The Virtues We Teach. The Culture We Model.
Last week, I posted about schools’ promise of a holistic education. Since then, I have been reflecting on the idea of the hidden curriculum: what students learn not through formal instruction, but through what they observe, experience, and infer at school. This matters especially for girls because schools aspire to develop qualities such as truth, courage, and service, articulated in mission statements and cultivated through curriculum.
A recent article, The Hidden Ethics of Competence: Why Impostor Syndrome Must Be Named in Teacher Education (Almulaifi, 2025), prompted me to think more deeply about the assumptions that shape life in schools. The authors frame impostor syndrome as an ethical issue rooted in educational cultures rather than solely an individual psychological experience. Impostor syndrome reflects a ‘hidden curriculum’, equating confidence with competence and discouraging vulnerability.
This raises an important question: is impostor syndrome self-generated, or is it produced by the cultures in which we work?
All educators encounter tacit signals about who belongs, whose expertise is trusted, and whose voice carries authority. Signals emerge in everyday interactions: who is heard, who is interrupted or spoken over, whose ideas are taken up, and who feels the need to prove themselves repeatedly. Over time, these implicit messages shape professional identities more than position titles. If character is shaped as much by what is modelled as by what is taught, then the ‘hidden curriculum’ deserves our closest attention. It also becomes part of the culture students inherit.
While some girls may internalise those messages, leading to chronic self-doubt about their abilities, others may unconsciously reproduce the same patterns in their own relationships and leadership. This is a challenge schools need to confront. We cannot demonstrate courage while rewarding certainty or instil inclusion while tolerating behaviours that diminish others. Self-doubt is natural at the best of times.
A final thought. Perhaps one way to challenge impostor syndrome is to doubt our self-doubt: to ask where it comes from, to test whether it is warranted, and to share it with trusted colleagues rather than carrying it alone.
Teaching is rarely straightforward, and acknowledging uncertainty can foster empathy for ourselves and for our students. Confidence has its place, but so too does the humility to recognise that we are always learning.
In modelling that balance, we may teach something just as important as any lesson in the curriculum. Students observe not only our confidence, but also our openness to reflection, our willingness to listen, and our courage to keep growing. These, too, become part of the hidden curriculum.
Education is not the practice of certainty. It is the practice of learning.
Source: R. Almulaifi, W. (2025). The hidden ethics of competence: Why impostor syndrome must be named in teacher education. International Journal of Ethics Education 10, 373–388.
Source: This article was first published on Queenwood’s LinkedIn.
