What Are You Teaching Them When You're Not Teaching Them?

Throughout my graduate program, in seminar after seminar, we discussed, with gusto, pedagogy, teaching, learning, schooling, and all aspects of education both within schools and individual classrooms as well as macroscopically through lenses of power and oppression, in addition to sociologically and economically and, of course, politically. One of my favorite courses, titled Teaching, Learning, and Schooling, threw us headlong into our own beliefs, understandings, and ideologies regarding three distinct aspects of education that interconnect in nuanced ways but were broken apart and examined scrupulously. In fact, our final product was to produce a large, poster-sized visual, artistic representation of our views of the three subjects. Exemplars ranged from anthropomorphized tree-heads fusing together to pictorial representations of video games and the internet. Together we all wrestled with the strange interweaved connections and synthesized the information in our own way, through our own lens. 

    One day a few weeks into the semester, we were discussing learning. The course was designed so that we would spend a week or so delving into each of the three topics, and then after that practice synthesizing them, comparing them, drawing connections between them, and also staking the differences to better understand how we can approach our own philosophy of education. In this particular class, we were discussing a subject brand new to most students, at least in theoretical terms, where we were simply asked the question: “What are you teaching your students when you’re not actually teaching them?” With my outdoor education background, not to mention an immense passion for having read Paulo Freire a second time that summer, I struggled to hold in my responses. Relentlessly, I did manage to self-regulate, at least until the conversation was beginning. Somewhere along the line, I elaborate on how, even unconsciously, humans are always adapting to their environment, taking in new information, and attempting to piece together those dilapidated data with our current processors. The idea that we could be subconsciously consuming data and then utilizing it seemed novel to some. As the teacher facilitated the conversation, he eventually explained to the class that what we had described was academically known as the hidden curriculum. 

    The Hidden, sometimes called Invisible, Curriculum, is a name for the idea that, even though we do not plan every aspect of our learning experience for students, we are always teaching them something. When you begin to ponder this thought, it can be daunting. If students are learning even when I am not intentionally teaching them, can I as a teacher guarantee that every bit of information they devour is correct, is information that should be consumed, or is data or information that will add value to their lives in some way? The simple answer is of course not, but that is only half of the problem and the challenge. 

    In our graduate seminar, we focused closely on how the invisible curriculum hides closely behind the intended curriculum. We examined this through racial bias, gender discrimination, and the absence of social class. For those less familiar with this topic in education, we consider these curricula that fall “short” or that don’t explain the whole story, often because they are told through only one story, with one answer, which is the back of the book. To elaborate, this idea centers around the concept that there are hidden stories, hidden messages, and hidden learning that happens in the classroom. This isn’t an Illuminati vision, though, because this is not some cryptic message or even possibly some massively huge “big brother” information sink. Rather, it is both an unintended consequence of a limitation of time and resources or is simply from ignorance. 

    For example, in the history classroom, it can be easily identified. For most of the early education in US history, many figures didn’t make the books, literally. These ranged from prominent African American figures to Latino labor organizers to working-class folks of all skin colors, creeds, and geographic locations. Even after Howard Zinn’s groundbreaking book, A People’s History of the United States, some places have been slow to implement these important stories within their curriculum. This ignorance or rejection of these stories then teaches one of two lessons. First, it says to students that there is only one story, one version of history and it looks a certain way. In this case, that image is usually white, male, and heroic. Secondly, it dictates what is and is not important to learn within the classroom. For example, if a history teacher only focuses on wars, battles, and generals, it negates social movements, politics, and poverty, among numerous other topics, from the study of history. Once again, this negation or exemption may be intentional or not, but it is a critical aspect of education that needs to be considered when making decisions and teaching youth. 

    For me, I move beyond even the curriculum when I consider the invisible curriculum, though, and I believe it is imperative that all teachers do the same, though in different ways. The impact of the invisible curriculum on our society is too great to otherwise ignore it. 

    In the classroom, this develops differently for each course that I teach. Working with male students, for example, I often wonder not only whether many of them have positive male role models in their lives, but I consider who is their chief influences for positive masculinity. If we are to solve issues of gender equity in the country, we have a duty to educate young men to not only treat young women with respect and dignity and allow spaces for them to prosper, but we must also teach young men to respect each other, to engage in healthy conflict nonviolently, to express emotions, and more. In this way, as a teacher I have a tremendous opportunity to present this version of masculinity for them, to teach them, even if it is only through passive interactions with me, rather than structured material. Likewise, if we are to solve issues of the climate crisis, we must show students, modeling for them through our own beliefs and actions, the appropriate steps one could take to make changes. Language, of course, is another avenue for immense learning. Teachers model academically language in their classes consistently and many students learn just simply by being exposed to it, as many have a home life where that type of academic argumentative language simply doesn’t exist. I know that I didn’t. 

    Moving beyond classrooms and schools and into the broader world, we must consider the invisible curriculum not only in our own fields and within informal education but also online and in other spaces where learning happens. By raising the invisible curriculum to the surface, in an intentional, critical, but humble way, we can begin to identify aspects of our curriculum and learning that are lacking, some of which do our children and society a disservice. 

    For this reason, I believe that it is imperative that teachers ask this question of their own classrooms, of their own demeanor, and of their own ideologies of the world: What am I teaching my students when I’m not teaching them? There are many answers to our challenges, but we can start by asking good questions. 

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