Eisner sets out to explain the three curricula taught by schools, including the
1. Explicit curriculum - what is made public through course announcements
2. Implicit curriculum - the socialization through physical and behavioural structures of the school and classroom
3. Null curriculum - what is left out from our explicit curriculum
Through his theory of implicit education, Eisner makes his case that is it usually more important for a student to study the teacher, rather than the course content, in an attempt to achieve a good grade. The students reads the environment created by the teacher to establish to determine how much effort they should put into a class, particularly in systems that use behaviour modification techniques. How is it that we should go about cultivating student initiative and to develop intrinsic motivation so that students find the joy of learning for themselves, rather than to please their community - teachers, parents, and peers - through their achievements. Perhaps the traditional classroom model urges to be changed, given the how archaic this model is, and the amount of development, both in education and technology, towards improving education.
Eisner, through his discourse on the null curriculum, also gives us a perspective into the ways we cultivate thinking in schools. He highlights the way that we have the ways we consider "thinking has also been diminished" (p.98.) While cognition becomes important, the scope of cognition has been narrowed. We teach students to think rationally through literacy and numeracy. We teach reasoning for theorizing and making arguments, but "many of the most productive modes of thought are nonverbal and illogical" (p.98.) Eisner then points to Gabrielle Rico and her research in hemispheric specialization which suggest the ways we need to develop our students' discursive thinking.
Although there are many implications that we can consider from this chapter, it begins with first examining the implicit and null curriculum that we already teach, and this will take time, as Eisner himself mentions, "the culture one is immersed in is often the most difficult to see." It involves an examination into our physical and behavioural structures, and how that might communicate to the student, as well as the way our explicit curriculum is created, and what are the important concepts that are left out, that our students might greatly benefit from. Perhaps what is important is that a mandated curriculum explicitly outline the behavioural objectives that our structures teach, as well as the null curriculum, so students (and parents) can be aware of concepts that they can explore during or after a particular course.
1. Explicit curriculum - what is made public through course announcements
2. Implicit curriculum - the socialization through physical and behavioural structures of the school and classroom
3. Null curriculum - what is left out from our explicit curriculum
Through his theory of implicit education, Eisner makes his case that is it usually more important for a student to study the teacher, rather than the course content, in an attempt to achieve a good grade. The students reads the environment created by the teacher to establish to determine how much effort they should put into a class, particularly in systems that use behaviour modification techniques. How is it that we should go about cultivating student initiative and to develop intrinsic motivation so that students find the joy of learning for themselves, rather than to please their community - teachers, parents, and peers - through their achievements. Perhaps the traditional classroom model urges to be changed, given the how archaic this model is, and the amount of development, both in education and technology, towards improving education.
Eisner, through his discourse on the null curriculum, also gives us a perspective into the ways we cultivate thinking in schools. He highlights the way that we have the ways we consider "thinking has also been diminished" (p.98.) While cognition becomes important, the scope of cognition has been narrowed. We teach students to think rationally through literacy and numeracy. We teach reasoning for theorizing and making arguments, but "many of the most productive modes of thought are nonverbal and illogical" (p.98.) Eisner then points to Gabrielle Rico and her research in hemispheric specialization which suggest the ways we need to develop our students' discursive thinking.
Although there are many implications that we can consider from this chapter, it begins with first examining the implicit and null curriculum that we already teach, and this will take time, as Eisner himself mentions, "the culture one is immersed in is often the most difficult to see." It involves an examination into our physical and behavioural structures, and how that might communicate to the student, as well as the way our explicit curriculum is created, and what are the important concepts that are left out, that our students might greatly benefit from. Perhaps what is important is that a mandated curriculum explicitly outline the behavioural objectives that our structures teach, as well as the null curriculum, so students (and parents) can be aware of concepts that they can explore during or after a particular course.
Very interesting, Arthur! I encourage you to also take a look at the new BC curriculum (which we'll be doing in class as well) to see how it compares to other mandated curricula. It is quite a dramatic change for BC, and you'll need to get to know it as you do research here!
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