I have a confession to make: as much professional development as I seek out, I have not read a book about my profession since college (about 3 years). My development as a teacher outside the classroom has come from several areas, including personal reflection on this blog, interacting with other teachers on Twitter, collaboration with other teachers, talking to mentors, and more. When I went to school to get my Master’s degree in education, I became jaded. I hated the educational books we were assigned and gained little from the classes. It seemed like they were feeding us theory that was removed from reality; it wasn’t even good theory.
I’ve matured quite a bit since college. Looking back on the experience, part of the problem is that our teacher preparation programs as most are setup do not do an adequate job of preparing preservice teachers for the job of teaching. The other part is that I was not at a place where I was ready to see the value in some of what they were teaching. I’d mentally associated educational books with the poor texts I was assigned in college.
Recently, I’ve wanted to start reading more educational literature as there as some concepts that it is difficult to explore in depth in a Twitter or blog post. I’ve gotten several recommendations on Twitter from other educators. I picked up Dumbing Us Down: the Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling by John Taylor Gatto while at the bookstore with my family today. I read the first chapter today and was blown away (more below). I’ve never been a highlighter or a note taker. I usually arrogantly rely on my memory to serve me. Today, though, I took a pen and started underlining lines that stood out to me. As opposed to skimming the first chapter as I often do non-fiction, I studied it. This blog post is actually a response to the first chapter and I plan to write a post for each chapter as I make my way through the book over spring break. Please join me on my journey exploring the hidden curriculum this week.
The Hidden Curriculum
I first heard about the idea of the hidden curriculum from @lasica few months ago on Twitter. I was “overhearing” a conversation; the idea intrigued me but I have not had a chance to investigate more thoroughly. A short definition would be what we implicitly teach students through our actions. Gatto presents seven lessons that he believes nearly every teacher instills in his/her students regardless of age level or content area. As you look through them, you may recognize some of them in things you do or in the faces of your students. I know I did.
1) Confusion: “Confusion is thrust upon kids by too many strange adults, each working alone with only the thinnest relationship with each other, pretending, for the most part, to an expertise they do not possess” (3).
When we get out of the mindset that what we have always done will always work and really examine school, it seems inordinately disjointed. While I speak in generalizations, it has been true for all 3 schools that I have worked in and every school I have attended.
Every subject is taught in its own little box. English is so closely tied into history, but they are taught separately. Math is never juxtaposed with art or poetry; it is taught as a pointless exercise that kills students’ enthusiasm. Subjects that aren’t math or English are often looked at as unnecessary add-ons. Students have to stop learning abruptly and without reason. Teachers often don’t communicate with each other and there is little consistency between classrooms so middle and high school students have to adapt to 6 or 8 completely different classrooms. While I don’t yet have an answer to the problem, it seems that there is little cohesion in schools. It pervades all aspects. Central office communicating to administration, teachers, parents, and students; administration communicating with teachers; teachers communicating with each other and with students; subjects and skills taught in isolation; jargon from many subjects is taught without going into depth with any of them. How can students be expected not to be confused with all this going on?
2) Class Position: “That’s the real lesson of any rigged competition like school. You come to know your place” (5).
I find it very hard to argue against this notion. School enforces the notion of a caste system. There are honors/AP classes, average classes, and below average classes. They go by different names and euphemisms but the fact remains that kids know where they stand. Some rebel and try to get out of the boxes that the school places them in, but they face an uphill battle. The idea of tracking and classifying students is so entrenched in schools and they are good at it.
It seems that anyone trying to argue that schools do not force students into boxes would not have a foundation to stand on because of one ubiquitous idea: grades. Students are judged every day. It passes for objective analysis, but even supposedly objective grading policies are subjectively created by people. There is no objective way to judge students day in and day out. There is also rarely a good distinction made. It is not the work that was done poorly, but rather the student that is a poor person for turning it in.
It may sound naïve, but of what need are grades if we allow the students to learn at their own pace and have choices about what they want to learn?
