Hidden Curriculum the Other Side

Hidden Curriculum

The Other Side of Teaching: The Hidden Curriculum and its Effects on Learning and Instruction

There is a great deal of subject matter and a wide variety of subject areas that form the fundamentals of instruction in The United States' and indeed the worlds' public school systems. from the basics of reading and writing to the rules of arithmetic, from national and international history to a basic grounding in the physical and life sciences and from literature to home economics explicit knowledge transfer takes up an abundant amount of time in the average child's life. Given the amount of time most children spend in school it is hardly surprising that a great deal of their learning and their development occurs in inexplicit, unintended, and even unconscious ways, leading to the transmission of and indoctrination in certain values beliefs and assumptions that reflect certain specifics of the instructional environment.

The unintended modes of information transfer and the specific values beliefs and assumptions communicates via these modes comprise what has come to be known has the "hidden curriculum" (Myles et al. 2004). While the phrase "hidden curriculum" tends to have negative connotations in most usages it is in fact impossible to avoid certain levels of indoctrination and transmission of values in any setting, and especially in typical educational settings that are occupied by students over many key years in their developmental processes (Myles et al. 2004). An awareness of the hidden curriculum and the methods of its creation, its influences on overall instruction and the impact that explicit instruction has on the hidden curriculum itself can turn this aspect of learning from a liability to a positive asset.

Factors Influencing the Hidden Curriculum

There are many different factors that influence the hidden curriculum of a given instructional setting and/or institution. An individual instructors personal beliefs and values are often and unintentional part of the learning process and the information transmitted in classroom settings; cultural values inherent to official standards that are also reflected in the requirements and limitations of accepted explicit curricula also form the foundations for the hidden curriculum (Myles et al. 2004). There are other more specific, minute, and direct aspects of instruction, however, that can be utilized by instructors to influence the hidden curriculum in a more purposeful manner. It is primarily through a conscious manipulation of these aspects that the hidden curriculum can be use to positively enhance traditional instruction, and lead to more direct and conscious control of the hidden curriculum itself.

Classroom structure is one major area in which the hidden curriculum is developed and by which it is maintained. Generally speaking, highly structured and rigid classroom hierarchies reflect a hidden curriculum that promotes authoritarian values of obedience and conformity (Bender 2007). This teaches children lessoned independence and individuality in favor of greater regularity and more clearly defined social rules and expectations; more open classroom structures, by extension, tend to have an opposite effect (Myles et al. 2004). This is a very general yet fundamental and highly profound way in which a specific aspect of the instructional environment can influence the hidden curriculum and the overall learning experience.

Just as the overall classroom structure has a major impact on the hidden curriculum of a given learning environment and/or institution, the teaching philosophy utilized by a specific instructor or learning institution also plays a large role in hidden curriculum development and definition. When philosophies are not clearly defined, the hidden curriculum can often be in conflict with the explicit instructional principles at work in the classroom, which leads to reduced efficacy of instruction (Wiles and Bondi 2002). Explicit philosophies necessarily become a part of the hidden curriculum with well defined values of learning and instruction unavoidably becoming a part of the lesson plans and information sharing processes (Wiles and Bondi 2002; Myles et al. 2004). Understanding the hidden curriculum and ensuring that desired values will be communicated to students while undesirable values are not should become an integral part of conscious teaching philosophy development.

In the modern era of computer technologies and more specifically the near-ubiquitous presence of internet access throughout the Western world the hidden curriculum is also inherently and necessarily defined by technological capabilities and attitudes towards new ways of accessing media and information (Wiles and Bondi 2002). The methods by which technology is utilized in the learning and instructional processes, and in many instances the lack thereof, creates a hidden curriculum that can define the value that is associated with such technologies (DiBello 2005). This will also influence the expectations of success that students have in the use of these technologies over the course of their lifetimes (DiBello 2005).

Personal Experience

In the course of my own teaching experiences I have unwittingly transferred certain conclusions and worldviews of my own to students in a manner that was entirely unintended. While I do not believe that these perspectives and modes of classifying information were especially if at all harmful to my students -- they were not borne of any significant prejudice or other form of socially frowned upon narrow-mindedness -- they certainly limited the degree to which students were left truly free to explore information and knowledge acquisition on their own terms. Though learning the explicit knowledge items and principles that were a part of the intensive curriculum was not directly hampered by the unintended transfer of the hidden curriculum of my own worldviews, students were less liable and less able to freely associate facts and ideas and so develop their own lines of thinking.

One instance in particular stands out in this regard. During a lesson on different types of trees a student of mine began to question the relation of a specific variety of tree to other species and elements of the natural world as this was beyond the scope of the lesson plan as it had been devised I essentially deflected these questions in order to proceed with the planned learning. It was only after the conclusion of the lesson that I realized my deflection had not only missed an opportunity for additional learning of obvious interest to at least one student, but that it had also implied a certain separation and isolation of natural elements, creating an understanding of the world that did not fully admit of the interconnectivity present therein.