Assessing the Hidden Curriculum

1. Assessing the Hidden Curriculum Heather Cole Michigan State University December 10, 2012

2. Table of Contents • What is Hidden Curriculum? • Research on Hidden Curriculum • Examples of Hidden Curriculum • “Tracking” and Hidden Curriculum • Hidden Curriculum in my School • How to Change the Culture in Schools

3. What is a hidden curriculum? • As Anyon describes, “many important civic concepts- what power and authority are, how one should behave, who people are, what gender, class and culture mean- are learned most powerfully through the hidden curricula and through the conventions and assumptions imbedded in language and culture.”

4. Research on Hidden Curriculum • Even with the inequity between schools it is possible for a working class school to have an elite curriculum. As Anyon mentions, I think it is easy for, “the very choice of school knowledge, the act of designing school environments, though they may not be done consciously, are often based on ideological and economic presuppositions which provide commonsense rules for educators’ thought and action” (Anyon, p. 46).

5. Examples of Hidden Curriculum

6. Socialization • Within the school framework, “the use of praise, the rules of access to materials and the control of time and emotions all make significant contributions to the teaching of social meanings in school” (Apple & King, p. 51). The way that students are taught to interact with peers and adults differs by school often based on income.

7. Examples • Often, “(t)he culture of dominant society tends to be institutionalized and reproduced” (Heilman 2011). Heilman references the fact that those that benefit most from the hidden curriculum are the upper class students who as she mentions, are most likely to be taught critical thinking and problem solving skills.

8. “Tracking” and Hidden Curriculum • “tracking” should not limit students that may not be as advanced academically but have the desire to do well. • I think tracking can become an issue when it is used to divide students rather than challenge them. If students are placed based on preference then ability, different courses can be challenging for different students

9. Hidden Curriculum in my School • Working Class School • Most staff is highly supportive • Some believe our students will not go to college • Importance of high expectations for our students. • Students need to hear the adults in their lives encourage them and tell them they can do anything they set out to.

10. My School

11. Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs

12. How to change the culture in schools • Within this negative connotation of hidden curriculum I believe there is room for change. Since so many of the articles I read on the subject of hidden curriculum talked about the adults in the students lives, parents, teachers and community members, and how they directly influenced students perceptions of school and their options for the future. If a community and it’s parents and teachers exude positive expectations and model positive behavior, this will be reflected by the students.

13. References •   Anyon, J. (1980). Social class and the hidden curriculum of work. Journal of Education, 162(1), • Apple, M., & King, N. (1990). Economics and control in everyday school life. Ideology and curriculum ,New York: Routledge • Heilman, E. (2009). Seeing the hidden curricula of social spaces and places. Social studies and diversity education: What we do and why we do it. New York: Routledge. • Jackson, P. (1968). The daily grind. Life in Classrooms,New York: Teachers College Press (original)