''The Hidden Curriculum'' (1970) is a book by the psychiatrist Benson R. Snyder (March 29, 1923, in Glen Ridge, N.J. – September 4, 2012, in Cambridge, Mass.), the then-Dean of Institute Relations at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

. Snyder advances a thesis that much of campus conflict and students' personal anxiety is caused by unstated academic and social norms. These hidden norms affect the ability to develop independently or think creatively, and form what Snyder calls the

hidden curriculum A hidden curriculum is a set of lessons "which are learned but not openly intended"Martin, Jane. "What Should We Do with a Hidden Curriculum When We Find One?" The Hidden Curriculum and Moral Education. Ed. Giroux, Henry and David Purpel. Berkeley ...

. He illustrates his thesis with psychological studies and other research conducted at

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...

and

Wellesley College Wellesley College is a Private university, private Women's colleges in the United States, historically women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Wellesley, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1870 by Henr ...

Summary

The phrase "hidden curriculum" was coined by

Philip W. Jackson Philip Wesley Jackson (December 2, 1928, in Vineland – July 21, 2015, in Chicago) was an American pedagogue who was professor emeritus at the University of Chicago. During his career, he also served as president of the American Educational Rese ...

in his 1968 book entitled ''Life in Classrooms'', in a section about the need for students to master the institutional expectations of school. Snyder develops this with observations of particular institutions. Sending Messages: Managing the Hidden Curriculum; second conference of the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (Vancouver B.C., 14–16 October 2005) "For our purposes in higher education, therefore, let us set aside most of the above line of debate, and start with Snyder (1971). Snyder's observations pre-figured all the later research on "Deep" and "Surface" learning; he noted that at MIT in the 'fifties and 'sixties, the curriculum was getting more and more crowded as technological knowledge grew, and so undergraduates were taking "short cuts" in their learning. They could not absorb everything, so they strategically tried to guess what would be assessed, for example, and revised only that. Snyder's additional insight, however, was to realise that unintentionally the Institute was teaching them to act strategically, hence the term "hidden curriculum". Read more: Hidden curriculum http://www.doceo.co.uk/tools/hidden.htm#ixzz4NwYX3Xvc Under Creative Commons License: Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives Snyder then addresses the question of why students — even or especially the most

gifted Intellectual giftedness is an intellectual ability significantly higher than average and is also known as high potential. It is a characteristic of children, variously defined, that motivates differences in school programming. It is thought to pe ...

— turn away from education. Even honest efforts to enrich curricula frequently fail, says Snyder, thanks to the importance of the tacit and unwritten understanding. He says, that while some students do not realize there is a disjunction between the two curricula, in a demanding environment, students develop strategies to cope with the requirements they face. Many students find they can not possibly complete all the work assigned them; they learn to neglect some of it. Some student groups maintain files of past examinations, which only worsen this situation. The difference between the formal and real requirements produced considerable dissonance among the students and resulted in cynicism, scorn, and hypocrisy among students, and particular difficulty for minority students. No part of the university community, writes Snyder, neither the professors, the administration nor the students, desires the end result created by this process. The ''Saturday Review'' said the book "will gain recognition as one of the more cogent 'college unrest' books" and that it presents a "most provocative thesis." The book has been cited many times in studies.

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Review
by Alex Makowski (''Tech'' article, 20 January 1971) {{DEFAULTSORT:Hidden Curriculum Curricula Philosophy of education Massachusetts Institute of Technology publications Books about social psychology Student culture Books about education 1970 non-fiction books

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