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Hidden Curriculum VIP - Audio

Hello my special VIP, welcome to this month’s lesson. Now this month’s topic is a topic that I am very, very passionate about. Yes, I know. I’m usually passionate about the topics, but this one especially, because this one is connected to my purpose in life.

This one is connected to my mission with Effortless English. It’s a topic that makes me excited and passionate on the one hand in a positive way, but which also really makes me angry when I think about the negative parts of it.

Now the title this month is the ‘Hidden Curriculum’, Hidden Curriculum. Now, of course, a curriculum is the topics that you study in a class or school. So it’s kind of the course of study. It’s the list or the plan of study and, you see, in schools there are two curriculums, in all schools. I’m taking about from kindergarten all the way through graduate school and the Ph.D. level.

There are two curriculums in all schools. The first is the stated curriculum. “Stated” means what they actually say directly. Now the stated curriculum would be things like Math, Science, History, Language, Physical Education, right? That’s the stated curriculum. It’s what you will find in all the paperwork. It’s kind of the normal plan for most schools in most countries. So what is the hidden curriculum?

Well, the hidden curriculum is just as common in almost all countries in the world, just as powerful and, yet, they don’t talk about it and the hidden curriculum, unfortunately, is very negative. What is the hidden curriculum? What are the kinds of hidden things you’re learning in school from when you were a very small child until you were all the way through high school, university, for some of you, graduate school?

There were certain messages that they were teaching you, but they didn’t tell you directly. Maybe you’ve never thought about the hidden curriculum; yet, this hidden curriculum, which in my view is very negative, is probably the thing that is causing a lot of problems in your life, probably the thing that has limited your success in your life that has stopped you from getting everything that you want.

What is the hidden curriculum? What are the messages that we get in school from a young age all the way through ‘til we’re finished that really cause us problems in real life. Let me read a few, because I’ve written some down.

One of them, one of the messages you get in school constantly is do as you are told. Do as you’re told. Obey. Yes? As a kindergarten child, a little small child, it’s one of the messages you got from your teachers in school. Do what the teacher tells you to do.

Obey the teacher. If you didn’t, you got punished in some way. If you did, you got nice little rewards and compliments and things like that. You learned at a very young age to do what you were told by other people.

Now related to this is another message in the hidden curriculum of schools and that is trust the experts. Trust the experts, right? You learn this as a student. Trust the teacher.

The teacher knows better than you. Trust the teacher. If the teacher says something is true then you should accept it and when it’s time to take a test, you should put down the teacher’s answer and don’t think too much about it and don’t try to check the teacher’s information, right? Just trust the expert. Just trust the teacher.

Another thing you got in schools is that there’s one right answer to most problems or questions, right? Most schools now and for many years really love these multiple-choice kinds of tests – A, B, C and D – and there’s only one right answer and it has to be one of those four. So something else you learned was that there were limited choices and that there’s only one right answer. And who decides the right answer? The teacher; the expert.

Another message you got was don’t make mistakes. It’s part of the hidden curriculum.

Don’t make mistakes. Mistakes are bad, right? In school when you make a mistake you get an X. You get the red pen. You get the lower grades. Mistakes are punished in school, generally. So you learn mistakes are bad. Don’t make mistakes. Try to avoid mistakes. You learn to please the teacher; try to make the teacher happy. That’s part of that same message of trust the expert and do what you’re told.

And you learn to sit and be quiet; that the process of learning happens when you sit and you’re quiet. You sit quietly, you don’t move very much and you passively listen to the expert. You accept everything they say and then later you’re tested on it and that’s the final one. Learning equals tests and grades, right? You learn that learning means tests.

If you don’t take a test then you’re not really learning. That’s part of the hidden curriculum of most schools.

Now, I have a big problem with all of these messages, because they’re all wrong and they will all hurt your success in life, because you are the expert in your own life not somebody else. In fact, I kind of learned this at a young age. In high school, I learned that my teachers they lied to me sometimes or they were ignorant. They would tell me something was true, but then I would read about that topic in more detail, because I was interested in it, and I would find that people who actually knew more about that topic disagreed with my teachers.

