[Un]Common-Sense

In the article The Problem of Common Sense, they talk about common sense being something that everyone knows but no one actually verbally says, they talk about it being different depending on where you are and what the culture is. Something that is considered common-sense to one person but to someone else that grew up in a different place and around different people. The author gives the example of when they went to Nepal and found that many things that were common sense in Nepal was not necessarily common sense to someone who was not from Nepal.

Common sense is important because, depending on where you are teaching the common sense might be different and the way that you teach will be different. For example, if you teach in a country that has much shorter school days, you might change how much time you spend on teaching topics or how much work time you would give. It is also important to take into consideration that the common way of teaching might be different. For example, in Nepal the common way to teach is to read a textbook and take a test, it is considered common sense that that would be the way to teach, however someone from North America might not think that is the best way to teach. It might not be easily accepted to teach differently than what is considered the norm.

My experience with common sense especially in high school was that the priorities of the education system was tailored for students going into a white-collar career. It wasn’t said but just understood that Math, Science, and English were the most important. It was just assumed that all students were going to university and that was the only thing that was important. If students were participating in sports, arts or even more driven towards trades or even having a job in school they were looked down on in a way. In high school I had a part time job because I was paying for university on my own and I wanted to save as much as I could so I wasn’t in a hole of debt for years after I finished school, and I often worked until late into the evening on school nights. I understand that this was my choice, and I worked hard to keep up but I had a few teachers assumed that I didn’t care about school because I had a job, if I was struggling with something it was because I had a job and didn’t spend enough time on school. This was frustrating to deal with because they didn’t get that I couldn’t just sit back and enjoy high school because if I wanted to go to university, I had to get myself there.