Keep an eye on the ‘hidden curriculum’
M om, who will be my new teacher? It seems like an innocent enough question from your elementary-school-age offspring, but before you answer (assuming you know the answer), consider the unspoken questions and the uncertainties behind that question.
Dad, what if my new teacher is mean? The other kids say that Mr. XYZ sometimes gets angry. Will any of my friends be in my class? Are my clothes OK? Will I fit in or look stupid? Who will I sit with at lunch?
Then the big one — what if I can’t understand the new work? The other kids say that that work in Grade X is really hard.
Given that during the next 10 months, your child will spend 1,140 hours at school, a little anxiety about the year can be expected.
Kids going from Grade 7 into Grade 8 will be moving, in many school districts, from a classroom with one teacher into a system where each subject is likely to have a different teacher in a different room.
Yet off goes your progeny to deal with the new situation — admittedly one we’ve all experienced, but one that will provide challenges for him or her.
What can you do to assist? First of all, don’t express your own anxiety, but instead take the time to ask a few questions without the conversation becoming an interrogation.
Say to the child: “Tell me about your class” or “Tell me about what you did at lunchtime.” Most kids can think of something good, and chances are the fun aspects were being obscured by this year’s concerns.
Most important, though, be aware of what educators and sociologists call “the hidden curriculum” and how significant that “other” curriculum is to a child’s school experience.
The “hidden curriculum” refers to what can be defined as the lessons that are taught informally, and usually unintentionally, in a school system.
“Appropriate” ways to act at school, what behaviours are going to make them popular with teachers and students — these are self-taught lessons in the “hidden curriculum.”
During his or her K-12 school career, the chances are your child will meet between 40 and 50 teachers, and that is counting a single teacher for each grade from K-7 and different subject teachers for each of the annual eight subjects in grades 8-12.
Chances also are — and this is worth talking about when your child complains “I don’t like my teacher” — as adults, we count ourselves fortunate to meet between 40 and 50 people we like without reservation in a lifetime.
Picking up on teacher expectations is an important part of the “hidden curriculum” — which teachers place a heavy emphasis on daily quizzes and weekly tests, which teachers are happy to answer questions, which teachers teach to the brighter kids, or to the boys or the girls, and so on.
Playground survival behaviours, the playground-games pecking order, who plays fair and who does not are all an important part of “what else we learn at school,” and can shape perspectives about how kids learn to deal with issues such as gender, morals, social class, stereotypes, cultural expectations, playground politics — even language.
This very important “hidden curriculum” is not taught in any formal way, but kids absorb and internalize the lessons through natural observation and participation in classroom and social activities, all a very important part of what sociologists call the “school culture.”
In some high schools, the organizational culture defines athletic success as very important and highly celebrated. In others, especially where peer cultures predominate, norms and values make social popularity revered. And in others, academic effort and excellence are admired, or at least valued highly enough to compete for students’ attention amid many other claims on it.
The “hidden curriculum” begins early in a child’s education, and kids learn to form opinions and ideas about their environment and their classmates — all a big part of attitude toward school in general and a big part of who arrives back home every afternoon carrying a bag full of stuff just as, or even more, important to school success than books and homework.
For your child to be heading back next month to begin a new school year is an adventure, just as it was for all of us. For a parent, keeping an eye on how things are faring with the “hidden curriculum” can make all the difference in success with the formal curriculum taught in classrooms.
Geoff Johnson is a retired superintendent of schools.