Common sense is typically defined as ‘something everyone should know’, which at first glance seems like a good idea. In education, common-sense ideas can do more harm than good, as Kumashiro discusses in ‘The Problem of Common Sense’.
Common-sense, defined by Kumashiro, are practices and customs we all should know and understand. This may seem fine in our everyday lives, but as Kumashiro points out, our Western ideas of common-sense often leave out other cultures and label them as different and worse, while our practices are superior. After knowing this, it is easy to see how ethnocentric ideas have been engrained in our heads for quite some time without us knowing it.
For many reading this, it is important to realize this kind of behaviour in our lives. As many of us continue our career into education, we must try and put aside these beliefs, as they can harm students as we accidentally and subconsciously instill our own ideas of common-sense and superiority of our culture into impressionable minds. It is possible to teach and educate common practices of our culture to students, but if we promote our culture as being common-sense, then we promote our own cultures superiority, when, in fact, it is not. It is simply different from other cultures around the world.
It would be pointless to pick out and discuss these points Kumashiro points out without looking at my own life and seeing what common-sense beliefs I hold. For starters, I had typically believed that: teachers are the ones who hold knowledge, and I am there to learn; schools and universities/colleges are professional institutions, and relaxing was only for when not in class or studying; and lastly, I must make my time and life conform to education, and that is how I will succeed. These preconceived ideas are essentially false, as students can teach just as effectively as a teacher, a student does not always have to be professional when engaging in their studies, and while you need to make time for education it is not life or death if you miss a day due to other aspects of your life having sudden changes.
All in all, common-sense should not be used or should be rethought, as the ideas of common-sense teach students superiority and inferiority, when, in fact, different cultures just have different practices, and there is nothing wrong with that.