The Problem of Common Sense – Kumashiro

09/09/2020

Throughout the article Kumashiro tells his story about teaching in Nepal and how that changed his view as an educator. A big part of the reason why his view was changed so much was because he was experiencing living in a whole other world, and learning skills that the locals deemed “common sense”. Kumashiro believes that common sense is something that is cultural based. In the article he explains that he was a resource teacher that was instructed to challenge the ways of learning in Nepal, and create a more North American learning atmosphere. The children were very displeased by this because they only understood their way of schooling and that was apart of their common sense. 

It is important that we pay attention to our common sense, especially as educators. We will never teach a class that has had the same experiences, cultural upbringing and values as us, which means skills that are common sense to us will not be to them and vice versa. Assuming that all of our students share the same common sense means that we can unintentionally damage their learning because we are assuming they already understand skills that they do not. 

My common sense about the curriculum steams from my thirteen years of experience in the Saskatchewan curriculum. My understanding is that the curriculum is a legal set of guidelines that educators must follow and students must meet to succeed. Although I know that this is not always the best for students. In ECS 100 I had the chance to observe a grade one classroom. My mentor teacher explained to me that many of the children were not reading at grade level and not meeting the requirements of the curriculum, although they had improved immensely from September to March (going from not reading at all to reading simple sentences). Therefore I see the curriculum as very black & white, the child meets the requirements or they do not, which is unfortunate because the improvement is so large but it seems to not count for anything when the children lie in this grey area.