My wife and I were visiting Southern California on vacation when we decided to stop by Mission San Juan Capistrano – an adobe chapel complex founded by Franciscan monks in 1776. In the back of the mission was a small replica of the gardens that produced much of the monks’ food for hundreds of years.
As I walked through the garden, I noticed a large sign tacked in front of a particularly leafy bush. It read, “Please don’t chase or catch our lizards. They lose their tails if you grab them.” Sure enough, looking down at the bush I noticed several lizards lounging camouflaged against the leaves. They were ordinary, as lizards go – small and dull-green, which flecks of white or yellow streaked across their slim bodies. Nothing flashy.
But you can probably guess the first thought that went through my mind after reading that sign and getting a look at those lizards – I would like to see a lizard’s tail fall off?. If I hadn’t been with my wife and young (impressionable) son, I’m sure I would have reached out right then and there and grabbed at a lizard just to see what would happen next.
Thus the danger of unintended curriculum.
“For What I Want to Do, I Do Not Do?”
When teaching others, we generally approach a lesson with a certain goal in mind. There are specific principles that we would like to explore with our co-learners – certain truths we hope they understand better after our lesson.
That is our intended curriculum. It’s what we want to teach.
For example, consider a teacher who has structured her class around John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Her intended curriculum would likely include the biblical principles of atonement and redemption.
However, if that teacher were to continually stress the idea that Christians “shall not perish but have eternal life” without providing a context or explanation for that terminology, it’s possible that one of her students could come away with the idea that Christians do not experience physical death. That would be an example of unintended curriculum.
The above situation describes the most common form of unintended curriculum – a false belief that is transferred through ignorance about a particular text, or ignorance about proper teaching methods. In other words, unintended curriculum can pop up if a teacher does a poor job of either interpreting or communicating a passage of Scripture.
But there are other forms of unintended curriculum, including the following:
? Environment. The physical or emotional setting of a classroom can itself become a kind of curriculum. If students sit on rows of chairs facing a single teacher, for example, whatever is taught will come to them with an air of authority. This can be a good or a bad thing.
? Priorities. What we continually emphasize as teachers of God’s Word says a lot about what we consider valuable – and not valuable. Therefore, our choice of topics can be an influential source of unintended curriculum. For example, consider a youth leader who spends 40 weeks out of a year discussing sexual purity, but only 4 weeks discussing salvation. He could very easily send a message that God is more interested in restricting our behavior than developing a personal relationship with us.
? Personal bias. In a similar way, a teacher’s opinions on specific subjects can produce an unintended curriculum. Think of a Sunday school teacher railing against the evils of Darwinian evolution. If she chooses to attack the scientists and scientific principles in support of evolution, she can easily impress her students with the idea that science in and of itself is dangerous and in conflict with the Bible.
“?But What I Hate, I Do”
Much of the unintended curriculum that is covertly supplied by local churches is relatively minor and harmless. Theological misinterpretations can be easily corrected by asking questions. Personal biases are regularly overcome through exposure to a variety of teachers and other sources.
But sometimes, unintended curriculum can have deadly and devastating consequences. This happens when a teacher (or preacher, come to think of it) unintentionally communicates something false about the nature of Christianity itself.
Boredom is probably the most common example. Put simply, when a teacher delivers a biblically based lesson that is boring to his students, he does more than passively fail to deliver his intended curriculum. He actively teaches his students that the Bible itself is boring. And after continued exposure to such unintended curriculum, those students will likely conclude that the experience of Christianity as a whole is also boring, and thus not worth pursuing.
The same is true when we fail to help our students see how biblical truths can be applied to everyday life. Or when our personal lives and decisions directly contradict what we have taught.
Remember – you always teach something.
