The notion of hidden curriculum was probably
first identified by Johon Dewey, who referred the “collateral learning of
attitudes of by children” the hidden curriculum can be defined as all the things
that are learnt during schooling in addition to the official curriculum. The
word curriculum or syllabus is very often used in our daily life. As Reid (1986)
puts it: “curriculum refers to all of the things that are learnt in school. In
addition to the ‘official curriculum’ this includes the ‘hidden curriculum’, a
concept that refers to all of those socializing practices that are not included
in the official curriculum but that contribute towards the reproduction of our
culture (e.g. boys being sent to do some photocopying, girls to wash the cups).”
The notion of hidden curriculum is highly ambiguous. It can include any possible
“learnings”. It can be related as, competition is more important than
cooperation; helping others is less important than getting on oneself; reading,
writing and athematic are more important than talking thinking and creating; the
Western world is more ‘advanced” and is superior to the rest of the world; the
voice of the authority is to be trusted and valued more than independent
judgment; feelings are irrelevant in education, etc. The notion of “hidden” is
considerable. Is it hidden intentionally to manipulate and persuade? Is it
hidden because no one notices, recognizes, neglected or forgotten?
The outcomes of hidden are much more significant than they are thought to be. It
can be explained by many dimensions. Like the “Ghosts of Book Writers”. Their
bases of discriminations are very simple but biased and embedded in their
writing and designing. A study of Lobban (1975) showed that the world portrayed
in reading schemes, in primary schools, was more sex biased than the real world.
Men were dominant involved in outdoor works while the females were entirely
involved in domestic roles. The second example can be taken from the sex
education in secondary schools, by Hoffman (1975). She said “The message is
clear: male sexuality is genital, easily stimulated and urgent; female
sexuality, where present, is diffuse, easily sublimated and will probably go
away of its own accord.” Other ghosts inevitably haunting our classroom are the
ancestors who developed our language. Since the language is a major means of
communication employed by teachers and pupils. There are many unrecognized
limitations in it. As the matter of fact, Urdu language is much more expressive
than English. It is generally understood, the difference of a conversation
between a teacher-student and between the friends. The language slangs are
supposed to be different for boys and girls.
Unspoken realities are also known like certainties in any relationships are
well-known by the unspoken language or thinking. The concept of friendship among
same or different sexes is being interpreted differently. Specific sports, out
of the class, for both the genders are different. In primary and secondary
schools, uniforms are the basic discriminations. Often these uniforms come with
insignia of rank such as perfect, monitor or house captain as well as regulated
appearance such as length of hair. Besides, while learning from the texts books,
class is divided into many sections or priorities like toppers, failures,
average students, back benchers, book worms or sports men etc.
Structure of building itself makes students to lean accordingly. Classroom of an
K.G child will be full of colours, cartoons and other attractive things. Primary
level students would have academic related charts and posters on their walls
while the structure of classroom for a higher education student would be
entirely different. The environment of any building changes more rapidly with it
specialization. In K.G section or primary level mostly the environment would be
the same regardless of any school. It changes with division of subjects among
the students. Science student would have entirely different from the computers’
one. Same goes in the higher education. Engineering department, medical
department and sociology department would be entirely different from each other.