I would like to thank...
God, my parents, my supportive family and the public schools of Thiensville and Cedarburg, Wisconsin. For making me all that I am today. I used to think they were draconian bastards - the school system, that is - but it turns out they were setting me up for a life of (relative) success.

Unemployment Training (The Ideology of Non-Work Learned in Urban Schools) read purely from my perspective illustrates that what I perceived as harshness was building me into someone eminently employable. It probably hasn't hurt me as a spouse or mother, either. For instance, I went through high school obsessed with punctuality. Not for its own sake, but because no note from a parent could obviate the school's punishment for tardiness. So I became punctual. (Perhaps a bit more pragmatic, too. If I were unavoidably late, I would just go home. With some sort of idiopathic malaise.)

I must disagree with the author when it comes to Showing Up.(What is the minimum standard of satisfactory work?)"The Deal" in urban schools refers to a tacit working agreement between students and teachers. The student does not disrupt the class. In return, the teacher ignores his/her doing nothing. Not being disruptive in return for being allowed to 'coast' was SOP in my suburban school of years gone by. It worked well for me. OK, so maybe I wasn't stretched and challenged and made to be all I could be. So I'm a middle-aged church secretary instead of a surgeon or Commandant of the Marine Corps. At least I show up...right?