This was true in History, in Science, in lots of different areas and I realized whoa, wait a second. My teacher is teaching me stuff, but it’s not necessarily true. And I was a bit of a bad student and I argued with my teachers, sometimes. They didn’t like that very much, but it was a good lesson to learn that hey, the expert is not always right. I need to trust myself. I need to find information myself, not just passively accept what the expert is telling me. Important lesson and, hopefully, you’ve learned that and if you haven’t learned that lesson yet, it’s time to learn it now.

I’m going to read a quote from Robert Kiyosaki. It says “By unlearning the self-defeating hidden curriculum, which has thus far limited you, you can begin to experience the success that you know deep down inside can be yours. Your new success can then become a beacon to inspire others.” Now a “beacon” is a light. It’s a strong light.

So what he’s saying is that you have to unlearn all of these messages in school, because those messages stop you from being successful. In fact, you want to do the opposite of all of those things in order to be successful in real life, not school and then when you become successful, hopefully, you will inspire other people to also become successful.

That’s part of what I hope to do. I have become successful in my own life in many different ways, now I’m hoping to help you also become more successful; to have the life you want. You gotta’ unlearn all of these things. Let’s talk about a few of these.

Number one, don’t make mistakes. Mistakes are bad. Oh, that one makes me angry.

Look, mistakes are the secret to learning. Mistakes are the secret to success. If you are not making mistakes it means you’re not taking risks. If you’re not making mistakes it means you’re not trying things that are new enough or difficult enough. You’re not challenging yourself if you’re not making mistakes and that means you’re not growing if you’re not making mistakes. You gotta’ make a lot of mistakes, that’s how you learn.

When I started Effortless English, I didn’t know anything about business or technology and I made lots of mistakes. I’m still making mistakes with the business, but I learn from them. That’s how I have learned so much in a very short period of time and that’s why I’m successful now, today.

I’m grateful for my mistakes. If I had tried to be safe all the time and correct all the time I’d still be poor. I wouldn’t be enjoying my teaching this much. My life would not be as good as it is now. So that’s number one. You gotta’ learn to love mistakes, to accept them, to laugh at them and, of course, always learn from them.

Another one, the, do as you’re told; trust the experts. I have now learned to, basically, do the opposite. I never trust experts. When I hear an expert, especially a normal expert like on TV, somebody that everybody thinks is correct, I automatically distrust them. I’m automatically suspicious; because I’ve learned over the years in my life that what most people think is correct is very often wrong and not correct.

When it comes to money, for example, a few years ago, when our economy in the world seemed to be doing really well, all the experts on TV were talking about the great economy. Everything is wonderful! It’s great! Invest your money in your stock market now! Yeah! Thankfully, luckily, I didn’t believe them. Instead, I did my own research and I learned a lot.

I didn’t know anything about money or investing before, but I learned a lot and I found other people who were not just experts, but who were very successful, who were doing very well. I found that a lot of these people were saying no, no, no, the economy is not good in the world. It’s going to crash, be careful and, luckily, because I learned myself, I didn’t trust the TV experts – the big experts – luckily, I didn’t lose a lot of money. Luckily I was prepared when the world economy started to crash.

It’s not just economics it’s everything. Just like in learning English, right? What have the experts told you most of your life, your teachers, your textbooks? They’ve told you that grammar is the key. Studying grammar rules, memorizing lots and lots and lots and lots of grammar rules and what else? Memorizing a lot of vocabulary lists.

That’s what they told you, was the key. That’s what they tested you on; mostly, those two things, but after many years you discovered and realized that those experts – those experts – were wrong. You know they’re wrong, because you weren’t speaking English well after taking those classes; after taking those courses.

Luckily, you got on the Internet and you started looking for different answers. You educated yourself to find out more information. That’s the secret to success. That’s why now you’re having more success with your English speaking and you will continue to have more success. You just didn’t trust the experts, what everybody always told you, you went looking for more information, very, very important.

Another part of the hidden curriculum in schools that I really dislike and that I think causes a lot of pain, causes pain for children in school, it causes pain for us most of our lives and it causes us to fail a lot, that belief, that message that they teach us is this.

Helping other people equals cheating, right?

In school if you’re taking a test and someone next to you is having trouble, they don’t know the answer, they’re not sure, if you tell them the answer, if you try to teach them, if you try to help them, you will become a cheater, right? The teacher will get very angry and they’ll punish you, they’ll punish the other kid and you learn that helping other people is cheating.

