Childhood is experienced by every individual, therefore so is the curriculum. Illich (1971) questions the rhetoric that young people require “full time attendance at an obligatory curriculum” (p. 26); this societal rule has the potential to dictate the thoughts and actions of an entire population. Novel ideas are not recognised by exam boards; Murphy (2013, p. 183) explains that “school teachers can only really reinforce the education we have already received”.

The Oxford English dictionary offers two definitions of ‘education’:

• “The process of receiving or giving systematic instruction, especially at a school or university” and
• “An enlightening experience”.

The first indicates a mode of control. The second indicates the discovery, understanding and enrichment of knowledge. Knowledge, with the assumption of being an objective truth, theoretically, would not require “systematic instruction” as this would limit education to the subjectivity of those giving the instruction. Freedom of research and unrestricted resources, the university model, may be more enlightening than teaching-to-the-test using textbooks. Telling children what to do, think and say and making the prosperity of their futures dependent on their adoption of received knowledge can be described as a “tyranny of conformity” (Loveday, 2008). Students are coerced into indoctrination by the threat of poverty if the information is not adequately consumed.

Subject content

Everley and Macfadyen (2014) discuss how primary school children receive joy and stimulation from physical activity, yet the Physical Education (P.E.) curriculum is not regularly updated and the P.E. staff are undertrained. P.E. tends to focus on competitive sport (Department for Education, 2013) and makes therefore makes the assumption that all children are interested in sport and can be involved in it. Centring P.E. around sport and dividing into teams excludes less abled children from physical education as they are expected to meet the collective standard and to perform competitively. This model also can be seen in academic school work and children with learning disabilities. Furthermore, North Carolina and 29 other states in the US are considering banning transgender children from middle and high school athletics (Bauer, 2021), another indication that sporting and athletics are not forms of inclusive exercise.

Physical Education could be based on understanding and strengthening one’s own body rather than competing in mock prestigious sporting games. In 2016, 14.9% of the UK’s population had a gym membership (Business Gateway, 2016). This figure continues to rise while youth footballers in England, for example, have a 0.012% chance of becoming a professional footballer (Romeo, 2017). Furthermore, Okely et al. (2017) found that interventions such as Girls in Sport are ineffective in improving physical activity but the suggested reasons for this in the text were because of the schools’ disorganisation. There was no mention of the personal interests of the individual adolescents or whether these girls actually enjoyed sports or intended to be involved in sports. Brewis & Wray-Bliss (2008, p. 1529) suggest that participants’ “voices are subordinated to the presumed authority of the researcher” and this is especially true for children whose psychology is constructed by adults (see Billington, 2000). Considering the growing percentage of the population who attend the gym to improve personal strength, health and appearance, it may be more beneficial to more children to teach them how to strengthen each muscle and joint correctly and safely. This is also more educational due to the biological basis of anatomical study.

A study completed in 2020 on sex education found that only 25% of students were taught about homosexual sex, 12.5% about oral sex and 18.8% about safe anal sex, compared to 87.5% being taught about heterosexual sex (Simmons, 2020, p. 12). Though the sample of this study was limited, it reveals the heterosexism in sex education and a limited view of sexual experiences. Adolescents might be more interested in non-penetrative sexual activity as they begin to become sexually active; oral sex, for example, has an extremely low chance of pregnancy but still has the potential to spread STI/STDs. If the purpose of sex education is to lower rates of pregnancy and STI/STDs, then teaching children about oral sex would be a good method of doing this.

A pleasure-based sex education, as opposed to reproduction-based, is necessary for children and adolescents because 82% of women do not orgasm from penetrative sex (Herbenick et al., 2018). Simmons (2020, p. 12) found that nearly a third of students recall being taught about the male orgasm whilst not a single participant could recall being taught about the female orgasm. In sex education, the female-sexuality-sized gap, coupled with the promotion of painful, invasive procedures such as the coil and hormonal contraception – which is linked to depression (Skovlund et al., 2016), blood clots (Pirog et al., 2019) and a 20% increased risk of breast cancer (Westhoff & Pike, 2018) – by the government and the school (The Education Act, 1996) trivialises the astronomical health risks of these methods to women and girls for the convenience of male sexual gratification during unprotected sex. From a medical standpoint, the school should promote condoms only.

Hoffman (1975, p. 217) found that sex education books in schools contained the message that “male sexuality is genital, easily stimulated and urgent; female sexuality, where present, is diffuse, easily sublimated and will probably go away of its own accord”. Whilst this study is old, it demonstrates a male-centred view of sex which can still be seen in sex education today.

