Curriculum Curriculum Curriculum Curriculum, oh that's four.

What's taught and what's naught, but taught anyway. 

Eisner says there are three curricula, but are there really only three? There's the curriculum we know, the explicit, implicit, and the null curriculum. So already we have four different curricula, but what is the curriculum we know? The curriculum we know is the one the ministry gives us. It's what we're expected to teach in class. Teachers I'm sure do their best to teach the curriculum as it's defined, but I'd wager they're teaching it through their own lens of bias, probably intentionally so. The explicit and implicit curricula are what they actually teach. The explicit curriculum, I don't see it as Eisner does, it's not what the school openly states is the content, objectives, lessons, it's what the teaching in the classroom is actually teaching. I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing however. The official curriculum of a province, district, or school could take a long time to evolve and grow to adapt to the modern world and current situations the classroom is facing. A teacher who practices inquiry and reflection with efficacy will be better prepared to respond to emerging issues and ideas that the official curriculum has yet to address.

A teacher's impact on the implicit curriculum is just as important as the explicit one. I believe a teacher has an obligation to help better and shape the expectations, routines, structure, etc., of the school they work for. Great opposition does elicit discipline, so I do not encourage teachers to radicalize their classrooms, but to take slow steps to educate and improve school culture.

Ah yes, the curriculum so delicious it's already missing, the null curriculum. It's a curriculum I've honestly never consciously thought about. I recognize that not teaching about subjects like sex-ed causes teenagers to be uninformed, leading to higher rates of teen pregnancy. So the null curriculum is something I subconsciously understood, but as teachers we can't just subconsciously understand it, we have to actively reflect on how it affects our classrooms.

Looking over our three taught curricula, the explicit, implicit, and null one, we see that each teacher has a lot of liberty with how they're taught. With such leeway how do we protect or deal with teachers who are taking their liberties to go in the opposite direction of what's best for the students and their future? Is there a best direction, is every direction just a bias of its own? I suppose there are pedagogical best practices, but that direction evolves over time as the field of research grows.

Once again, all we can do is stay curious, and give a thought about what is taught.