Null Curriculum Essay

According to David J. Flinders, Nel Noddings and Stephen J. Thornton, in “The Null Curriculum: Its Theoretical Basis and Practical Implications” (1986), the null curriculum is to be utilized through curriculum development that is thorough and more meaningful than being used for theoretical or empirical research (p.34). First, Flinders, et al. support their opinion by pointing out that the null curriculum is important by bringing out several reasons. They bring out truism, whereby it is not possible for schools to teach everything due to the limited resources in terms of time and personnel thus leaving out some disciplines (p.34). Flinders et al, claim that the nurture of some topics might be assertive that is why some content is left out of the curriculum (p.35). Then, Flinders, et al. say that these topics might bring conflict either religiously, culturally or politically (p.35). Furthermore, Flinders, et al. continue their argument about null curriculum by stating that it is difficult to conduct research on the null curriculum since the “curriculum universe” which will be necessary to enable research is not available (p.38). The most interesting concept presented by Flinders, et al. is that,
“It is well to ask whether or not the trained intellect is indeed the ‘highest’ …show more content…
An understanding of null curriculum will provide an avenue in evaluating the contents in the school curriculum and make the plan of adding content from the null curriculum. Evaluation of the curriculum is also dependent on the available policies and resources to implement the content, (Flinders, et al., 1986). Due to the evolving nature of life, some additional information from null curriculum can be singled out and added to the existing school curriculum. It is important to note that whatever is left out of the school curriculum is equally important as what is taught in schools, (Wilson,