Entrance Slip October 14 - Esiner Article

 Two or three stops:

One thing that stood out to me in this article was the acknowledgement of the positive consequences of the hidden (implicit) curriculum of schooling. Typically, when I hear or read about the idea of hidden curriculum, it is usually cast in a purely negative light. Eisner surprised me in his argument that schools teach many social and intellectual virtues, even if unintentionally at times, such as punctuality, perseverance, and self-regulation in the ability to delay immediate gratification. 

I also appreciated his concept of the null curriculum, and specifically, what subjects are often neglected. I do find myself wishing that I had some earlier exposure to economic theory or law—two of the examples he uses—or opportunity to learn more practical skills such as automotive repair, woodworking, or circuitry. The interesting part of my high school experience, however, was that the reason I did not get to take all of these subjects was not that the school did not offer them, but rather, that I did not have time in my course schedule to enrol in all of the classes that I was interested in. Therefore, in a sense, I believe there can be a null curriculum caused by subject delineation and logistics simply because there are more subjects our there than time to teach them. 

Ways that this might expand our ideas about what is meant by 'curriculum'. How does the mandated BC Provincial Curriculum connect with Eisner's ideas?

Reflecting on Esiner's article encourages a broader view of curriculum. I think that the new BC curriculum is sympathetic to this interpretation by its emphasis on competencies. Some of what Eisner refers to as social or intellectual virtues taught in the implicit curriculum are explicitly referred to as core competencies of Personal & Social, Communication, and Thinking in the BC curriculum. Moreover, I think the new curriculum in our province recognizes the value in cross-disciplinary learning, which I think will help to reduce the amount of null curriculum that originates from the subject delineation issue I raised earlier.