Time to explore the hidden curriculum in schools today
Don’t interrupt! And tuck in your shirt, please!
Did you know that both these instructions are part of the school curriculum? They form what is referred to as the ‘hidden curriculum’ as opposed to the ‘visual’ or the core curriculum.
The core curriculum is basically what you learn from TEXT.
It is a set of school or college courses in subjects considered essential to education –lessons in maths, science, arts, English, history, geography and so on.
Hidden curriculum is what you learn from CONTEXT.
It refers to unwritten and often unintended lessons, beliefs, and perspectives that students learn in classrooms and from the social environment of schools.
Where does the term come from?
Hidden curriculum was apparently first used by Phillip Jackson in his 1968 book Life in Classrooms. He observed classrooms and argued that there were some things that were being taught that weren’t in the books. He observed these behaviors constantly being reinforced within the classroom such as being courteous, and waiting quietly for your turn.
Why is it described as hidden?
Well, because it is usually unacknowledged by students, educators, and the community at large.
What are some of the advantages of Hidden Curriculum?
Helps prepare students for life in a society beyond school and acquire a shared understanding of good and bad, right and wrong, which provides a framework to society.
Teaches children to obey elders. Adults have a responsibility to correct children when they misbehave. As a teacher, you have a special obligation to ‘raise people well’.
Helps maintain law and order, without which schools would fail to function. The hidden curriculum is necessary to maintain fairness. Rules are necessary for creating predictable environments in which learning takes place.
The disadvantages?
Gender roles are reinforced. Some schools may subconsciously be teaching girls to wait their turn, act like ladies and be polite, while coaching boys on speaking up. This might subtly reinforce gender norms from one generation to the next.
Minorities are expected to assimilate to the majority culture. Is school forcing cultural conformity to the dominant culture? Here is an example: Tuck in That Shirt!. Some sociologists argue that this is a HC in schools that forces people to dress like the colonists of yore.
