In a recent column of The Chronicle of Higher Education, Assumption College professor James M. Lang discusses teacher-student relations and what he calls “the invisible curriculum.”
Every student at ASU has had a taste of the invisible curriculum — moments when a professor goes beyond his or her role as a professional educator to dish out those life lessons.
My first vivid memory of an unofficial curriculum surfacing in the classroom took place in a freshman English class, when my professor expressed her deepest regret for not dropping acid in the ‘70s. But this isn’t the type of lesson Lang is interested in.
Lang is concerned with how to implement an invisible curriculum that is beneficial to students without undermining the actual curriculum. In pursuit of this, he reviews David Perlmutter's new book, “Promotion and Tenure Confidential.”
A large portion of the book is devoted to activities that Lang feels are conducive to establishing an invisible curriculum: conducting office hours and grading papers.
Perlmutter’s advice is to utilize these two methods of teaching as much as possible. He claims that novice educators often neglect the importance of individualized, one-on-one teaching, and miss valuable opportunities to educate their students.
Perlmutter says that, “academics should be evangelistic for face-to-face contact with students outside of lectures.”
But sometimes students have to meet their teachers halfway. Many students — myself included — take their resources for granted.
When students are not motivated, it doesn’t matter how many cookies and cupcakes or extra credit a professor uses to entice students to visit them during office hours. Many students fail to realize that the special opportunities of college are a limited engagement.
This is precisely why honors contracts for students at Barrett, the Honors College require a minimum of 8 hours of face-to-face discussion time with faculty.
But this assumes that the invisible curriculum has a positive impact.
An Oct. 20 column in The State Press rejects this idea. The writer, Athena Salman, believes that professors should not be given the liberty to teach outside of their range of expertise, and that they must be kept in check when they decide to comment on unrelated topics.
Salman writes that she is upset when professors abuse their positions by appealing to authority, which she claims is deceitful. She says, “It is a logical flaw to give that person added legitimacy to any commentary outside of his or her area of expertise simply based on prestige.”
However, professors rarely argue a point outside of their specialty; rather, they make flippant comments that students can take as they wish. Merely voicing an opinion is not grounds for “abusing authority.” Any appeal to the authority is only falsely projected by the students themselves.
We cannot expect to only hear and be influenced by the opinions of experts — most often we frame our beliefs around significantly less qualified family and friends.
As Lang and Perlmuter put it, we should be indulging in the invisible curriculum as thoroughly and often as possible.
But students need to keep their filters on — often they get too caught up in the humor or shock value of a comment to see the intended meaning. It was not my former professor’s intention to advocate drug use, even though some students interpreted it that way.
Essentially, intelligence needs to be exercised by both faculty and students for education to function well.
Share your invisible curriculums at djoconn1@asu.edu
