The Power of the Hidden Curriculum

I read a great article in Leadership Journal by pastor John Ortberg. He writes about the formal and the hidden curriculum:

     “Many years ago I heard a great teacher make a distinction I never forgot. Every educational institution, he said, has two kinds of subject matter. There is the formal curriculum. And there is what might be called a hidden curriculum.”

       Stuff like Algebra, geography, English lit., history–that belongs in the formal. It’s the official ‘education’ that we’re supposed to receive from our teachers. But then the stuff that we learn in the hallways, the stuff we pick up from the school cafeteria, the pecking order from jocks to chess club members that we not only see but imbibe, our observations of who gets laughed at or lauded–all these things belong to the hidden curriculum. And according to Ortberg, when the formal curriculum ends and all the final exams pass—much of the formal curriculum is forgotten. But hidden curriculum is never forgotten.  He also writes that if there’s ever a contradiction between the formal and the hidden–people always believe the hidden. Always.

   Get’s me to thinking about our church. Here’s the formal curriculum: Open Door to a LIfe Changing Grace. But what is the reality of our hidden curriculum? What do people really, see, feel, experience at Open Door? Because no matter what we have on our banners, and what we say from our pulpits, people will always walk out of our church believing the hidden curriculum.

So write me. Let me know what you think.

P.Dihan