Lessons in Absences: The Power and Importance of the Null Curriculum

Throughout my educational experience I've encountered the concept of curriculum a number of times, unsurprising given its importance to education. However, It did not occur to me to view curriculum as more than a set of guidelines and instructions outlining what is taught and how it is taught until recently. Evidently curriculum is somewhat more complicated than I thought. 

In 3 Basic types of curriculum the idea of curriculum is separated into 3 distinct types of curriculum: the explicit curriculum, implicit or hidden curriculum, and finally the Null curriculum. Explicit curriculum is similar to my initial concept of curriculum and refers to the information found in curriculum documents, while implicit curriculum deals with lessons that are not included in the curriculum, but are still learned as a result of their school experience. In contrast the Null curriculum refers to information and ideas that are not taught in classrooms either intentionally or unintentionally.

Break down of curriculum aspects (Source)

Some examples of the Null curriculum in my own educational experience include things like: the lack of information about non mainstream gender and sexuality in my experience with sexual education, or the absence novels written by non-white authors in all but one of my English classes previous to university.  

In The Null Curriculum: Its Theoretical Basis and Practical Implication Flinders, Noddings, and Thornton explain that: "when developing a curriculum, we leave things out. It is a truism of the curriculum field that schools cannot teach everything...curricularists must be concerned with the allocation of limited school resources to educationally beneficial ends" (34). However, while the information in the null curriculum is, by necessity, not included in the explicit curriculum it should not be dismissed as unimportant. 

For one thing, Flinders et al. point out that examination of the null curriculum can be useful in examining the relative merit of the reasons for including specific content in the explicit curriculum and determining effective alternative content. Additionally the null curriculum might be used as a tool to gain increased understanding of our culture and what information and skills are valued in it.

The null curriculum also carries with it a number of dangers, as Dr. Mel from answering the call: ministerial education comments in her post Null Curriculum... Say What?. Dr. Mel tells readers that: "The problem with leaving information out of any given curriculum is that students either never get the information or assume that the information is irrelevant or unimportant." She goes on to comment that this effect can be particularly problematic when dealing with issues such as gender or race. 

The danger posed by failing to closely examine the null curriculum also extends to  causing feelings of alienation and disinterest in students whose culture, interests, gender etc. is not included in the curriculum. To return to an earlier example, in the sexual education classes that I took, a student who was transgender would likely feel discriminated against because of the lack of information pertinent to their personal experience. 

A brief summary of the overt curriculum used in my sex education (Source)

I also think it is important when considering null curriculum to be wary of the enormous potential of the educational system determine the values of society. It is important to remember that, as Dr. Mel points out information that is not included in the explicit curriculum is generally seen by students as unimportant or irrelevant if they are even aware of it. It is interesting that one of the lessons of the hidden curriculum, intentionally or otherwise, is that anything not included in the explicit curriculum must be unimportant. This effect means things that are commonly omitted from a curriculum, such as non-traditional genders and sexuality, literature of other cultures, and any number of other things, are seen as of secondary importance to students learning that curriculum. 

In conclusion students learn nearly as much from what is excluded from the curriculum as they do studying the information in the curriculum. As such, it is incredibly important to not only be conscious of what is included in the curriculum, but also what is being left out. 

Finally enjoy this video of John Oliver pointing out the null curriculum and its drawbacks in his criticism of Sex Ed in the USA. (Source)

Mr. Hart