Critical Curricula

Elliot Eisner's "The Three Curricula That All Schools Teach" was very thought provoking. Eisner took a very critical view of the education system, an approach I often share. When I think of "curriculum" I think of anything that is taught in schools, but I believe most people think of it as the things that have been explicitly mandated to be taught in schools. This explicitly mandated curriculum is one of the three curricula that Eisner discusses, and probably the least interesting of the three. I was particularly intrigued by Eisner's analysis of the "implicit" curriculum. This curriculum appears to be closely tied to the expectations of capitalism, teaching kids the skills and behaviours needed to be good little proletarians. This sort of analysis is often my default lens so in some ways while reading it felt like Eisner was simply preaching to the choir (I'm the choir). Some arguments that made me pause were the arguments steeped in luddism. In particular, the long quote from Mumford (1938) read like something that could have been written this year, just with the technologies swapped out for modern ones like AI. I am quite sympathetic to the luddite cause, but in the anti-capitalist sense, not the more propagated and over-simplified "technology bad" sense. Another moment that made me pause was the reference to the "back-to-basics" movement; this made me feel like the cycles of mandated curriculum is a lot like the cycles of fashion, repeating themselves every few decades. The ideas of the "null" curriculum were very interesting and the biggest concept in the paper that I hadn't grappled with much before. I do agree with the underlying argument that students should be given as diverse an education as possible, but also fear that introducing too many mandatory courses would only serve to remove the freedom of choice from students, furthering the effects of the implicit curriculum. Regardless, I look back at my schooling and do wish I had explored more diversity in fields instead of committing myself so heavily to the maths and sciences so intensely and so early.

I believe this more nuanced understanding of curriculum that Eisner lays out is essential to understanding what is taught in schools and what our roles as teachers are. With the general vagueness of the BC curriculum, I believe there is more room to implement some of the good things like incorporating elements of the null curriculum into class, and to resist some of the bad things like attempting to remove elements of the implicit curriculum. Furthermore, the generality of the core competencies feel related to some of the ideas that Eisner proposed, especially with how they focus on teaching skills that are mostly independent of the specific topics being taught.

My favourite quote from the paper was "Schools are educational churches, and our gods, judging from the altars we build, are economy and efficiency. Hardly a nod is given to the spirit" (p. 97).

I wish I wasn't so tired when I read this paper so I could have engaged even deeper with it.