Eisner and Curriculum

I found it interesting that this article talks about null curriculum and how schools only focus on math, science, social studies, and English. It makes me wonder, are we teaching practical skills in our curriculum courses? Students are learning how to learn and critical thinking skills plus problem solving skills but is it unjust to our students to not have mandatory classes on cooking, cleaning, basic concepts about automotives, plumbing, and electrical work? While some might say those are skills that should be taught to children by parents, I really do believe we should be having mandatory classes in schools on these skills. These skills are critical for students to know and understand once they are adults and I feel it is the job of high school teachers to not only teach the curriculum but to prepare students for non-academic challenges they may face once high school is over.

Along with my opinion on null curriculum, I enjoyed what the article had to say about implicit curriculum, schools teach students soft skills. I would define soft skills as people skills such as how to converse, punctuality, respect, authority, learning to work with others and people who might be difficult to work with, prioritization, etc. We as teachers should be teaching our students to be good and productive members of society. It is important we model behaviour for our students because they look up to us.

This article expanded my views on curriculum because I have never stopped to think about what curriculum should be other than the explicit curriculum. After reading this article, I realized that it is so important to focus on soft skills and life skills in schools. This ties into the BC curriculum through the core competencies. The core competencies focus more on life skills and soft skills rather than just strictly curriculum. While I think we should have a class that explicitly teaches core competencies, they are taught implicitly in our classrooms. This article raised the question of how I can incorporate soft skills and life skills into my own classroom, this is something that I am still trying to figure out and answer. Part of the reason this question is so difficult for me to answer is because our focus in our classrooms is primarily on curriculum which makes it difficult to find the time to incorporate these crucial skills.