Curriculum as Culture

I had really not considered curriculum to be something more than a roadmap for lessons in a class, but I find the different ways of broadly viewing everything that impacts what happens in the classroom as helpful as I try to envision my own social studies classroom. To that end, the readings provide very useful ways to conceive of curriculum—"as a reflective endeavor as well as a dynamic personal and social process" (Joseph, 2010a, p. 3), as culture (Joseph, 2010b), and as an expression of ideology (Ross, 2024, pp. 2–4)—which will require constant introspection as long as I teach.

Another in a series of posts in my currere exploration

of my notions of social studies curriculum

In thinking about the explicit, implicit, and null curriculums delineated by Eisner (1985), I think back to my experience in elementary and secondary school. Given that until 10th grade, my classmates and I were all children in military families, there was a very strong implicit curriculum on base that permeated school as well. It included a respect for the flag and the United States. For example, wherever you were on base you stopped when you heard Reveille played in the morning as the U.S. flag was raised at the main flagpole and when you heard Taps as the flag was being lowered at the end of the day. This means that you even stopped your car and, if you were a servicemember, you stepped out of your car and stood at attention facing the direction of the flagpole. It also meant that as a child if you were playing organized sports, the game stopped and silence was observed during the music. Most of the coaches were NCOs who would not countenance horseplay during these moments. In addition, after every game, each team formed a police line walking the field and sidelines picking up any trash and that in elementary school I knew how to fall into formation, unlike the common scene in movies of new recruits comedically unable to line up in an orderly fashion.

As for the null curriculum, I still come across things at age 55 that I feel should have been included in my social studies classes, usually about the role people of color played in history. My first conscious encounter with this was with Crispus Attucks, who was killed in the Boston Massacre, and the National Park Service says his "[d]eath instantly transformed Attucks from an anonymous sailor into a martyr for a burgeoning revolutionary cause." I doubt that was included in Park Service's literature in the 1970s, and it was definitely not reflected in my social studies experience. At no time was his name ever actually spoken in any of my classes. I was aware of this because I learned about Attucks from an SRA Reading Laboratory module early in elementary school, and kept waiting for him to come up in U.S. history class. He didn't. Keeping this in mind, I will look to include at least a sampling of the full-breadth of history's and society's participants in my classroom and will very consciously include people that my students might relate to because of a shared culture, race, or background.

The most insidious aspect of the null curriculum is that the student does not even know what is being omitted. The null curriculum effectively hides information from students who don't even know to look for it, effectively limiting their options when considering an issue or problem (Eisner, 1985, p. 97). This is antithetical to my core beliefs and my approach to problem-solving—most problems solve themselves once you figure out hot to approach them—and was an impetus to my creation of Operation Lethe, a WebQuest about the right to be forgotten online that exists in Europe. I strongly believe that our access to accurate information should not be impeded and the digital artifact (to the right) that I created in following my own WebQuest highlights my dislike for creating holes in the information we have access to. Therefore, as a teacher, I envision being very transparent about what the curriculum omits or covers thinly, being deliberate about any omissions that I introduce (Eisner, 1985, p. 98), and identifying further reading on those topics for those interested.

In addition, I plan to be very deliberate about the time I devote to content to avoid sending the wrong signals about the value of specific content and as to how I structure my course and arrange my classroom to similarly avoid inadvertent signaling. For example, I am not looking to get students to comply with party line and beliefs, to treat the world as a competitive zero-sum game, nor that they should accept what is presented to them by me or the system (Eisner, 1985, pp. 89-92). As you can see in my statement of purpose about It is difficult for me to envision what that would look like at this moment. I can only tell you what it won't look like. My vision is a classroom that will not communicate a hierarchy with me, the teacher, on top or that the status quo should be accepted. It will take me a while to discern what my classroom will look like I'm sure I will have to

In thinking about the social studies curriculum specifically, I keep coming back to the lack of consensus on what is social studies and on the nature of curriculum (Ross, 2024, p. 1; Thornton, 2005, pp. 10–12)). However, I think we should view this as a feature, not a bug. I'm not suggesting that the lack of consensus is intentional nor am I trying to make light of the situation as the phrase is normally used. I mean that the lack of a consensus on the social studies curriculum provides leeway for a teacher to operate within the highly politicized conversation about what should be taught in social studies (Au, 2024; Ross, 2024, pp. 10–13). The lack of consensus is not what put social studies in the middle of the culture wars, but the very the nature of social studies has because "all knowledge about society and history carries perspective with it" (Au, 2024, p. 22). And it's in the very nature of education, which "is never a neutral process" (Ross, 2024, p. 4). Once you accept this, you can focus on how you will teach and move forward.

