TE 818
Instructor: Dr. Elizabeth Heilman
Deryabkina Natalya
Who has power and how improve our life?
After reading Chapter 9 of Tozer’s book, I was curious to calculate how many
weeks and days and hours we have in my private school with students. So, in the first
semester we have 9 weeks, in the second-7 weeks, in the third-10 weeks, and in the fourth8 weeks. The total is 34 weeks. It looks like really we have a little less than 180 days, it is
170-174. We have 33-34 hours of lessons in the week for students. Thus, these are 1156
hours for lessons. We also have some extra-curricular activities for the students to choose.
For some students in addition, these can be from 34 hours a year to 68 hours a year. By my
own calculations, we have a total of 1190 to 1224 hours with our students. This is a huge
amount of time. During this time, we are not just teaching our subject, or some programs,
we also teaching them how to live in our society. We are also meeting during the class
break, during the Students’ Assembly, after classes for individual meetings, and we give
them instructions about how to communicate, how to work in groups, how to make
research, and how to think critically. This means that school has a powerful impact on the
child, on his/her education through school and the “hidden curriculum” and on ones
perception of life.
To teach our students, we have school standards in school curriculum and
something more in the “hidden curriculum”. Hidden curriculum, in the most general terms,
can be defined as “some of the outcomes or by-products of schools or of non-school
settings, particularly those states which are learned but not openly intended” (Wikipedia).
For me, “hidden curriculum” is the result of the interpretation of school policy, norms, and
regulations. I think that moral principles and ethics should be the base for this type of
curriculum and the effectiveness of it. Teachers have discussions with students about the
rules in the classroom and in the school, the forms of relationships between teachers,
students, parents, and community, and social relationships in society. This looks like a civic
education program, but it is provided outside of the lessons. It can occur during meetings
and discussions with students. It can be by formal and informal ways of teaching. Students
learn through these meetings special knowledge about society, and they accumulate social
skills. Our goals are to motivate our students in learning and studying. The influences of
teachers are so high. Sometimes it can be positive, sometimes negative. Students like some
teachers, and don’t like others. Our human personality is different, and what we teach and
how we communicate impact on our students’ manners and character. I was surprised to
read an opposite meaning of “hidden curriculum”. "Hidden curriculum can also be associated
with the reinforcement of social inequality, as evidenced by the development of different
relationships to capital based on the types of work and work-related activities assigned to
students varying by social class” (Wikipedia). I wish that in a society with democracy we will
not have open social inequality. We have in our society people who are poor and rich, but
according to the law, this should be independent of their ages, races, gender, or religions,
because teachers are not supposed to separate children in the class and in the school.
Individual approaches to students are necessary, but the values and principles through
different types of curriculum should be the same, independent of whether it is an “open” or
“hidden” curriculum.
Philip Jackson writes about the role of school environment on children and adults.
I agree that school environment has an enormous role, because how students and teachers
feel about themselves at school will impact their learning environment. I assume that
people react, firstly, emotionally to all events that happen to them at school. If relationships
between all of the participants in the school process and with community are polite and
respectful, people will enjoy going to school. If it is different, the opposite reaction will be
expected. If teachers during lessons argue with the student and abuse him/her morally,
other students can also “support” the teacher in their relation to this student. For instance,
if a student does not prepare homework and does not know the answers to questions,
teachers cannot tell whether he is capable to do the work and learn the subject. The
environment for this student would be extremely depressing. Teachers must help students
through different kinds of tasks to feel that they can do the work and be able to work as
other students do. We should not forget the “uniqueness of the students’ world”, as Philip
Jackson writes, that we ourselves create.
Do we want our children to obey us at school? Do we want them to behave well?
Yes, we do, because it is easier to control them. Do we want our teachers to follow the
school rules? Yes, we do, because they must to do their work well, and have the chance to
improve themselves professionally and teach students. I was intrigued by this from Philip
Jackson: “In school as in prison good behavior pays off”. I can tell also that “in society as in
prison good behavior pays off.” In public schools, students and teachers have “freedom”.
They can disappear during school time and go to the market or shopping mall for their
personal business. When my new school was built, teachers and students realized that
during the school day they cannot go out without special permission, because of big walls
and doors with security guards, which were made for safety reasons for students and also to
reduce the cases of absent teachers during their “free” period of time. We told them that
they signed a contract to be at school for 41 hours per week and do work well. We
discussed that during this time they can check students’ work, write lesson plans and
prepare lessons, and enrich the subject curriculum, and thus, to use school time effectively.
