The Hidden Curriculum

I've read plenty of anti-school stuff, plenty of essays by John Taylor Gatto, and I've always believed what he said to be true.  But it's an entirely different thing to see (read) it for myself! 

We pick up a LOT of books from a variety of places.  Often free or very cheap.  So we have a lot of different books, on a huge amount of subjects, scattered around our house.  One that I picked up recently, just out of curiousity, is called the Sociology of Education: An Introductory View From Canada.  It's a university text.  Something future teachers might read in one of their classes.  And this is what it says under the section The Hidden Curriculum, in the chapter entitled School as an Informal System of Socialization:

"The fundamental patterns in any society are held together by tacit ideological assumptions.  In schools, some rules are not overt, but they serve to organize and legitimate the activities of teachers and students.  Much of what the school teaches and the students learn does not appear in the formal curriculum.  Successful school performance requires that the student learn what are considered important and useful skills and knowledge.  But students must also have the skills to uncover the hidden rules and expectations that affect their dispositions, identities, and personalities.  For example, schools emphasize conformity, deferred gratification, achievement, competitiveness, and obedience to authority.  Students must understand the social and other dimensions of this hidden curriculum.  The hidden curriculum refers to the tacit teaching of norms, values, and dispositions that occurs through students social experiences in routine school activities."

Isn't that interesting?  I certainly think so.  Often, when I make a comment about schools teaching conformity, or obedience to authority, I'm told it's not *really* like that.  That I've gotten it wrong.  But really, if even teachers in training are taught that this is so, I think it's probably pretty damn accurate!

Peace,
Idzie