The Teacher's Role in the Hidden Curriculum
The Teachers’ Role in the Hidden Curriculum
Abstract
This paper examines the comments of a class of 27 students of one class. The responses centre around the hidden curriculum related to the role of the teachers and the teaching strategies they use and how they impact the attitudes of the students towards the subjects they teach.
Key Words: hidden curriculum, teacher’s role
"What you are shouts so loudly in my ears I cannot hear what you say." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Schools spend a valuable time and effort in planning the formal curriculum. They develop systems for effective implementation of the designed curriculum; and then they device methods of formative, as well as summative evaluation to find out, if the objectives set are achieved or not. But one important aspect of curriculum which is never documented, consciously implemented or evaluated is the hidden curriculum.
‘The hidden curriculum also involves learning but no school board ever sets it,’ [Ortberg: 2009:49]. School is a place where curriculum is enacted whether formal (intentional) or hidden (inherent), but this is also a place where all the aspects of curriculum enactment are not fully recognised or credited. In the words of Philip W. Jackson (1990) who first used the term ‘Hidden Curriculum’:
‘School is a place where tests are failed and passed, where amusing things happen, where new insights are stumbled upon, and skills acquired. But it is also a place in which people sit, and listen, and wait, and raise hands, and pass out paper, and stand in line, and sharpen pencils. School is where we encounter both friends and foes, where imagination is unleashed and misunderstanding brought to ground. But it is also a place in which yawns are stifled and initials scratched on desktops,...’
A lot more is transmitted than what the teachers plan and teach. Teaching and learning is packed in the teacher’s attitude towards students, the class ethos, the students’ perception of the educator and the
Abstract
This paper examines the comments of a class of 27 students of one class. The responses centre around the hidden curriculum related to the role of the teachers and the teaching strategies they use and how they impact the attitudes of the students towards the subjects they teach.
Key Words: hidden curriculum, teacher’s role
"What you are shouts so loudly in my ears I cannot hear what you say." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Schools spend a valuable time and effort in planning the formal curriculum. They develop systems for effective implementation of the designed curriculum; and then they device methods of formative, as well as summative evaluation to find out, if the objectives set are achieved or not. But one important aspect of curriculum which is never documented, consciously implemented or evaluated is the hidden curriculum.
‘The hidden curriculum also involves learning but no school board ever sets it,’ [Ortberg: 2009:49]. School is a place where curriculum is enacted whether formal (intentional) or hidden (inherent), but this is also a place where all the aspects of curriculum enactment are not fully recognised or credited. In the words of Philip W. Jackson (1990) who first used the term ‘Hidden Curriculum’:
‘School is a place where tests are failed and passed, where amusing things happen, where new insights are stumbled upon, and skills acquired. But it is also a place in which people sit, and listen, and wait, and raise hands, and pass out paper, and stand in line, and sharpen pencils. School is where we encounter both friends and foes, where imagination is unleashed and misunderstanding brought to ground. But it is also a place in which yawns are stifled and initials scratched on desktops,...’
A lot more is transmitted than what the teachers plan and teach. Teaching and learning is packed in the teacher’s attitude towards students, the class ethos, the students’ perception of the educator and the
References: Jackson, Philip W. (1990). Life in Classrooms Teachers’ College, Columbia University http://wik.ed.uiuc.edu/index.php/Hidden_Curriculum Martinson, David L. (2003) Defeating the ‘hidden curriculum’ teaching Political Participation in the Social Studies classroom. Vol. 76, No. 3 The Clearing House 132 – 135 Ortberg, John Rediscovered Roots, Winter2009 | Posted: April 9, 2009 Wren, David J Croasdale, Myrle. (2006) Rewriting the Hidden Curriculum: Keeping empathy alive. American Medical News Vol. 49, No. 16 Kenth, Fulya Damla Hemmings, Annette. (2000) The ‘Hidden’ Corridor Curriculum The University of North Carolina Press.