Examples Of Hidden Curriculum

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Hidden curriculum
How well do you think you know what your children are being taught in today’s school system? Maybe you did not know there is a hidden curriculum which categorizes children into special positions to either be the future working class or the new CEO of some corporation. Jean Anyon, chairperson of the Department of Education at Rutgers University describes in her article, “From Social Class and The Hidden Curriculum of Work,” the different teaching methods, philosophies of education and preparation needed to occupy a particular spot in the society. She does this by observing five schools from different communities located in New Jersey. When observing schools from one community to another, we find that these hidden curriculums …show more content…

The problem is that there is a difference in goals depending on which social class you belong to. Many of these children from the lower classes are less likely to graduate or to belong to a different social class than their parents. The districts are divided by social classes: working, middle, affluent and executive classes. These social classes are separated by income, occupation, and students and parent’s characteristics. Schools receive different funding depending on the school 's neighborhood, thus location plays a big role on how money is use for resources. Anyon observed the schools used different curricular and pedagogical assessment that emphasizes different cognitive and behavioral skills in each district. As a result, the segregation of these social classes education gets affected; lower class gets less education and has less opportunities to improve and succeed in school. These districts differ quality in their curriculum system, which leads to either help or harm the development of education in …show more content…

This gap of education among districts suggest that the hidden curriculum exists today in every school. For example, working class students are taught not to think, while at the same time executive students are taught to reason through complications. Lower and middle class schools are taught to get the right answer by following directions and rules, with little or no creative decision making. They are evaluated according to whether the child learned the right steps and by what is in the text books or booklets. In addition, upper middle affluent class children get to be creative while expressing ideas and concepts. This class is evaluated by the quality of expression and for the appropriateness of its concepts on the task. On the contrary, executive elite students develop analytical intellectual powers, they reason through a problem to produce intellectual products, which leads them to be more creative. Moreover, children conceptualize rules and apply them in solving a problem. They had critical evaluation, research reports, essays and experimental analysis. According to Anyon, “schoolwork helps one to achieve, to excel, to prepare in life”. The main purpose of education of the executive elite class is to be prepared for what comes after students are done with school. I see this type of evaluation in schools today, when I help children to do their homework is

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