The hidden curriculum is “everything that is learnt by children in school but is not part of the formal curriculum (i.e. social norms relating to competition, achievement, and authority) (Barakett & Cleghorn, 149). One presentation explored how the hidden curriculum teaches children the social norms relating to conformity, delayed gratification, competitiveness, and obedience to authority figures.
But isn’t this a little top down and deterministic? Where does individual agency fit in? Or does individual agency fit in? On some level, do the children not have to willingly give into these norms? Might some children just give into them unquestioningly? Might some question them but somehow rationalize that they are valid norms? Might others not give into them at all and wear shirts baring profanities so that they can be sent to another school? Might others give into them, i.e. behave properly in class and get straight As, just so that when they are not in school or under parental supervision, they can take drugs, have sex, and throw kittens from fast moving vehicles?
Sure there is a hidden curriculum and it may be more subtle than the regular curriculum and therefore more surreptitious in its effects. But just because it is there, does it mean that children are mindlessly walking to it like flies to a bug zapper? Don’t they exercise some level of individual agency?
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From your comments and the tone that I think I am getting from your post, I am assuming that you are not a fan of the hidden curriculum because it suggests that students will fall mindlessly into the norms of society and not question why they adhere to those norms. While that might be true, there's really no harm in that. I don't see any harm in teaching children when they are young, to be good, upstanding citizens and then letting them figure out for themselves, somewhere down the road, how they want to put their own individual spin on it. While they are in our care, as teachers, I think it is important that we teach them the best way to be, not saying that their individuality is not the best, but that sometimes it might be misguided. Once they are done school and they get to live on their own and ultimately make their own decisions without suffering the consequences from their parents or teachers, then they will experience whatever things they want whether or not they had been taught anything related to it in school. What I am attempting to say is, while we are in charge of taking care of these students, why not do what we can to make them the best people we can. They can do what they want with it on their own terms especially when they are done school but at least we can say that we tried.
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