When I walk into my children's school, It is difficult to get a sense of my children being identified as biracial. The importance of schools providing that sense of identity for biracial students in critical for their healthy identity development. I remember I was doing a professional development with a group of elementary teachers and their administration, on biracial students struggles with not being either to light to be White or not dark enough to be Black, and one of the administrators made a comment about, how kids just want hang around their peers; As I listened to his comment, I couldn't help but to wonder, is this person seeing biracial kids as a mono-racial and not the unique double identity that they have? The hidden curriculum in schools are the norms, celebrations, the things that go really undetected by parents, unless your one of those parents that are much involved in your students schooling, but even then the hidden curriculum can slip underneath anyones nose.
The hidden curriculum is just as important as the academic curriculum in helping shape the identity of biracial students. So why aren't schools paying attention to their hidden curriculum just as much as their academic curriculum, my guess, as long as there aren't any complaints, then there must not be a problem. Biracial students have had to adapt to the hidden curriculum of their schools, and never have the schools adapted to the double identity of biracial students.
It is time for schools to adjust their hidden curriculum to meet the needs of their biracial students, if not, schools could start to see more biracial students being dignosed with Emotional Disorder.
