What is Worth Learning?

     



What is worth learning? This week we read material over the different types of curriculum and what they mean. What I didn't know before reading was how prevalent the hidden curriculum really is. This is the part of lessons that the teacher sometimes won't even realize they are teaching. Teachers will teach that "boys are strong" and "girls are princesses" or like the women in the article "Ending Curriculum Violence" explains that her teacher had students picking cotton for a lesson in elementary school. These are examples of things that are not in the explicit curriculum and in the state standards. This curriculum is violent to kids mental and emotional health. 

When reading "Ending Curriculum Violence," I was able to take the most important parts I thought and write a black out poem over the material. My black out poem is the following: 

Black Students 

Are examples  

Of racial trauma 

What does this mean? 

K–12, private, public, parochial, and higher education institutions 

Experience curriculum violence 

Intentionality is not a prerequisite for harmful teaching. 

We must want to do the right thing by our students 

We do this so that we can begin the process of educational reparations 


Now I know that curriculum violence effects all other groups besides the black community, but this article really highlighted the treatment of black students in the classroom. This poem shows that curriculum violence is happening at any type of school. Whether it is private or public teachers are not being taught antiracist framework and pedagogy. In order for change to happen in the classroom and to be more thoughtful future teachers and current need education over the hidden curriculum and how their words and actions mean more than they think. Teaching is not just about state standards. It is about showing representation in the class to every group and supporting your students no matter what they believe or what they look like.

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