Skip to main content

The Hidden Curriculum

The first year is done and so, in my effort to procrastinate on working on the dreaded certification exam that we have been hearing contradictory information about all year (the exam is required for first year doctoral students in my program to determine if we get to stay), I thought I would take some time to reflect on the other kind of learning that has happened this year.

This is the learning that is not within the curriculum. It is not what is necessarily intentionally taught but is the growth that happens alongside the theories and articles and papers and statistics that we learn in the classroom. In education, we call this the hidden curriculum, which usually refers to the ways in which children are socialized to learn their "place" in society, such as along class lines. Making children walk the halls in quiet, orderly lines, emphasizing Standard English over student dialects are ways in which the hidden curriculum silently, subtly, teaches children what society demands of them.

For me, the hidden curriculum at Teachers College has fortunately been positive (this has been intentional). In this past year, I have become more confident in my place in the world and feel closer in discovering what part I want to play in it. Thanks to some wonderful professors, the doubts that I came into the program with (about not belonging, about being dumb, about my incompetence) have become manageable. I would say they are completely gone but I know that those thoughts will likely come and go as I face new challenges.

We have been taught to think critically about everything, to never accept that anything has to be the way it is. We have learned to think transformatively instead of with resignation. Here, surrounded by people who think critically of everything, I have realized that there are subtle ways in which we are disciplined into thinking certain ways and that it is our job to fight back against this.

Ironically, the criticality has led me to also run away from the Academy in some ways. I appreciate people who do not spend their entire lives living in their heads. They are people of action and of joy. Being critical can make you forget what joy means at times. Sometimes a five minute conversation about our favorite types of pants is very necessary.

It has been interesting reflecting on the many ups and downs. During a week when it seemed that everything was going amazingly well, I reflected on the ups and downs and knew that this winning streak would come to an end (which it did). But the converse to that is that a bad streak must end some time too. Learning to live in calm serenity with that is my ultimate goal.

I have learned that nothing we do is done in isolation. We are and must work with others to create lasting change. Every paper I have written this year, every assignment I have written, every presentation I have given, every test I have studied for, has been done with help from others. This thought has been very important for me. It reminds me that no matter what work I accomplish, it will be done as part of a collective. I am thus humbled and grounded and grateful.

When the program started I, out of pure self preservation because I felt I did not belong, decided that I did not need friends. And the result was that for the first seven months, I was miserable and hated living in NYC. But now I've come to feel the love of my classmates and coworkers. The city doesn't feel as lifeless as it did before. I will never be a New Yorker, but I think I can handle the next few years. Let's see what Year 2 has to offer.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Monkey Mug

We have these mugs in our house that have Japanese-anime-style whales on them. Their smiles are wide and innocent, the shade of blue in which they swim is pleasant, not the sad kind that makes you cry inside. Years ago, my parents decided they wanted more of these mugs but the store they bought them in no longer stocked them. So we went online and discovered that there were yellow monkey mugs, and pink rabbit mugs too, a whole world of cute animal mugs that kept their chai hot long enough for them to slowly drink it each morning while they read the paper and ate khakra. So they ordered the monkey mugs. My mother only had my dad order 6 of them. Each mug is $12 so this felt like a splurge. The monkey’s joined the whales in the shelf, breaking up the sea of blue with their gentle yellow. She now regrets that decision. These mugs were already a Prized Possession then for their superiority to other mugs. But they are more valuable now because we can no longer find ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Heart of the City

The past week in New York was jarring to say the least. Though the city still makes me overwhelmed by even the smallest of tasks (where do you go to buy a pack of cards??), I have begun to slowly get used to the constant movement of the city and everything that comes with it. The sound of airplanes flying constantly from La Guardia over my apartment doesn't register any more. I can estimate how crowded the train will be based on what time I am leaving my apartment in the morning or TC in the evening. And although the feeling of always needing to do more still raises the specter of anxiety to make everything I do feel inadequate, I've become resigned to its presence to the point that it is part and parcel of the city itself. Solitude is rare in the city, but last week it was the norm All of these things fell apart this week though, one by one, as another phantom seeped into our lives. Starting with an email from our college president that optimistically called off only no...
Post a Comment
Read more

Songs of Stillness

Two weeks ago it felt like the world was ending. The numbers from New York, which captured me with their stunning speed and the realization that I had left just before the situation became so much worse, grew rapidly each day. It began to dawn on the US that this was going to change everything. The grocery stores were filled with empty shelves. Empty shelves could only indicate that the world was ending. Until I heard the birds singing . I was on a run in a park when I heard them. They jolted me out of a reverie thinking about the headlines. Pandemic, economy, toilet paper. I looked around at the space around me in the park. The prairie grass expanded around me even in its dormant winter state. I saw the sky, blue with flecks of white clouds drifting above me. Nature is still in business. Even though the news is dire and the world we humans have built seems to be falling apart at the seams, buds are appearing in the trees. I see birds now on the roof through my childhood bedroo...
Post a Comment
Read more