ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the alchemy of school subjects. The alchemy provides a way to think about the processes through which disciplinary fields of mathematics, literature, art, and science are transformed into school subjects. The orientation to school practices relates to concepts of the "hidden curriculum" about social differentiation discussed since the 1970s. The cataloging and ordering of school subject knowledge have tangible reference in the textbooks used to transmit the bits curriculum. The treatment of school subjects as fixed and stable enables a shift of pedagogy to the subjectivities of the children who are to be saved. The bits curriculum and textbooks relate to the binaries and doublets, the "wisdom of practice", recipe-based knowledge, psychological individualization, and alchemy of school subjects. The chapter provides a discussion on high school mathematics teacher who told students that they should act like "mathematicians" talked to them about the importance of learning and then proceeded to have them prepare for an examination through doing textbook exercises.
