BY DR MURTAZA HAMEER
We live in interesting times. In the educational world, there are many competing curriculums available to students. In Tanzania, we have our National curriculum as well as international ones such as Cambridge and the International Baccalaureate. All these curriculums have their different strengths and are designed to help students learn various knowledge, skills and competencies so that they are equipped to deal with real world challenges as they become responsible and meaningful citizens of the world some day.
But there is another kind of curriculum that is present when students are in school or university. This curriculum is hidden and not formally instructed in classrooms and yet it is consciously and unconsciously absorbed by students. It is the learning that takes place when a student observes the honesty and integrity of a teacher. It is observed when the teacher is punctual at work and on time to her classes. It is experienced in the kindness and compassion that a teacher shows her students. It is witnessed by the learners when the expert teacher acknowledges when he has made a mistake or doesn’t know it all, despite his expertise. It is a curriculum that teaches far more than all of the world’s great school curriculums teach. It is a curriculum that teaches honesty, integrity, humility and character.
The hidden curriculum is perhaps the most important curriculum we can give our students, for it shapes the kind of citizens they will become.