Sometimes our teachers and students who are new at school tell that our school is a prison,
and they want to go outside….In new environment for them, they have to be able to adopt
to the new school conditions and relationships with students. However, good behavior pays
off, because teachers can use their time more effectively, can be prepared for their lessons
more qualitatively, have more time to meet with students during the break time, and meet
individually with parents. Often, we observe that students who come to our school from
other schools have bad behaviors, and we need to work hard in order to adapt them to our
school environment. During the Students’ Assembly and teaching meetings, we have
advertisements about best students and best teachers. These rewards motivate other
students and teachers to work as they already do, but others are irritated by these types of
competition. In a democratic school, I wish students and teachers would do their “job”
without any rewards, and any “paying” for that. I wish our students and teachers would not
feel themselves in prison, but in the school where they love to be.
School and family have connections in order to improve school life and help
students in their achievements. Some parents can take decisions very fast, when they do
not know how the school operates. For instance, Phillip Jackson in “The Daily Grind" writes
that parents are interested in the highlight events at school, and they do not want to listen
to all the news that happened at school. Parents according to this interpretation can have a
“picture” of the school, about its success or challenges. Some students can tell their parents
very negative news about lessons or teachers especially, if they want to move to another
school. I had these types of communication with parents when the “picture” of the school
wasn’t “true” in all its negative aspects. When parents come to school, we have a chance to
tell them more about the school, and we invite them to visit and observe classes for several
times, where they can see how their child works and studies. They can have bigger ideas
about the mission and philosophy of the school. I think that this can happen if students do
not know the mission of the school or in some cases they just have their egoistic goals to be
realized in life. For example, some students want to communicate regularly with friends who
are in different schools, so, their “goal” is to change the views of their parents, in order to
move to another school. Therefore, I think that knowledge of this “hidden curriculum”
should be spread among students, parents, and representatives of the community. The
community should know what the vision of the school is, what are the qualities of the
teachers are at the school, and what the behavior rules for the students at the school are. I
agree with his idea that “The school is the first major institution, outside the family, in
which most are immersed.” Some parents in my school so believe in our school mission,
that we can see that they want just us to take care about their children. However, school
and family should cooperate to improve students’ achievement.
Teachers have to know what students think about the school environment, its
learning process, and the challenges that they face. Teachers and the administration at the
school should clearly understand that they will shape children’s character, manners, type of
relationships, and will give them knowledge and skills. What we will have as a “product” is
not just students’ scores, but much bigger. Furthermore, “Before focusing what they do in
the classroom, we must examine how students feel about school”. How can we know that
students are satisfied with the school day, the teachers’ work, and their relationships with
other students? Control, evaluation, and reflection at school are compulsory elements of
school work. Is the school “the prison for him or place where he is enjoying”? His answer
will show how curriculum and the “hidden curriculum” work at school and what knowledge
and skills our students have as a result.
In addition, we should be familiar with the meaning of “hegemony theory”. When I
read Chapter 9, “Liberty and Literacy Today,” by Steven E. Tozer, I start to think about the
relationships of hegemony theory and the hidden curriculum, and I think that there is a
direct link. Here is the definition of Hegemony that I found in Tozer’s book: “The term
hegemony refers to unequal power relationships between two or more cultures, ideologies,
socioeconomic groups, and so on”(Tozer, p.263). Hegemony theory can be summarized in
four general propositions, each of which requires further development: “Institutional elites
have power over political and economic institutions of the United States; They share a
common world view, or ideology; People accept these ideas through government policy,
mass media, and school; Ruling ideas do not accept debates and discussions” (Tozer).
Who has this power and why it is unequal? If there is power, will it be used for a
democratic society or not? If people have much power, they can just impress us that we
have democracy, but really it is not. Who has power, has position on those questions and it
is shown in the following: access to education, mass media, Internet, resources,
government, and so on. Tozer writes “A small minority of US citizens controlled the political
and economic institutions that shape the civic beliefs, values, and behavior of most of the
population.” Isn’t it fear? Where are democratic principles to listen to majorities? According
to hegemony theory, “It is necessary to miseducate a population in important ways for
people to perceive an antidemocratic society as democratic, thereby sustaining unequal
power relations.” Do they create the illusion of democracy? Are all of us marionettes of
society? I am not saying that this minority, elite group decides things that are wrong for
people. However, according to the principles of democracy, do we have a freedom of
speech, or do we have to speak what they want us to speak?
