You can probably circumvent the permission check with your own query
$query = $modx->newQuery('modResource');
$query->where(array('id' => $courseId));
$query->select(array('content' => 'content'));
if ($query->prepare() && $query->stmt->execute()) {
$result = $query->stmt->fetchAll(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);
if ($result && count($result) == 1){
$content = $result[0]['content'];
}
}
Not sure though, why it has to be protected at all then…