What is meant by "curriculum"?

 I found this reading really interesting, as it expanded on ideas I feel like I’ve seen before. I’ve heard of the hidden curriculum before from sociology classes I’ve taken, and it made sense that schools also instilled general societal values indirectly in their students. However, I’d never heard of the null curriculum before- the curriculum or rather content, schools don’t teach. When Eisner mentioned that schools typically do not teach artistic reasoning and imagination exploration, it made me pause. It seems weird that we don’t teach something that has been such an integral part of human interaction and culture throughout history. The fact that music, art, and other artistic expression is so integrated in our daily lives, yet it is barely touched upon in school, makes sense. I understand an emphasis on the sciences, as they are very important subjects, but it does make you think about how much potential is wasted not exploring other areas of knowledge. There are so many students who would benefit from exploring other modes of learning, especially in relation to the arts and artistic reasoning, and I think Eisner makes a good point to acknowledge the absence of such a curriculum in schools.

When Eisner mentioned that kids are conditioned to follow directions, schedules, and orders, i.e. the hidden curriculum, it made me think of what else teachers unintentionally teach kids about how they should think of themselves in comparison to others. Simply approaching this from a feminist perspective, I thought of how whenever something needed to be moved or carried in school, the teacher always said: “Are there any strong boys that can help me move this?” This directly insinuates from a young age that girls are as “capable” as boys, and that there are different tasks for the different genders. Or another example is boys teasing girls and the teacher's response being “They have a crush on you.” I feel like this teaches young girls that they are just going to have to put up with inappropriate behaviour from boys simply because they “can’t” express themselves differently. Even though these are never direct lessons taught by a teacher, they do heavily influence how students view gender roles from a very young age and can impact their self-image. 

Eisner implied throughout this reading that there should be many different ways of teaching and learning, which I feel the BC curriculum has made an effort to incorporate over time. Simply from my experience during my practicums, even math class has been utilizing art and other modes to teach concepts. We gave our one grade eight class a Pythagorean proof assignment, where each student picked a different proof and had to explain how it worked. You could do so visually, or using math and words. I found that all the students did well on this assignment, as they could approach it in whichever way made more sense for them. There were a few beautiful projects where students ended up doing grade twelve math but presented everything artistically. In fact, these projects typically came from students who showed no interest in math class, so it was cool to see them get so invested. Although there’s definitely still work to be done on expanding modes of learning within school systems, I think the BC curriculum does a good job of providing freedom in how teachers choose to approach different concepts. This ultimately allows for diverse learning styles to take place, and for kids to lean into their strong suits.