There are two curricula in a school: the explicit curriculum of State standards, textbooks, and assessments; and the hidden or implicit curriculum of beliefs and values taught by every aspect of the school’s culture. We begin our discussion of the Educational Program of the River School with the implicit curriculum because that is the context or foundation through which the explicit curriculum can be effective and successful.
We believe that every thing, every person, and every policy and procedure in a school’s culture conveys values. We call this the Implicit Curriculum, derived from John Goodlad’s book, A Place Called School[16], the landmark study of 1,000 schools across the country.
“We recognized, however, that there is both an explicit and an implicit curriculum. The latter sometimes is referred to as the “hidden curriculum” but this term is, I think, misleading. It is little more hidden than is the explicit curriculum of textbooks and workbooks. Describing the implicit curriculum is tricky in that it is inferred from the handling of the explicit curriculum and from expectations, rules, and regulations that are not always recognized.”
This means that every school has a hidden or implicit curriculum that teaches values, whether the school is aware of it or not, whether it focuses upon it or not. [17]
He also said in the same article:
“The gap between the rhetoric of individual flexibility, originality, and creativity in our statements of educational goals and the cultivation of these in our schools reveals a monstrous hypocrisy.”
At the River School, we choose to pay attention to the implicit curriculum so that the messages we are sending to our students are aligned to our purpose and goals. Simply put, we want everything and every person in the school’s culture “to walk the talk.” This is a lofty goal, one which we never fully reach, but toward which we constantly strive. When the structures, policies, and procedures in the school are aligned with the assumptions, values, and beliefs; the culture of the school can more effectively achieve its purpose and goals. We begin with the Implicit Curriculum to explain our educational program because it is the foundation or the context through which we make decisions and achieve our purpose and goals. Academic achievement is greatly enhanced because the fundamental needs of human beings (i.e., Maslow’s hierarchy of needs) are being addressed through the implicit curriculum so that students can focus on academic learning.
The Implicit Curriculum includes the following beliefs and values that we want to teach:
Our students will grow in displaying attitudes and habits of responsibility, respect, resourcefulness, and responsiveness.
[16]John Goodlad , A Place Called School (New York: MacGraw-Hill, 1984) and in an earlier article “What Some Schools and Classrooms Teach,” Educational Leadership (April 1983).
[17]Philip Jackson explored the implicit curriculum in his book, The Moral Life of the Classroom, (San Francisco: Jossey-Boss Publishers, 1993). He and his researchers went into classrooms in public and private schools with no preconceived notions and found implicit messages and values being communicated through every aspect of a classroom from what were on the bulletin board (or missing) to how teachers interacted with students in and out of class.
[18]Much of the writing of Alfie Kohn discusses the resistance people have to outside control. Kohn’s Punished By Rewards, (New York: Houghton Miflin, 1999) cites copious research on the ill effects of rewarding students for learning.