Frank Kogan

Duh, I should have asked “class is the elephant in the CLASSroom”?

(1&2) Depends on what you keep in your closet? I agree here and wouldn’t want to say high school social groups can be put on and taken off like Bowie/Madonna career moves. I just wanted to suggest “Preppies” and “burnouts” seems like a kind of social category easier to put on and take off than an ed-econ class, so maybe we don’t want to call them classes?

(3) ‘"Prep" and "jock" and "burnout" and "skater" …this is a guess…membership in them is a better predictor of the students' future income and social role than would, say, their parents' current income and social role.” My guess is that your guess is mostly American dream myth and illusory but a very interesting question, nonetheless, both in terms of what are the links between the high school social groups and the “class” home you come from and in terms of which better predicts your future class prospects. I’ll snoop around for some literature.

(4) I agree, only, again, still I’m not sure you want to call these high school groups “classes.” Maybe because I’m afraid that doing so would fuck up how “class” fits into one of my Hero Stories?

(5) The arty-boho types or freaks have never been prominent enough in either the high school I attended eons ago or the few high schools I’ve worked in over the last decade. And this seems crucial to how I misunderstand some of your ideas about this stuff but also why they fascinate me so. Your thing about the freaks seems romantic and exciting and I wish I did attend or teach at such a high school. I’d love to try to work with the freaks. Note, I don’t say I would like to be or have been a freak. It seems unfathomable to me because of some weird shame and pride thing I feel about my family and class.

(6) Maybe the burnouts are “freaks” with low self-esteem?