Matthew Sysa Blog 5

            The reading for this week was chapter 5 of the textbook. In this chapter they talked about the role of curriculum, how it has changed over time since the beginning of Canada. Also it talked about different ways and strategies used to assess students understanding of the curriculum and the existence of a hidden curriculum.

            Before reading this chapter, I had never really thought about the possibility of a hidden curriculum that continues to support one race over the rest. In the text it is stated that in textbooks “from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries across Canada had a not-so-hidden message of trying to create a certain type of citizen.” (p. 146). At this time the belief was that the white race was superior and that all other races should be assimilated. Now of course, in today’s world this is no longer the general view of our society as we have slowly come to realize that people from any race deserve equal opportunity as we are all human beings on this planet. However, there still is a belief that in today’s education lays a hidden curriculum that helps to fuel “White privilege” (p. 152) and maintain “white domination” (p. 152) over other races. After reading this chapter of the textbook, I feel that even today people from minorities do not receive the same opportunities to succeed in education as people with “white” backgrounds. As a future teacher, I feel that it is important for us to understand that there is still a unequal focus on education from the “white” races point of view and that we should incorporate the viewpoints of many different races into our ways of teaching our knowledge and subject areas to our future students. So that all the students in our classrooms can receive a better-rounded and less biased view from many races perspectives.  

Discussion Question: How can we remove the hidden curriculum?