HIDDEN CURRICULUM

In our first ECS 210 class we went over some different types of curriculum and one that peaked my interest was the hidden curriculum. The reason for this was because it is essential things that you learn in school that are not apart of the formal curriculum. This is the topic I’m going to look at for my critical summary assignment and an article I found very informative on the topic is called “Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work” by Jean Anyon.

It begins by explains about five different schools and the social status of each school from working class level to families that have an annual income of over one-hundred thousand. In these working class schools it becomes very clear that the way these students are being taught is in the way of the curriculum used to transmit a syllabus. The kids are not given much explanation over anything and when they do not understand something it is because they need more practice. However, as you look to the schools in the middle class you can see vastly different approach to the teaching. The teachers are wanting the students to explain their answers and this can go a long way to proving they comprehend what they’re learning. As you move to the last level of schooling which is Affluent it is shown how students are supposed to express individually thought ideas and are to expand on them. These students work should be unlike the other students to show how personal the learning is for each of them.

The way that the students are taught depending on their social class is a big part of the hidden curriculum. Regardless of if the actual curriculum says the same thing for both schools, they have different standards on how they are teaching. This leads into a hidden curriculum because the students are learning much more than what is written in the formal curriculum. In the middle class they are wanting them to know how to explain their thinking and this is a valuable skill that the working class schools are not putting importance into.  This is just one example of how the social classes intersect into the hidden curriculum but there are many other factors and ways to look at it.

As for where I will go next in regards to this topic and the assignment, I think I will focus on how some other theorists approach the hidden curriculum. I’m not keeping my search focused on the social level of school effecting it because I feel that it is not the whole idea with hidden curriculum. As long it is not apart of the formal curriculum but from reading this article I do see that it has a big impact even on how students learn the mandatory subjects.