IMPLICIT CURRICULUM
Anne Bancroft
January 30, 2005


"I seek the spirit of a child, the child who meets life naturally, the child who sings the world alive, and greets the morning sun with glee."

Lovely. But I have slightly different images coming to mind. My five year old, coming in for a morning consult.
“What should I wear today, Mom?”
“Oh, I put out the green pants and a white shirt. Did that look good?”
“Well, I want to wear blue pants.”
“Ok, then. Blue pants it is.”
“But I’ll wear green pants if you want me to.”
“Oh, honey. Blue pants are just fine!” (Damn. I can see it coming)
“No, but . . . you wanted me to wear the green pants.”
“Well, I put the greens ones out, but the blue are good, too.”
“Do you want me to wear the blue pants . . ?”
“I want you to wear what will make you happy. Either would work equally well.”
“No – now I don’t know. What would you wear if you were me?“
And it escalates, irretrievably, to a fit of indecision, and all I want her to do is get out the door with her clothes on.

I seek the spirit of a child, the child who meets life naturally, the child who sings the world alive, and greets the morning sun with glee.

His socks are not quite right. His shirt has a tag. Where are his sweat pants? The really soft sweat pants? He hates these pants . . . you know that!

I seek the spirit of a child, the child who meets life naturally . . .

They’re not so different from us, really, or we from them. They greet each day with preconceptions of how it should be, and respond according to each moment’s success or failure to meet that expectation. When everything goes according to plan, they (and we) are all set. But, things almost never go exactly according to plan. Much of life is about managing the unknown, the unpredictable. And how is it we respond?

I found a quote recently by Don Snyder, who wrote Of Time and Memory. “Let us hope that we are all preceded in this world by a love story.” What an amazing thought. “Let us hope that we are all preceded in this world by a love story.”

It speaks to every assumption, every preconception that we might meet another person with – every attitude built into our reactions. If we could imagine – and believe - that the origin of every being was love, (including ourselves!) we might just have a little more patience with the day that didn’t go according to plan, or the life. And in so doing, open ourselves to the sense-making, the learning that is available anytime and everywhere.

Is that too big a jump? I don’t think so. You may remember hearing from me previously about the three forms of “curricula” that we, as human beings, engage in. (Well, you didn’t think you were going to get out of here without hearing something about curriculum, did you? It’s Teacher Appreciation Sunday!) I have frequently referenced a description from Judith Friediani’s essay in the Essex Conversations, called Making Sure There Is a There There. “The explicit curriculum is what we actually present with conscious intent. The implicit curriculum includes the patterns of organization, the procedures, and the attitudes that frame the explicit curriculum. The implicit can reinforce or contradict the explicit curriculum. The null curriculum is a paradox; it is what is not said and not done, but it is not neutral.”

What interests me for today is the middle one – the implicit curriculum - the patterns of organization, the procedures, and (most importantly) the attitudes that frame the explicit. Let me be clear that I’m not talking, exclusively, about literal curriculum here. While some of us find ourselves in the midst of the classroom environment on a fairly regular basis, we ALL have the opportunity, as the lifelong learners we know we want to be, to take advantage of life lessons all the time. You read the paper, you learn. You observe human interaction, you learn. You go to the grocery store, you learn. These are explicit opportunities. And implicit in all this potential for learning is your own set of patterns, and procedures, and attitudes that frame your intake.

The challenge is to recognize in ourselves those patterns, those attitudes that might be deterrents to learning, that might prevent us from breaking through to new levels of understanding, regardless the lesson. Since we are HERE, I would encourage you to think in spiritual, even theological, terms. Let me give you an example. I am back in school with a fairly large number of people who are younger than I am, by . . . a bit. That didn’t surprise me. What surprised me was the percentage of those people who describe themselves as charismatic, or evangelical, or fundamentalist Christians. I had not expected that at non-denominational Harvard, even though – I know – it’s a Divinity School. And what I discovered in myself – and its not very flattering - was an attitude too close to dismissiveness toward the thoughts of some of my fellow students. Between their age, and their boldly dogmatic expressions of faith, I felt in myself the inclination to perhaps only half listen to them. “When they’re older, they’ll know,” I could feel myself thinking. Know what? Everything I know?

What I wrestled with, more than the Trinitarian issues actually, was their complete and utter assumption of the existence of God. That’s a struggle for me. But I found a book through another class called, “In the beginning . . . Creativity,” by Harvard professor Gordon Kaufman. Kaufman takes on what he refers to as the symbol “God,” in what, for me, was innovative and expansive thinking. It gave me an alternative way to consider the theological concept in the context of contemporary scientific knowledge such that even if I don’t altogether agree with it, I can be more open to the value of the message it provides, possibly, for me and for others, even younger others. It was important for me to recognize the bias with which I was hearing – or perhaps more accurately, not hearing their voices. As Maya Angelou so eloquently reminds us: nobody, but nobody can make it our here alone. We can ill afford to isolate ourselves in the bubbles of our own thinking.

There is a fear involved in digging internally, though. It is risky to challenge our internal patterns, our perspectives, our very private and comfortable places - the implicit curricula that is present in all that we do. I hear again, and again, however, the words of Angus MacLean, Unitarian Universalist minister and religious educator of the mid-twentieth century, “How can we make the best of this theologizing, and/or philosophizing, that we insist on being privileged to do for ourselves? The privilege carries an imperative. If we do not seek our way we discredit the very idea. . . . Some people are naturally more thoughtful than others,” he continues, “yet it is probable that most of us who are disinclined to think about life are not so much ungifted in concern and ability as we are nurtured in evasiveness.” There’s a good one: nurtured in evasiveness.

As Nancy Crumbine, the guest minister who visited us last spring, maintains: we Unitarian Universalists are those who love the questions. But, at the same time, it is human to love the safety of the familiar. If we have found a place of spiritual or emotional respite, wherever our theology lands, we may feel we have challenged ourselves enough, and be inclined to sit still with it. But I would suggest that in all likelihood, we can never have challenged ourselves enough. The world is not stagnant, nor our understanding of it. There is not one among us who could not grow in some way, shape or form. It is not just our children who we should encourage to that end.

Judith Friediani calls us to remember, “that the gifts of wisdom, love, and service are human capacities found in people of all ages . . .” We are here because we believe in our ability to learn from each other, to explore and challenge ourselves together. Let us not be complacent about the implicit curricula we bring, as individuals, to our common table. Let us take every opportunity – Walgreens, the classroom, the sanctuary, the Parish Hall – to learn, to stretch, to push ourselves to new internal openness. Find your limits, and challenge them.

In the realm of our inner lives, I would suggest it is not enough to simply get out the door with our clothes on. If we can trust in the existence of love within each of our beginnings, we can find the courage to push ourselves to a new place.

And let us know how we, as a staff and a community, can help you with that effort. There are cards with your Orders of Service. Take a moment during the postlude to consider and write down where your implicit edges might be, and what we might provide in the way of classes or programs that would help you stretch those edges, challenge the assumptions and preconceptions that are inherent in all our living. And then, either today or at some point soon, drop them in the box on the Membership table so we can work on making it happen.

It’s so exciting, this work. I am grateful for every day of it, and for all of you who support this community in its Lifespan Learning program. May we grow together in all ways.

Amen.