Monday 23 July 2012

Hidden Curricula


For many home educators, the word ‘curriculum’ has a faintly disreputable air. The idea is that some families use a curriculum, while others do not. For those who believe that they are rejecting a curriculum for their children’s education, curricula are represented as being a little like straitjackets which limit and restrict education to a pre-determined course. Schools have a curriculum, but enlightened home educators work in a more open and organic way, allowing children to follow and explore their own interests. This is so utterly absurd, that one wonders how any grown person could express such nonsense while keeping a straight face!

All families are possessed of mythoi. These can be as elaborate as the Arthurian legends or so simple that they may be summed up in one or two words. What sort of mythos might an ordinary family have, whether schooling or home educating? A typical one might be, ‘We are musical’. The parents are keen on music, listen to it a lot and perhaps play instruments and go to concerts. Children raised in such a family often learn to play the piano. Although it is seldom stated explicitly, music is assumed to be a good thing, which is a big part of life. Other families might be ‘rational’ or ‘spiritual’. Perhaps they are the ‘scientific’ type, or maybe ‘plain, straightforward folk’. Because these sets of myths pervade the family, they are often unnoticed by the individual members. Children raised in a ‘rational and scientific’ family are being instructed and indoctrinated in a belief system and set of myths just as thoroughly as the child brought up in a strictly observant Muslim or Jewish household. The same goes for the child brought up by those who value creativity, homosexuality, socialism or a host of other ideologies, prejudices and beliefs. There is no such thing as a neutral upbringing. We all of us shape our children from birth in various ways and point them in the directions we wish them to go.

Even when an effort is made not to pass on their own beliefs, the very life that their parents lead, tells their children what is valued, what regarded as good and acceptable. This can be done in simple ways by being scrupulous about recycling, by running a vegetarian kitchen, attending church or tutting disapprovingly when racism is mentioned on the television news.

This then is the hidden curriculum to which every child in the country is taught, whether she attends school or is educated at home. The family’s own mythos permeates every aspect of the developing child’s life and without anybody being aware of the fact, pushes and pulls her in some directions, while propagating powerful taboos which prevent her from exploring other possible identities which she might wish to assume. The great misconception under which many parents labour is that they are able to provide a neutral background for their child, one in which the child is free to be herself and develop according to her own inner dynamic. This is a falsehood. We can certainly tinker with the prejudices to which the child is exposed and attempt to conceal our own likes and dislikes, but unless this is done very skilfully, the child will spot the pretence and the parents will be revealed as liars and hypocrites.

Of course, there are those happy parents whose belief system and values are so perfect and enlightened, that none of this matters. They are pleased and satisfied with the subliminal messages that they are sending to their children and have an idea that nothing could be more liberal and reasonable than the ideas which their own children are acquiring as a consequence of their upbringing. For the rest of us, it is a problem. We realise that we are teaching our children according to a curriculum every bit as detailed and inflexible as the National Curriculum. How we can work against this will be the subject of my next post, which will look at the vital need to produce a broad and balanced curriculum for children and to apply it methodically in every part of our children’s lives.

While we are on the subject of mythoi, I should perhaps mention that every child in a family also acquires her own personal mythology and that this can be every bit as damaging as the overall family mythos. Mary is a ‘loving child’, Joshua is ‘practical’, Emily is ‘brainy’, James is ‘creative’ and so on. Even when not explicitly stated in the child’s presence, these individual mythic characters affect how children are treated, the experiences which their parents arrange for them, the hopes and aspirations which others have for them.

No parent is free of all the things which I have described above. There are really only two choices. We can pretend that this is not happening and act as though there is no hidden curriculum for our children or we can acknowledge that this is the reality and work to devise a curriculum which is specifically aimed at countering our own influences. A curriculum which will be balanced and ensure that our children have an opportunity to take directions which we would never have dreamed of and which might run counter to our own values and way of life. It is at this, the need for a detailed curriculum at which I shall next be looking.

6 comments:

  1. I'm not sure why I'd want my child to develop vastly different life values to the rest of their family. I wouldn't want them to be racist, being rather an obvious example. We had lots of discussions both in family and mixed groups and the traffic was rarely one way so I think we developed as a family group with both parents and children learning from each other. Often the ideas brought up for discussion that originated from other children or families and input from the wider family were the most interesting and acted as a balance against too narrow a view being provided by just two people. But this is parenting. You appear to be suggesting that the two terms are interchangable but that's not how curriculum is generally used.

    As to whether they studied art, music, science, etc., we did work at ensuring they had as free a choice as possible, and since they often chose to learn things we as parents were not especially attracted to I think we succeeded as far as it's possible to tell. Lucky my partner's and wider family's interests are quite different to mine and the HE groups we belonged to were varied too. We discussed ideas about why some people might like a subject that others dislike, and also that likes and dislikes often change over time in an effort to encourage open minds. I'm not sure how to judge success our failure in this. All our children are studying in different areas to each other and their parents, but then I see nothing wrong with children following their parents into the same work as my nephews have done.