Knowledge is cherry-picked by unknown sources or “ghost writers” (Meighan & Harber, 2007, p. 81). History (GCSE) tends to focus on war, politics, monarchy and international conflict (AQA, 2019, p. 7-8) whilst presenting a “reassuring” and “positive story about the national past”, encouraging “a sense of loyalty to the state” (Haydn, 2012, p. 277). History lessons in the UK can be seen as “a narrative that builds western civilisation by celebrating its achievements while hiding at the same time its darker side” (Mignolo, 2011, p. 3). Defining ‘history’ by international conflict is a limited depiction of human history, one that focuses predominantly on the decisions and lives of politicians, royals and/or war criminals.

English Literature (GCSE) once presented John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men (1937) as a mandatory text; it was taught in 90% of British schools for several years until Michael Gove insisted on exclusively British authors (Kennedy, 2014). This text uses deeply offensive racial slurs and has a singular female character who is sexualised, the subject of misogynistic abuse and later brutally murdered by one of the main characters for whom the reader is supposed to feel the most sympathy for (see Lawrence, 2020).

Religious Education promotes acceptance and understanding of mainstream religious beliefs without exploring the potential historical origins of religious symbolism nor encouraging a critique of religious misinformation, such as the Bible’s justification of slavery (Leviticus 25:44-46) and the death penalty for homosexuality (Leviticus 20:13), as questioning these teachings would violate the protection of religion in human and child rights. The Religious Education debate is not easily remedied:

Some parents may (for profound and well-thought out reasons) be deeply opposed to any classes that teach religion in any form. Other parents may believe (also after long reflection and serious thought) that their children will be inadequately educated if they do not understand at least the basic beliefs held by the various religions present in the society in which they live. (Evans, 2008, p. 458)

Outdated content, nationalistic attitudes, racist and misogynistic novels, and the absence of criticality in subjects such as Religious Education, prevents society from “transcending the limitations of previous models of understanding” (MacIntyre, 2007, para. 8).

Structure

It is not solely the content of the curriculum that indoctrinates children, it is also the way in which it is delivered. The process of indoctrination in schools is bilateral, using both content and method of delivery. The curriculum may tell children what science is, what maths is and what art is whilst the structure of the school (separating and isolating subjects) also teaches that “English is not mathematics and mathematics is not science and science is not art and art is not music” (Meighan et al., 2007, p. 75). Not only does this define what each subject means but also what they mean in relation to each other. Schooling severs the connections between each discipline (MacIntyre, 2009) and prioritises ‘core subjects’. Arguably, science is considered the most important subject in school as it takes up the largest proportion of the timetable; however, its teachings may be at odds with a child’s everyday reality:

The present posture of most western scientists is to deny any sense of purpose and direction to the world around us, believing that to do so would be to introduce mysticism and superstition. Yet what could be more superstitious than to believe that the world in which we live and where we have our most intimate personal experiences is not really trustworthy and that another, mathematical world exists that represents a true reality? (Deloria, 1992, p.40)

Deloria (1992), a native American philosopher and scholar, suggests that “relatedness” is the “critical interpretive method of understanding phenomena” as “everything is connected to everything else” (p. 40). MacIntyre shares this view as he warns that “narrowness of intellectual focus deform the mind” (MacIntyre, 2009, p. 348). Pupils are taught that school subjects and their content are unrelated and incompatible: if a pupil were to use information from a philosophy lesson in a science exam, they would be penalised for it. Deloria (1992) suggests that the effect of this method of teaching creates a false reality that claims phenomena does not correspond or resonate with other phenomena, yet “the concept of perfection” is classically defined as “unity in multiplicity” (Beiser, 1998, p. 292): the antithesis of schooling today.

The hidden curriculum

Decontextualising knowledge reduces its meaning and discourages criticism, depriving the educational space of the key processes of critique, comparison and relation to other sources of information. The hidden curriculum is a result of the bilateral methods of indoctrination, discipline, and the controlled socialisation of pupils by age group, ability and gender. Concepts can be taught to children without overtly stating them. Through the hidden curriculum, pupils are taught controversial and authoritarian ways of thinking such as:

• Passive acceptance is a more desirable response to ideas than active criticism.
• Knowledge creation is beyond the power of students and is, in any case, none of their business.
• Recall is the highest form of intellectual achievement, and the collection of unrelated ‘facts’ is the goal of education.
• The voice of authority is to be trusted and valued more than independent judgement.
• Feelings are irrelevant in education.
• There is always a single, unambiguous Right Answer to a question. (Meighan & Harber, 2007, p. 75)

Furthermore,

• Competition is more important than cooperation.
• Helping others is less important than getting on oneself.
• […] Adults are more important than children.
• Men are more important than women.
• White people are more important than Black people.
• The Western world is more ‘advanced’ and superior to the rest of the world. (Meighan & Harber, 2007, p. 76)

It is noted within the text that these ideas are “highly ambiguous” and can be manipulated because of their “lack of precision” (p. 76). The hidden curriculum is indirectly taught so these derivations are not necessarily proof of intention, rather a suggestion of improvement and the identification of areas that need it.