they are easier for the teacher, not because they are good for the student.
The hidden curriculum creates passive students. It creates obedient students.
Passive and obedient students are easier to control, making life easier for
teachers and school administrators.
Textbooks, for example, make the teacher’s job much easier. By using a
textbook, the teacher doesn’t have to plan new lessons for every class.
Planning lessons is hard work, and a textbook makes it much easier. The
teacher can simply follow the textbook with minimum effort. Many
teachers are little more than textbook readers. Every day they read the
textbook to their students, slavishly following the lessons. In my opinion,
they can barely be called “teachers” at all. Perhaps we should call them
“textbook readers” instead.
Another benefit of textbooks, for the schools, is that they standardize
learning. By using a textbook, the school ensures that every English class is
learning exactly the same thing. School officials like this because it makes
testing and ranking students easier. Schools are like factories, the bosses
want everything to be the same.
The same is true for tests and grades. These provide little to no benefit to
English learners. In fact, as we have discussed, tests and grades increase
stress and create a fear of making mistakes. Tests and grades are a primary
cause of “English trauma.” On the other hand, tests and grades are a
powerful tool of control for teachers. When students fear bad grades, they
obey the teacher more. They learn that the teacher is always right, because
if they don’t agree with the teacher’s answer they are punished with lower
scores.
Grades are a means of ranking students. Most teachers and administrators
are focused on ranking students rather than helping all succeed. In many
schools, the official policy is that a certain percentage of students in every
class must get poor grades, a certain percentage must get “medium level”
grades, and only a small percentage can be given excellent grades. In other
words, the system is designed to create failure for a large number of
students.