Another message you get is that learning is a competition; that some people succeed and other people must fail. It’s a lie. It’s a lie. Learning is not a competition. It’s something we all do together. There are no stupid people, in my opinion. There are not stupid people. There are confused people. There are people who don’t understand something. There are people who learn in a different way, but they can all learn. They can all be taught.

This idea of competition in learning, it really bothers me and it’s a lie, because in the real world, in business, for example, you have to help other people and you need other people to help you. There’s no way to do it alone.

With my business I’ve had so many people helping me. I don’t know enough about computers. I need computer experts, computer technicians, computer programmers, to create my websites and do the programming. I must have their help. I’m not a great artist, so I need graphic artists to design my websites. I need photographers to take good pictures. I need accountants to manage my money and to manage the business financial part.

I can’t do all of this by myself. No way. I need them to teach me. I need them to help me. Likewise, I help other people. I help my friends. I help my family to start businesses or to do other things. We gotta’ help each other. That’s how we really learn. We learn from other people. We learn from getting help and when we help other people we also learn something. It’s not cheating.

This idea of competition is bullshit, complete bullshit when it comes to learning.

Competition is fun in sports, its fun in other things, but in learning its bullshit. I hate it.

It’s wrong. You need to get this idea out of your mind.

In fact, I want you to ask yourself this. Be honest. Do you view English learning as a competition? Are you always comparing yourself to other English learners? Do you feel a little jealous or upset when you meet somebody whose English speaking is much better than yours or do you feel superior when you meet someone whose speaking is less powerful, less effective than yours?

I’m not judging you. We all have this, because we’ve been taught this, but I just want you to think about that and to think about why. Why do you compare yourself to other people? Because you’ve been taught that it’s a competition, but it’s not true. Everybody can succeed, clearly.

If you get better in English, it doesn’t hurt anybody else. It doesn’t cause anyone else to get worse and if someone else improves their English at the same time it’s great.

Everybody gains. It’s wonderful. That’s what we want to do here at the VIP site. We all want to get better together. We’re not competing with each other.

Most of you are better language learners than I am. I try to be a great teacher, but as a language learner, ah, I’m not so good. I’m a little lazy about it, to be honest, but that’s okay. I’m happy that you’re a better language learner than I am. I love teaching you. I try to be the best possible English teacher that I can be and I’m happy for your success.

When I meet other teachers, English teachers who are good, I’m happy. I try to learn from them. I ask them questions. I try to learn some techniques from them and I’m happy to teach them what I know also.

So, this month, I want you to think about these messages that you learned from a very young age and to think how they might be stopping you from having total success in your life. Imagine if you didn’t fear mistakes anymore. Imagine if you didn’t try to compete with people all the time. Imagine if you didn’t trust the experts, but you went out and you learned yourself. Imagine if you did just what you wanted to do and you didn’t worry about pleasing everybody else. Imagine how much more powerful and effective and successful you would be with those new beliefs.

Finally, what I want you to do is this. You’re a VIP and as a VIP we’re all leaders. You don’t need to be perfect. What I want you to do, though, is to, of course, improve your own success. Improve your English speaking confidence. Improve all parts of success in your life, but don’t stop there.

We’re all teachers, not just me. Teach other people. Help other people. We’re not competing. If you know other people who are learning English, help them. Teach them the new ideas and the new methods that you’re learning. Teach it to them. Encourage them.

If you’re good at business, well, help other people who might want to start a business.

Encourage them to do it. If you’re good physically, you love working out and you’re great at health and fitness, well, encourage and help other people in your life to get healthier, fit and to have more energy in their life.

This is what living a wonderful life is about. It’s not just your own personal success. It’s getting rid of this hidden curriculum and adopting a very powerful new belief, which is this. Mistakes are fine. I’m the expert in my own life and I enjoy succeeding and sharing that success with other people. I enjoy learning and I enjoy helping other people learn too. That is what we do here as VIPs. That’s the kind of people we are. Those are the beliefs we have.

I’ll talk a little more about this in the audio commentary. I hope you’ll share this vision with me. Get rid of that hidden curriculum and let’s start this new VIP Effortless English curriculum.

All right, have a great day and a great month. See you again soon, bye-bye.