Years ago the famed educator John Dewey tellingly observed that children "learn what they live." Teachers can gabble on and on about democracy, for instance. But if they run a despotic classroom, the kids learn to adapt to despotism. Possibly even learn to need it. Dewey was precisely right. Children learn what they live.
It's hard to overemphasize the importance of this "hidden curriculum." It is powerful, yet very often overlooked. Lessons "taught" in this way can last a lifetime. The person who taught me the most about tyranny and abuse of power, for instance, was my fourth grade teacher, Miss Weast . (Behind her back we kids called her: "Miss Weast, the big fat beast.") Feared by all, this angry, frustrated woman extorted compliance by means of threats and violence. A ruler across the knuckles of your out-stretched hand, for example.
Eventually, she did go too far. She held a youngster against a hot steam radiator as punishment. His relatively minor burns did not get her fired, as you might expect. But she was transferred to another school. Not before she had unintentionally taught me about the abuse of power, however. I still remember that lesson well even though it was many, many years ago.
Here's another example. This one concerning Catholic parish schools of the 1950's. In those days a number of overworked and under appreciated nuns bullied, slapped and otherwise mistreated the children in their charge. This taught the kids some unfortunate lessons. For instance, the little girl who lived next door to me developed severe school phobia even though she was never touched herself. She learned school was dangerous.
I'm not sure what these nuns thought they were doing. Making 'better' Catholics, perhaps. But in this girl's case they taught her that the sermonizing about Christian love, mercy and forgiveness, was all talk. She also learned that it's not what people say, but what they do that counts. Valuable lessons, to be sure. But hardly included in the official curriculum.
Here's still another instance involving an entirely different circumstance. As a professor of education I visited a lot of inner city schools. Most were chaotic. In some the turmoil was so bad that learning was nearly impossible and personal safety doubtful. Evidently those in charge lacked the power and/or will to impose meaningful consequences for gross misbehavior. What did youngsters learn while enduring this chaos? That bullies rule? That might makes right? That there is no point in even trying to learn? That the real world is not even close to what it's supposed to be? Take your pick.
Do children learn what they live? Count on it. So what did you learn from the "hidden curriculum" you experienced?
