The hidden curriculum is the ‘side effect’ of education, or that which is learned absent of intention, such as the norms, values, and beliefs conveyed in the classroom and the social environment. The most obvious sign of the hidden curriculum is the overwhelming consensus that this mode of administering knowledge is the only way to educate the populace – If I don’t go to school, my life will be filled with regret, missed opportunities, and failure because there is no other way to become successful. This has led to the commonly accepted belief that it is entirely necessary to live within, and thus instill contentment with, the currently established paradigm which tells us that our collective goal is to reach unrealistic, false happiness, lest we fall behind and suffer our lives away. The fear of failure is the tool put in place to create a firmly held belief in the traditional system and the incentive to reteach its ways, go along with the norms and aid in the expansion of the structures and limitations in place. To oppose being infiltrated into the mass of society is to pave the way toward eminent failure. The hidden curriculum also ‘requires’ that students be consistently bribed, punished and rewarded in attempts to make sure that each rule is followed and each deadline met precisely and accurately, regardless of its importance, as the responsibility to be respectful and politically correct is held quite high, eliminating the necessity for creativity and allowing for very little variance in the approach to problem solving. Students are shown the importance of competition – always told that they must do as well as other students, to constantly compare is the way to improve. After a while of this, they begin to believe that if they do not constantly strive to be better than the best of their “peers”, they will fall behind all other students. They will never feel good enough, and shy away from the feeling of accomplishment, because no matter how far they go, there will always be someone “higher”, and they are told not to be content until they reach the top. There is a necessity to reach an irrational and nonexistent status of perfection. The illusion of separation and ideal vision of ‘sameness’ tell students that If they are different, stray from the norms, they will become an outcast and will be given lesser opportunities, leading to their ultimate failure. Children also tend to be placed on tracks geared towards those socioeconomic occupations which mirror that of the pre-existing status of their families, as well as any stereotypical categories into which they may fall. This is a major contributing factor to the prevalence of social immobility, class separation and, as a result, leads to societys credentialed stratification.
Posted on: Tue, 02 Dec 2014 01:48:54 +0000
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