One thing that really made me stop while reading Eisner was the idea of the implicit curriculum. Eisner writes that one of the first things students learn in school is to give teachers what they want or expect. This made me reflect on something that seems very small in everyday teaching. As teachers, we may genuinely want students to explore, take risks, and think independently, but our unconscious responses can sometimes communicate a completely different message. For example, when I ask a math question, I might naturally give positive feedback to the first student who answers correctly. Even if I encourage the students who answer incorrectly, they may still interpret the experience as “I am not fast enough” or “I got it wrong again.” This made me realize that what students learn from us is not always what we intend to teach. As a math teacher, I especially wonder whether some of our classroom practices unintentionally teach students that being good at mathematics means being fast and correct, rather than being willing to explore, struggle, make mistakes, and think deeply.
Another point that caught my attention was Eisner’s discussion of grades and competition. He describes how grades can become “commodities” with different values for different students. This feels contradictory to something I often experienced as a teacher. We constantly tell students that grades are not everything and encourage them to focus on their own growth and discover who they want to become. Yet when university applications begin, grades suddenly become extremely important again. In the international schools where I taught, I saw students taking many AP exams and evaluating themselves by the number of AP courses and the 4s or 5s they earned. Some students began planning their entire testing schedule as soon as they entered high school, sometimes before they had really explored what subjects or future pathways interested them. It makes me wonder: if our words tell students that learning and personal growth matter most, but the structure of schooling repeatedly rewards scores, competition, and credentials, which message will students actually believe?
The idea that stood out to me most, however, was the null curriculum. Eisner argues that schools have consequences not only because of what they teach, but also because of what they do not teach. This made me realize that curriculum design is not only about deciding what students should learn; every decision about inclusion is also a decision about exclusion. As a mathematics teacher, I might think I am simply teaching algebra, functions, or calculus, but if I continually emphasize procedures, correct answers, and exams while leaving out mathematical history, creativity, multiple approaches, or different cultural ways of knowing mathematics, I may also be shaping students’ understanding of what mathematics is. This connects strongly with my recent thinking about bringing more history and culture into mathematics teaching. It leaves me with a question I want to carry into my future classroom: when students say they do not like mathematics because it is only about formulas and right answers, is that really mathematics they dislike, or is it the version of mathematics that their previous explicit, implicit, and null curricula have taught them?
So well said here, Helen! This post has many deeply important ideas, but I’ll focus on your thoughtful points about the null curriculum within the discipline of mathematics. Great insights into what is usually omitted without even a second thought — and I hope our courses will offer ways to bring creativity, history, critical thinking, emotions, the arts, the outdoors world etc into our mathematics!
回复删除