That said, the United States today appears to be fraught with danger for the social studies teacher who deviates from the proscribed, or explicit, curriculum (Au, 2024, pp. 26–27; Ross, 2024, pp. 10–12). I feel less concerned about this than other teachers might because I plan to teach in Washington, D.C. where there is not an "anti-woke" law and because this is a follow on career for me and the personal economic stakes are less. The emotional stakes are high, but they actually give me the incentive to be true to myself. I expect to explore how to cope with restraints placed on teaching social studies by the system further in the currere process.

I was surprised when I looked back at my statement of purpose as a social studies teacher drafter at the beginning of UDC's teacher prep program and am surprised at how consistent it is with where I am now. Here is a relevant excerpt that sheds light on the curriculum/culture I want to nurture in my classroom:

My purpose as a social studies teacher can be summed up as facilitating my students in “learning to cope with society as it is and envisaging how society might be improved,” which Thornton (2005, p. 54) describes as “the hallmark of educating an informed and caring citizenry.” There seems to be wide acceptance of the idea that social studies, especially U.S. history, must teach citizenship. Scholars have described social studies as “the raison d’être of the social studies” (Barth & Shermis, 1970, p. 743), “a fundamental aim” (Thornton, 2005, p. 45), and as having a goal “to effectively teach students to become effective problem-solving citizens” (Russell & Waters, 2023, p. xv). And the 1916 Report from the Committee on Social Studies noted “social studies affords peculiar opportunities for the training of the individual as a member of society” (Jorgensen, 2014, p. 4).

. . . Following a broad expansive definition of citizenship, the purpose of social studies is to

• Arm students with the knowledge, skills, and context necessary to navigate their modern world and fully participate in a democratic society.

• Prepare students to think for themselves and make their own informed decisions.

• Encourage students to imagine the society they aspire, or “civic dreaming” (Garcia et al., 2023, p. 154 [referencing Mirra]).

• Have an awareness of the ebb and flow of history and society and how we have arrived at the present.

In that same vein, the purpose of social studies is not to

• Produce students who mindlessly conform with social norms. [That] confuses “the normative with democracy” [(Barth & Shermis, 1970, p. 744).

• Win at social studies Trivial Pursuit. Memorizing dates, names, and places is not the goal (Loewen, 2009, p. 3). . . .

To this end, my statement of purpose then listed multiple touchstones to remind myself about why I am in the classroom and what are my goals:

• Cover what is important. You can’t cover everything. If I’ve done my job as a teacher, students will have the tools to learn and explore topic I did not cover if they ever need or want to in the future (Loewen, 2009, p. 2).

• Make it interesting.

• Make it relevant.

• Center the students.

• Equip students to live in the real world. Assist them in learning to think for themselves and navigate the world around them, and do not prescribe what they should think or value.

• It’s not about me the teacher. 

• Foster an inquiring approach.

• Do not shy away from the facts. 

• Always be learning & adapting. 

I will need to continue the currere process to fully discern the culture of curriculum that I want to foster in my classroom, but I feel like I have a good start.

References

Au, W. (2024). It is all indoctrination: Power and the impossibility of apolitical social studies curriculum. In E. W. Ross (Ed.), The social studies curriculum: Purposes, problems and possibilities (5th ed., pp. 22–34). SUNY Press.

Barth, J. L., & Shermis. S. S. (1970, November). Defining the social studies: An explorationof three traditions. Social Education, [unknown volume], 743–751.

Eisner, E. (1985). The educational imagination (2nd ed.). Macmillan

Garcia, A., Mirra, N., & Gomez, M. (2022). Democracy is interdisciplinary: The case for radical civic innovation across content areas. In N. H. Merchant, S. B. Shear & W. Au (Eds.), Insurgent social studies: Scholar-educators disrupting erasure and marginality (pp. 151–167). Myers Education Press.

Joseph, P. B. (2010a). Conceptualizing curriculum. In P. B. Joseph (Ed.), Cultures of curriculum (pp. 3–22). Taylor & Frances Group.

Joseph, P. B. (2010b). Understanding curriculum as culture. In P. B. Joseph (Ed.), Cultures of curriculum (pp. 23–35). Taylor & Frances Group.

Jorgensen, C. G. (2014). Social studies curriculum migration: Confronting challenges in the 21st century. In E. W. Ross (Ed.) The social studies curriculum: Purposes, problems,and possibilities (4th ed., pp. 1–23). SUNY Press.

Loewen, J. W. (2009). The tyranny of coverage. In J. W. Loewen, Teaching what really happened: How to avoid the tyranny of textbooks and get students excited about doing history. Teachers College Press. [The pagination used is of the PDF supplied in the syllabus.]

Ross, E. W. (2024). Introduction: Curriculum ideologies, social studies traditions, and the teacher-curriculum encounter. In E. W. Ross (Ed.), The social studies curriculum: Purposes, problems and possibilities (5th ed., pp. 1–21). SUNY Press.

Russell, W. B., III, & Waters, S. (2023). Essentials of middle and secondary social studies (3rd ed.). Routledge.

Thornton, S. J. (2005). Teaching social studies that matters: Curriculum for active learning. Teachers College Press.