town and falls in love with the local bagboy at the grocery store. Again, we’re confronted with kids from different class levels, but this time love does not win out. As a matter of fact, we notice that the girl chooses her class level over love, while the boy searches furtively to move up the social ladder.

Here’s what was impressive — most of my classes really seem to understand this stuff. they get it, and they point out the ridiculous behavior of these characters. Even more important is how they began to notice all the secret things authors do to explain the characters in these stories. For example:

• In “Born Worker,” Soto tells us right off that our two characters are from different classes. He says it outright.
• In “Oranges,” however, we have to look at the details –
  • He tells us the girl lives in a house, but he doesn’t say the boy does.
  • The girl is wearing gloves in the middle of the winter, but the boy doesn’t have any.
  • He shows us how much change the boy has in his pockets.
  • He makes them walk through a used car lot.
  • He makes the boy carry his food with him.
• And in “Checkouts,” Rylant does the same sort of things. We learn more about the characters by what isn’t said about them:
  • The girl and the bagboy never speak to one another.
  • She lives in a house with beveled windows and several porches.
  • He wears no socks, tattered shoes, touseled hair, and can’t seem to keep his collar straightened.
  • Eventually, she seeks out a boy “down the street” (meaning, in her same nice neighborhood).
  • That new guy is also “intelligent” (a slight hint that the idea that college is for the upper crust).
  • And the boy goes off in search of girls at the local bookstore (A hint that he’s looking to move up the ladder).

The kids picked up on all these details, compared and contrasted the characters from all three texts and then moved forward with a discussion about what would have happened in each story if things turned out differently.

We even had a conversation about how many of our real life problems could be solved — that there would be less fighting, and less corruption — if we actually sat down and had a conversation once in a while.

“I mean, look,” said one student in class. “The boy and the girl in the ‘Checkouts’ story totally could have fallen in love, but they were afraid of moving too far from their caste, and so they just gave up and went the easy way. And then in ‘Born Worker’ Jose totally got jacked because he let Arnie take all the credit when he should have, like, kicked him in the nuts and said: ‘He’s totally lying to you, I’m the one who save that old guy!’ And then there’s the two kids in ‘Oranges’ who come out good in the end, and nothing goes wrong ’cause they atually told each other what they wanted from each other.”

She wanted chocolate, and he wanted a girlfriend, I said.

“Yeah. And then they got to make out probably.”

And what does everyone else get?

“Screwed.”

Exactly.

And then I began to wonder out loud whether this type of stuff happens in school, and whether we have a caste system in school, and how that effects us, and the kids jumped all over that one. I can’t even begin to explain all the rules that got shouted out across the room and how the kids were arguing with each other over what the top level was at school (”Is it the jocks or the preps?” “Aren’t they the same thing?”), which was the bottom and how all those strata of kid-dom interact with each other.

It was mesmerizing, and I turned it into an assignment. Looks something like this:

• Create a Caste System for school.
• Must be five levels (like the Hindu Caste System).
  • Name each level, but do not include names of students.
  • Describe each level — what do these people look like?
  • Outline the rules and regulations for each level — can people move back and forth or up and down in your caste system?
  • 5 sentences for each level.
• Include an introduction and a conclusion.

Originally, I had three different assignments for the students to complete (they got to choose one that interested them), but once this idea sprang up, I think it’s the real way to go. I’m going to trash the original stuff and let the students work on this, because it’ll be interesting to see how the kids see themselves, and how they see the school working.

Maybe I’ll find a way to make it work in a multigenre context — so that kids can bring in evidence and articles and present their findings in a visual way but also keep in with the workings of an essay. They’ll have to find a way to introduce their caste, describe each level and then conclude, but to do it all with cards or items or poetry, etc.

And this is why kids constantly impress me — their understanding of something gets me excited and helps me find a new way for them to accomplish the tasks I’m required to teach. I wish school worked like this more often, because I like being excited about them, and I like them finding ways to connect themselves to the work we do in class.