Hidden Curriculum Essay

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Fatima Faith Gazmin University of The Philippines The Hidden Curriculum The term 'Hidden Curriculum' was first used by sociologist Philip Jackson in 1968, although the concept has been around longer. Jackson argues that what is taught in schools is more than the sum total of the curriculum. He thought that school should be understood as a socialization process where students pick up messages through the experience of being in school, not just from things that they are explicitly taught. I believe that hidden curriculum has always been present in the education system, long before the issues about Hidden Curriculum been open to the public. It has always been there, overlooked, and not being regarded as issues before. We encounter them almost everywhere: in the classroom, in the hallways of the school, in the cafeteria, in faculty rooms. Lavoie (cited in Bieber, 1994) described the “hidden curriculum” as important social skills that everyone knows, but no one is taught. This includes assumed rules, adult or student expectations, idioms and metaphors. Understanding the hidden curriculum is difficult for everyone, but it is especially so when compounded with a deficit in social interactions. These are the skills, which we associate to certain norms and beliefs. When we first stepped in school, our parents’ goals are for us to read and write ABC, count numbers, or perhaps identify the shapes and colors. Little did we know that something else would be taught in school. We are taught how to greet teachers and classmates. We are taught how to mingle with others and make friends. We are taught the value of sharing toys with others. We are taught to hold back our emotions when we feel like crying because our parents can't stay in our classroom. Because of the goal of our parents to make us literate, we became known to other forms of literacy such as coping

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