My thoughts on Elliot Eisner's Three curricula all schools teach

I paused around the sentence “The general goal of a such an institution would be to enable children to become the mappers of their education journey, so that when they leave school they are in a position to pursue goals and interests that are important to them” It resonated with me as I believe the intended purpose of schooling education for the past few decades was about producing students who have the baseline level of knowledge to participate in social activities like employment, marriage and etc. I strongly agree with the goal outlined by Eisner, we as secondary educators should be a spark during student’s formative years to then allow them to shine brighter when they finish school.

The description of implicit curriculum was enlightening. I unconsciously understand that school as an environment and organizational structure plays an important role to student. Reading this paragraph was the first time those consequences are apparent to me. The form chosen for school can greatly impact the experience of a student. And the lack of balance between economy + efficiency and intellectual freedom + inspiration rings true in the modern schooling system where it is akin to a factory producing practical and obedient employees into the larger machine, the economy. 

Eisner believed the implicit curriculum foster competition in hidden ways, specifically the competition amongst students to stand out on a normal distribution (grading %). In this aspect, I believe the proficiency scale of the current BC Curriculum is attempting to change that. While competition by nature is beneficial, the use of normal distribution in grading assumes some students should fail the class because they display marginally worse understanding. The competency scale allows teachers evaluate students purely on the proficiency in the understanding of subject, instead of actively deciding the ranking of each student based on a linear % grading scale which lacks justification.