At 11:29 AM 4/6/98 -0400, Eugene wrote:
>I think it is not a question whether a hidden curriculum should be taught in
>school (or anywhere else). There is no choice because hidden curriculum is
>always there. The question is where the teacher should design curriculum
>with awareness of its part being hidden from the teacher and students. In
>the examples provided by Nate, Maria, Judy, and Nelson, some parts of the
>curriculum designed by the teacher can be intentionally hidden from the
>students. For me, the primary issue here is the issue of teacher's
>manipulation versus providing sensitive, respectful, and critical guidance.
>What do you think?
My first instinct is always to teach _against_ the text, whether the "text"
be a history book or a clock, on the grounds that they ALWAYS leave
something out--they HAVE to, of course--and that knowledge, both _that_
there is and of what, is just as important as what is included. A student
buttonholed me in the parkinglot after class last week complaining that,
once she started (what I call) "strangifying" her surroundings--inquiring
not only what she was doing and why she was doing it, but also what what she
did did--she couldn't stop. Suddenly it seemed to her that nothing escaped
that kind of attention. She awoke some nights, or was kept from her sleep,
too, from wondering. I think this is a reliable hallmark of "critical" (as
if there were any other kind) learning; as much as I believe there is no
reading BUT reading-into.
That being said, the (at least a) tricky issue is that customizing kids to
not-notice the hidden curriculum is so much a part of the overt curriculum
of the primary grades. Kindergarten is mainly a matter of socializing --in
the truest sense, enculturating -- kids to the conventions of the
institution in which they'll spend the next(in the US, at least) 12 years.
Primary and perhaps the most implacable and embedded among these are: (a)
swift and unquestioning obedience to both adult-human and mechanical
authority, (b) docile and good-willed diligence in performance of
incomprehensible or otherwise meaningless tasks, and (c) innocent and
undoubting acceptance of arbitrary ascriptions regarding social and cultural
roles--including self-image, intelligence, physical capacities, and the
permissible range of potential expectations. A child succeeds as a student
(or doesn't) in relatively direct proportion to the degree to which they
have internalized these conventions. It is ironic that the teachers who, by
tradition and training, bear their charges the most caritas, i.e.,in early
childhood, are the ones to whom it falls to employ their sympathy in the
service of such deeply coopting discursive practices. They "install" the
kerbs that children then spend the rest of their scholastic careers
inhabiting. And they do it in the nicest possible way. I assign no blame in
this; only describe what I have seen and what I have read-into the various
levels of texts of classrooms.
There's much more, of course, but little time today.
abbreviatedly
konopak
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| John Konopak, EDUC/ILAC,820 VanVleet Oval,U.of OK.Norman,OK73019|
|E-mail: jkonopak who-is-at ou.edu; Fax: 4053254061; phone:4053251498 |
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| "Those who can, must!" --Anonymous |
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In a marketplace of ideas, there are going to be ideas that you find
abhorrent. The best thing to do is to respond to them.
--Barry Steinhardt, President,
Electronic Frontier Foundation