3) Indifference: “Years of bells will condition all but the strongest to a world that can offer no important work to do” (6).
This statement really hit home with me personally. My principal really wanted to make class changes more pleasant this year, so we instituted a system whereby we have a pleasant chime, followed by 4:30 of soft music, followed by 30 seconds of silence, followed by a pleasant chime to signal the start of the next class. I find myself asking whether this is even worse than the normal school bells as we are trying to hide what we are doing. We are trying to placate students to conform, behave, and get to class without issue.
The most salient point that Gatto made was that engaging students in an amazing lesson contributes to indifference. This sounds contradictory, but bells are an unnatural thing. In no other arena are people told to stop learning on such a strict schedule. It is so abrupt. If students are engaged in a lesson or an idea, they have to stop suddenly. They cannot finish at their leisure or choose to move to their next class. What should they try to care when they are going to be constantly interrupted?
4) Emotional Dependency: “Individuality is a contradiction of class theory, a curse to all systems of classification” (7).
It is a sad thing that children’s emotional well-being is so closely tied in to their relationships with their teachers. Obviously there are other factors, especially relationships with their parents. However, school reinforces the idea that we have a say over the students’ emotional states. We judge them and decide if they are worthy. Particularly, those who we find the most worthy are those who conform the best. Individuality is punished and snuffed out whenever possible because it may interfere with other students’ learning. Or, it may interfere with how we want to have those other students learn.
5) Intellectual Dependency: “we must wait for other people, better trained than ourselves, to make the meanings of our lives” (7).
While I now many good teachers who try to find ways to help students to investigate and learn on their own. However, the traditional mindset still reigns supreme in most cases. The teachers are, or pretend to be, the content experts. The teachers, in turn, are told what to teach or think by administrators, curriculum writers, textbook publishers, and more. The students rarely have an opportunity to think on their own, investigate, or create new knowledge.
6) Provisional Self-Esteem: “The lesson of report cards, grades, and tests is that children should not trust themselves or their parents but should instead rely on the evaluation of certified officials” (10).
Children come to us from more difficult situations than ever before. Divorces and broken-homes are ever more common. Students are exposed to violence early on through television, the Internet, and assorted other media. Students come to school with so much baggage and a large part of their self-esteem comes from school, even more so when they don’t have other outlets like community work, jobs, extra-curricular activities, or athletics.
While there are teachers who try to find ways to uplift all their students, schools as an institution only find ways to beat them down. A 93 is not a good job; a 93 is 7 points less than the perfect we wanted you to be. We rank students according to national averages, demographics, race, gender, etc… Supposedly, we are disaggregating the data so we can reach those segments of the population better. Most of the time, though, data is used more like a hammer to hurt than an agent to heal. If students trust us with their self-image, is it not our duty to try to help them build it into something wonderful, not to convince them that it is devoid of worth?
7) One Can’t Hide: “The meaning of constant surveillance and denial of privacy is that no one can be trusted, that privacy is not legitimate” (11).
Yesterday, I left my office for half an hour with the door open. I do this regularly. There were 32 iPods, 6 Flip video cameras, a laptop, an iMac, a Blackberry, and assorted other expensive gadgetry. When I came back, nothing was stolen. I very rarely worry about that. I have a good rapport with most of my students; if they need anything they can ask, so there is no need to steal. If you asked teachers if they trusted students, I think many would respond negatively though.
There is a reason students will often say that school feels like a prison. School is more like a prison, at times, than any other institution. My school has cameras everywhere, which immediately sets up a poor learning environment as the kids know they are not trusted. Students are told when they can talk, when they can sit, when they walk, when they can use the restroom. If that is not prison, what is?
I have a vision for a school without this hidden curriculum, but I am going to wait until I finish the book. I hope to read and write about chapter 2 tomorrow. Please stick with me on my journey through the next 4 chapters. What other things are we teaching students with our hidden curricula? How do you think we can remedy it? Please let me know in the comments.