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  2. 'I'm not sure why I'd want my child to develop vastly different life values to the rest of their family. I wouldn't want them to be racist, being rather an obvious example.'

    The point I am driving at is that you too are clearly working to a strict curriculum, although one which you pursue almost unthinkingly. Whether we speak disapprovingly of the BNP in front of our children or instead mutter in front of them that it is time to crack down on immigration, we are still teaching and indoctrinating them in how we think they should think and act. All I am suggesting is that rather than work to an unconscious and random curriculum, there is something to be said for sitting down and thinking out the matter methodically; devising in fact a broad and balanced curriculum, instead of relying upon one composed largely of our own prejudices and preconceived ideas.

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  3. ' we did work at ensuring they had as free a choice as possible'

    Free choice is impossible. just as our own thoughts and choices are shaped by the society in which we are embedded, so too with the child. A child raised, as your own child apparently was, in a home where there is disapproval of racism, will not really have a free choice to become a BNP activist, for example. Your very lifestyle cuts off many choices and you have instituted, as have all families, a code of taboos which are as rigid as the views of the Catholic Church. I wonder if you would remain neutral if your child began using words like 'nigger' or expressed a desire to travel to Africa and go big game hunting? All I am suggesting is that since we all mould our children in this way and try to stop them doing the things we ourselves dislike, it is worth undertaking this process systematically and being aware of what we are doing.

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  4. "The point I am driving at is that you too are clearly working to a strict curriculum, although one which you pursue almost unthinkingly."

    I'm not sure why you think we approached parenting unthinkingly. It has probably been the object of more thought and discussion than any other aspect of our lives. We think about it a great deal and discussed it frequently as a family. I'm also not sure why you are assuming it was largely unconscious. I'm sure there were unconscious elements in the upbringing in both yours and our families. There's no way we can categorically say otherwise since we don't know about them if they are unconscious. But we can be open to discussing other people's ideas and attempt to meet a wide variety of people to improve the chances of meeting new ideas. However we didn't sit down specifically to plan every aspect of their development as people and put it all into a neat plan, if that's what you mean. It's a constant process of discussion and adaptation to changes and new ideas as they develop.

    "Free choice is impossible. just as our own thoughts and choices are shaped by the society in which we are embedded, so too with the child."

    I did say, ' as far as possible', and our, 'work at ensuring they had as free a choice as possible', seems to be the equivalent of your, 'undertaking this process systematically and being aware of what we are doing'. Possibly it was less systematic than your approach, but when new ideas and influences are appearing every day, there's only so much you can plan ahead. We gave parenting and the world at large a lot of thought and discussion as a family as I've previously mentioned. I'm not sure why you persist in assuming that we parented blindly without thought after I've told you that isn't the case.

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  5. ' I'm not sure why you persist in assuming that we parented blindly without thought after I've told you that isn't the case.'

    I am talking generally, but what you say suggests this also. You say:

    'I'm not sure why I'd want my child to develop vastly different life values to the rest of their family. I wouldn't want them to be racist, being rather an obvious example.'

    Clearly, there is a family belief system, to which you all subscribe. That is obvious when you talk of the possibility of somebody having 'vastly different life values' to the rest of the family. You mention racism, 'obviously', which tells me at once that opposition to racism is an integral part of your life and non-negotiable.

    All families have a belief system which they impose upon their children. I am sure that you gave a good deal of thought to your parenting, that more or less goes without saying. I am equally sure that your children would not have seen you reading Mein Kampf or The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It is this which I mean by a hidden curriculum; that your views on racism and homosexuality or opera and German literature, were embedded deep within your lifestyle. often, these things are so much a part of life, that we do not even question or notice them. For you, to express opposition to racial rejudice is clearly so deeply ingrained, that you use the word 'obvious' when referring to it. The equality of races is not at all obvious; the notion is itself a prejudice, one which you are propagating and in which your children have probabaly been immeresed from birth!

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  6. "Clearly, there is a family belief system, to which you all subscribe. That is obvious when you talk of the possibility of somebody having 'vastly different life values' to the rest of the family. You mention racism, 'obviously', which tells me at once that opposition to racism is an integral part of your life and non-negotiable."

    I'm not disputing the existence of a family belief system. I'm just pointing out that we do not follow it blindly without thought or discussion as you suggest when you say things like, "you too are clearly working to a strict curriculum, although one which you pursue almost unthinkingly." We started out with anti-racist beliefs and after various discussions within the family we were not convinced of a need to change that view. Did this not happen in your family too? Surely you didn't find it necessary to change all your previously held views?

    "I am equally sure that your children would not have seen you reading Mein Kampf or The Protocols of the Elders of Zion."

    Why ever not?

    "It is this which I mean by a hidden curriculum; that your views on racism and homosexuality or opera and German literature, were embedded deep within your lifestyle. often, these things are so much a part of life, that we do not even question or notice them."

    I'm sure we noticed many and had discussions about them looking at other people's views in the process. I've no doubt that we missed some aspects of society, I can't specifically remember a discussion either for or against opera, for instance, but I'm sure you couldn't have covered everything either. But maybe we will learn differently tomorrow.

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