The Curriculum Shadow

Abstract

This article presumes that the curriculum field needs to be semantically rich so that practitioners and researchers may enhance their educational perceptions. Language enables us to communicate and it helps us to “see” what otherwise may go unnoticed. Hence, this article propounds a new term, the “curriculum shadow,” to refer more precisely to aspects sometimes viewed as what is commonly called the “downsides” of curricula. The new term reveals how every discrete curriculum has a shadow that can be found by reflecting on what the curriculum privileges and what it disdains. What the curriculum apparently disdains could actually augment the curriculum, and may, in fact, be vital in creating a balanced curricular unit.This article begins with an overview of some critical Jungian concepts, and then distinguishes the curriculum shadow from the hidden and the null curricula. The idea of the curriculum shadow is then applied to the teaching of science, liberal arts, and reading. My analysis suggests that in thinking about science curricula, educators ought to consider including such processes as feeling, fantasizing, intuition, and dreaming to help students understand how science is really done. In discussing the liberal arts curricula, I use Noddings's ideas to emphasize that caring ought not be neglected, and I also suggest what one can do when one discovers a curriculum shadow. Finally, I point out that even approaches to teaching reading can have shadows. For instance, in our rush to help children learn to read, some approaches may be “petrifying” children's thinking.