Schooled in our own minds: mind-wandering and mindfulness in the makings of the curriculum

Curriculum discourse focuses understandably, on the formal and enacted curriculum; however, studies demonstrate that much of individuals’ waking hours are spent in task-unrelated thinking and mind-wandering. No less, this pervasive phenomenon has been shown to affect us in many ways that can be linked to education. This paper examines this null-hidden inner curriculum that is enacted within students’ minds when they are not attentive to the formal/enacted curriculum. Drawing on a review of research in cognitive science, the paper develops a theory of ‘the mind as a curriculum deliberator’ and explains how the mind can be seen as ‘schooling itself’. Different states of mind such as mind-wandering, rumination and mindfulness are discussed in terms of their educational effects and a systematic framework that renders them in curricular terms is suggested. Based on this analysis, the paper aims to mobilize this inner curriculum from opaqueness and absence to a more explicit presence in curricular discourse, in an attempt to broaden our understanding of how the mind can both enhance and hinder education.