Exploring the Gap

The other day, I wrote about education being about relationship rather than curriculum. Another way to talk about this is to use the conceptual tools of overt curriculum and hidden curriculum. The stated curriculum is the course content: the subject matter, the syllabus, and the facts and theories that the teacher expects the students to learn. The hidden curriculum points to the human learnings and assumptions that are conveyed in how the course is structured and taught, how the interactions between student and teacher take place, and everything else that happens in the class.

The hidden curriculum overwhelms the stated curriculum every day. One of our local luminaries, R.W. Emerson, put it this way: ‘What you are doing speaks so loud, I can’t hear a word you are saying.’ I can say that I expect everyone in my classroom to act with respect, but if I make arbitrary rules, treat individuals by different standards and don’t really listen, then that message is what communicates most directly.

In organizations, we can talk about the gap between mission statements and operations or between organizational policy and organizational culture. There is who we say we are and then there is the reality of who we are in our actions. One insightful commentator, when considering our attempts to re-envision and reform policing warned; ‘Culture eats policy for breakfast every morning.’ They meant that we can pass enlightened and transformative policies, but if the culture of the police (or any organization) does not change, very little will be different.

(Or ‘Change must come from within.’ which is what the New York City hotdog vendor reportedly said to the Dalai Lama when the Dalai Lama asked for change from a ten-dollar bill he gave the vendor when Dalai Lama asked: ‘Make me one with everything.’ )

This gap between espoused values and lived values is true in our personal lives as well. We often state clear and reasonable intentions and then are surprised that we are not able to follow through. I believe it’s very important for me to get regular vigorous exercise. I say this with what feels like full conviction. But if I look at my life, I see that this does not really appear to be true.

It turns out that it is extremely difficult to close the gap between what we intend and what we live. Author and activist Sister Helen Prejean said ‘I always watch what I do to see what I really believe.’  We say we are against racism and prejudice of any kind, but in a culture where we find racism embedded in the structures of the institutions that support our lives (like the police), do our actions really reflect what we feel in our hearts?

Thinking back to my experience in school, ostensibly, the learning was about math, history, English and the other subjects. But I knew that what was most important was obedience and conforming to teachers’ expectations. I was not consciously aware of this at the time, but I made sure to behave (mostly) and instinctively knew that being a ‘good boy’ was more important than learning.

Over the years, when I have been a guest lecturer on Zen and meditation at highly selective colleges around the area, I have found that many of the students (who did well in high school and on standardized tests) behaved like me. While I wanted them to look into their own experience and engage with the moment, they were carefully hiding themselves while trying to learn what I (and their teacher) expected them to learn. The hidden curriculum teaches habits that grow deep and usually operate beneath the level of our awareness.

I wonder too about the hidden teachings of the online learning that so many of our children have just been through. I know that some students were allowed to have their cameras on or off during classes to protect their privacy. One of the unintended learnings of this might be ‘I don’t really make a difference. I can have my camera off or on, no one knows (or cares) what I think, feel, or wonder.’ I’m sure this was not what any teacher intended, but just the structure of on-line learning might make this a likely and unfortunate outcome.

So how do we close the gap between what we say and what we do?

One way, as Sister Helen Prejean suggests, is to pay more attention to our actions than to our words. If someone watched your life for several days without being able to hear any of your words, what assumptions would they make about what is most important to you—about what you really believe? Does how you actually spend your time reflect what you care about most deeply?

Another entry point might be to pay attention to the attitude with which you do the little things. It’s not just the task itself (overt curriculum) that matters, but the care and presence we bring to it as we engage with it.

Another of our locals, H.D.Thoreau, put it this way: Why, then, should man hasten as if anything less than eternity were allotted for the least deed? Let him consume never so many aeons, so that he goes about the meanest task well, though it be but the paring of his nails.

So get the nail clipper out and have at it!