By whom and how is this ideology transmitted? These are the most influential and
powerful tools that are conducted for the population. Mass media through newspapers,
Internet, TV, and radio spread ideology and tell us where the truth is. We don’t think in
another way, because the opinion of people is already shaped. Tozer writes that “Gerald
Levin, chief executive, AOL Time Warner predicted global media would become the
dominant industry of the 21st century,… they might become more powerful than
governments.” This is a fact that cannot be argued. Access to the Internet is different for
the public and at schools. It is dependent on the budget and the district of the school. For
example, in my country, public schools can have five computers in the computer lab that
are so old that we should find them only in the historical museum. In private school, as in
mine, we have 46 computers for students in two computer labs, but the other problem is
lack of electricity. During the day, we can have it for two or three hours. Thus, we have
equipment, but we don’t have possibilities to use them. Therefore, how the Internet
influences on our students, it is difficult to tell. Anyway, radios, TV, newspaper are the tools
that transfer for us information that we “eat” and therefore, the ideology that is
“transmitted through mass media and school policy to the population.”
To come back to hegemony theory, I would like to mention three examples that
were provided by Jean Anyon: “1.The hierarchical distribution of power in the schools.”
Hierarchical power at school is the structure of how schools work. There is the principal, the
assistant of the principal, and heads of departments. All of these people make decisions
about the work of the school, but in school where the principles of democracy are respected,
teachers can have their own opinion, when they wrote their reflections or evaluations of
administration work. I observed schools that never did this in their practice, so, these
schools have really an authoritarian style of management.
The second point is about “the nature of student work”. Anyon writes so
interestingly for me the phrase “school work, because it’s not intrinsically interesting, but
because it is assigned”. We have standards for school for teaching subjects, and we have
special norms for how students would be evaluated. If we based teaching just on the
students’ interests and needs, will we teach what they want to know? What type of
knowledge will they have? All the students will have different knowledge. Is this good or
not? This is a controversial question. Probably, we will return to the “ancient time” or maybe
we will have several students who are geniuses.
The third point is about “social stratification within the school structure,” social
stratification according to the IQ score, age, classroom behavior, and so on. Absolutely, we
have students whose have the best results in their studying, and students which behavior
and score results are just awful. In the Soviet Period, the parents’ meetings with the
teacher at school were meetings where teachers made compliments for some parents about
their child’s results and abused others. Everybody could know the result for all students in
the class. The hegemony ideology accepted it. This time passed and now in some private
schools the situation has changed. We have more individual meetings with parents, and in
the general meetings, we are eager to show the general achievements of the class or the
school. Anyway, social stratification still exists in schools, when we separate classes, for
example gender schools for boys and girls, separate classes for successful students versus
struggling students.
How to improve our school situation, be more independent of hegemony theories
and the power of authorities? Shall we become better critical thinkers? After watching the
video: “What does it mean to me to be a critical educator?”, I have disagreement with these
types of “critical educators”. We have rules in society that we cannot ignore so easily. Are
these critical educators against hegemony theory? Yes, they are. But, is this the way to
change the situation? From history, we know that revolutions have changed leaders and
societies. But, mostly, this is the struggle for power of some leaders who use other people
for their selfish interests. This video reminded me of the “pictures” of Nazis and Skinheads
who kill other people, and the civil war in my city, when people shot each other and burned
the houses of my neighbors. One more example about the 47 people in Russia who went to
live during one year (in 2006) under the earth in caves. Their leader told them that they are
critical thinkers and they are against the rules of society, and they want to change the world
and will wait for the end of the world there. As a result, more than 20 people died there. Are
these groups of “critical educators” in the video also against of the rules of society and do
they prefer to have actions than to sit in classrooms or in the library? Critical educators in
my conception are people who can think critically, ask questions, help each other, but not
violate human rights-unlike the others who call themselves “critical educators”, but who
cannot improve school situation, and will destroy everything at school.
What is better, to live with hegemony theory, and live with the rules of
hierarchical structure in the school and in the society? Think about school environment and
cooperate with the students, parents, and community? Live and know that mass media, the
Internet, and schooling influence our thoughts and demoralize us, or to go outside of the
school and make actions?
Work cited:
"The daily Grind", by Phillip Jackson"
Video : ”What does it mean to me to be a critical educator?”
Steven E. Tozer “School and Society”, Chapter 9