Month: September 2020

I was interested in the hidden curriculum that is in our school systems. In researching this topic, I came across Rhianna Thomas’s article. It is titled Identifying your skin is too dark as a put-down: Enacting whiteness as hidden curriculum through a bullying prevention programme. Rhianna speaks about a time when she experienced bullying because of race in her classroom. She was able to deal with the situation because her school did have a guild line that any sort of put-down if a form of bullying. So, she talked to the children and the situation was dealt with. However, when looking more into the situation she realized that there had to be a reason that her students would bully another student based on race. Thomas explains that bullying is “the imbalance of power between the perpetrator and the victim” (page. 7). With this, she realized that race has been in our society a hierarchy system that ended with white people being at the top. So, this imbalance of power that her students were seeing is being of constructs that they see in society and potentially in the school. Because Thomas was able to realize that there was a hidden racial construct evident in her classroom, she then started to work to combat this.

In Thomas’s attempt to prevent racial bullying from happening again she did research on different events that this happened in. “In order to explore how bullying prevention curricula are enacted in the school context within the larger racialized society, [she] offer[ed] an analysis of a personal critical incident [she] experienced early in [her] teaching career” (page. 7). In this research she realized “how messages of white supremacy are often delivered quietly rather than overtly in the day-to-day business of whiteness” (page. 10). She started to pick out little evidence of racism in her classroom and removed them. One example that she gave was that all the princesses in the books that were on her shelf were white with blond hair and blue eyes. With this information, Thomas was/is able to slowly reverse the hidden curriculum of white supremacy that is present in her classroom.

In doing prep research for our critical summary paper I found an interest in the hidden curriculum. When initially reflected on the hidden curriculum after one of our lectures I had thought that it was only positive hidden curriculums. For example, punctuality, kindness, listening when someone else if talking, etc. After reading this article I realized that there are so many more hidden curriculums that often will never be noticed. If it was not for this incident Rhianna Thomas may have not realized that the books that she had on her shelves were leading the students to think that straight blond hair is good. Most people would have never considered her books racist, however, they were teaching a hidden curriculum that will now be stripped away because Thomas was able to see past the hidden curriculum. I hope that I am also able to see past the surface level responses of my students and search to find and uproot any negative hidden curriculum that is in my class in the future.

I have experienced the Tyler rationale in my own schooling in many different ways. Primarily in the grading system. In Saskatchewan, they have reading tests with grades that you get based on the level that you should be at in each grade of school that you are in. I always failed these tests because they were based on speed and not comprehension. I was and still am a very slow reader however I could pass any test of knowledge quiz after reading any book. So, because I did not reach the speed goal of reading my teachers said that I was behind in my reading skills. It was because of these standardized tests that I believed that I was a horrible reader growing up. When I was in grade 3 my parents had a choice to make. They either had to hold me back a grade or had to get me a personal tutor because I was not passing the standardized tests that accessed grade level. This is a conscience of the Tyler rationale. Because grade 3 reading level was a purpose that was to be attained and then the standardized tests was the way to determine whether the purpose had been attained.

The Limitations of the Tyler rationale are as followed. Because of the way that the Tyler rationale is created it has a set curriculum and lesson plan that is followed with not a lot of room for fluctuation. The teachers are then required to follow the lesson plan and get the students to be able to pass a test at the end of the semester to prove what they ‘learned’ so that they can move on to the next grade. All teachers in each grade are given a list of what they are to teach and that is the curriculum. The issue with this is that there is not a focus on learning but rather a focus on passing the test. The Tyler rationale has a mentality of “when all the items are ticked, the person has passed the course or has learned something” (Page.5). This is not setting students up for success in the future because they will not fully understand a concept or even they may have forgotten it all together because the goal was now learning it was memorizing to be able to pass the test. With the goals that teachers have to obtain it leads both the teachers and the students to not focus on learning the material and thus this has absolutely zero benefits for their future.

The benefits of the Tyler rationale very slim in my opinion. One of the benefits is that in any grade the students will be at the same level in any school. This is good because when switching schools students are easily able to pick up on what is being taught because it is the same in all schools. Also, the focus on specified learning helps students learn what they would need to know for their job in the future. Students are taught for the job that they will need to do. Tyler rationale was started in a time when people were expected to do one job and would only need to know how to do that one job. “One of the attractions of this approach to curriculum theory was that it involved detailed attention to what people needed to know in order to work, live their lives and so on” (Page. 3). This helps people to be able to specialize in things that interest them and focus on that in detail. I do not believe that the strict Tyler rationale is beneficial however I think that it is still in the school system in a less strict way.

Kumashiro describes “commonsense” in many ways in his Writing The problem of Common Sense. He mentions that “commonsense” is something that we do not need to learn but something that we all already know. It is the unwritten ways that we do things, that everyone does but no one is every taught. To him, it is the ‘status quo’ in the world. In talking about “commonsense” he describes how it is different in all areas. In different parts of the world, different cities, even different areas in a city. “Commonsense” can often not be seen unless you are coming in as an outsider.

It is important to pay attention to the “commonsense” and to be able to point them out so that we can root out and change them. He mentioned that it is very common for a bias in race, class, gender, sexual orientation, religion, disabilities, language, age, and other social markers to be overlooked if a “commonsense” is present in those areas. Meaning that if it is “commonsense” that you speak English in the classroom it can be seen as disrespectful to speak any other language. However, if you can recognize the “commonsense” then that construct can change, and we will be able to understand that speaking a different language is not disrespectful it is beautiful.

My “commonsense” that I bring to this class is a westernized idea. I have always known that the teachers are the barres of knowledge and they give that knowledge to the students. Class times are from 9-3 in the morning because that’s when people work the best. The most important subjects are Math, English, and the sciences. And when you are good at these classes it means that you are smart. However, if you are good at Gym, Art, Drama, or any other elective then you are not recognized as being smart. Already in this class, however, I have been able to start questioning these “commonsenses” and begin to look at other options that are true as well.