Against Common Sense:
Teaching & Learning Toward
Social Justice
ECS210
January 30th, 2015
Kevin Kumashiro
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Director, Centre for Anti-Oppressive Education
Professor, University of Illinois at Chicago
President, National Association for Multicultural Education
Teacher, various grade levels in a wide variety of settings
Ph.D. In Educational Policy Studies, School of Education
Challenges educators to challenge ‘common sense’
Story of Nepal
How was Kumashiro
challenged in his
experience in Nepal?
Why did he share this
story with us?
• What IS common sense?
• What makes something common
sense?
• Is common sense comfortable?
• How can common sense be
problematic?
• How can we begin to challenge,
disrupt our own common sense?
Rip Van Winkle Story
Kevin Kumashiro
"Common sense often makes it easy to continue
teaching and learning in ways that allow the
oppressions already in play to continue to play
out unchallenged in our schools and society.”
Kumashiro, K. Against Common Sense, 2004, p. XXIV
What is good teaching?
Commonsensical definition of ‘good teaching’…
“Good teaching was not something we needed to learn;
rather, it was something we had already learned.”
“…embedded in any way of thinking about teaching &
learning are values & perspectives, including values &
perspectives that can be quite oppressive (i.e. that
privilege or favour certain was of being in this world and
marginalize or disadvantage others.”
What does our teaching make possible?
What does our teaching make impossible?
What is Oppression?
“Oppression refers to a social dynamic in
which certain ways of being in this world
are normalized or privileged while others
are disadvantaged or marginalized”
Who does our current education system
privilege? Marginalize?
Center for Anti-Oppressive Education
DEFINITION OF "ANTI-OPPRESSIVE EDUCATION"
• Teaching involves both intended and unintended lessons, and it is
often in the unintended, hidden lessons that racism, sexism, and
other "isms" find life.
• Learning involves both a desire for and a resistance to knowledge,
and it is often our resistance to uncomfortable ideas that keeps our
eyes closed to the "isms."
• Common sense does not often tell us that oppression plays out in
our schools. But the contradictions in education make it impossible
to say that oppression is not in some way affecting what and how
we teach, despite our best of intentions.
What might it mean, then, to teach in ways that
challenge oppression?
• http://antioppressiveeducation.org//definition.html
Messages from Kumashiro
• Teaching towards social justice does not
mean teaching the “better” curriculum or the
better story; rather, it means teaching
students to think independently, critically,
and creatively about whatever story is being
taught, whether that is the dominant
narrative or any number of alternative
perspectives from the margins.”
p. xxv
Kumashiro Challenges Educators to:
• Understand that oppressive education can go on in
unnoticed ways
• Question those things that we take for granted, because
maybe they are part of the problem
• Understand that anti-oppressive education may be
uncomfortable and controversial
• Challenge all forms of oppression in classrooms, both
intentional and unintentional
• Empower minority groups to have an equal opportunity to
become well educated citizens
• See that many of the problems arise from racial
unawareness on the part of the educators.
Ask, “How do our practices contribute to oppression?”
• Teacher as Learned Practitioner
• Teacher as Researcher
• Teacher as Professional
Against Common Sense (Kumashiro)
Chapter One: Three Teacher Images in U.S. Teacher Education Programs
Against Common Sense
Images of Teacher
Teachers as Learned Practitioner
 Learn about students, the what and how to teach
 Blend theory & practice
Problematic:
• little focus on differences, equity, power and oppression.
• only certain ways of knowing students privileged
Need to:
• Trouble & disrupt knowledge
• See different insights, identities, practices & changes it
makes possible while critically examining to see what it
closes off
• To teach the contradictions, the gaps
Huebner’s
Messages:
• We must surpass technical
foundations of education
• We require historical
awareness of:
– where we once were
– sensitivity to present
problems, resistances
and binds
– and openness to future
possibilities
Dwayne E. Huebner’s (1923 - )
Philosopher of education and
curriculum theorist
Teacher as Researcher
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To be lifelong learners
To reflect on own teaching practices, readings, discussions
To do research projects, working to bridge theory to practice
Learning to teach involves reflecting on, raising own questions
and doing research.
Problematic:
Doing research does not in itself promise anti-oppressive change.
Need to:
• Look at what we have already learned and want to continue to
learn (comfort zone)
• Look at what we resist learning (where we feel discomfort).
• Ask: what do our students desire learning, how do we desire
teaching, and how do these desires make anti-oppressive
changes difficult?
Paulo Freire (1921-1997)
Critical Pedagogy
• Freire’s pedagogy starts from a
deep love, and humility before,
poor and oppressed people and
a respect for their "common
sense"
• Students need to learn to think
critically to overcome social
constructs that are paralyzing
• Urges both students and
teachers to unlearn their race,
class, and gender privileges
and to engage in dialogue with
those whose experiences are
very different from their own
• Move beyond the ‘banking’
system of education
Teacher as Professional
 Learning to teach characterized as an entry into a profession
 Clear certification expectations with relevant components of
program, knowledge, skills, and perspectives valued in society
Problematic:
• Some in society prescribe ahead of time what all teachers need
to know and do and be in order to be “good” teachers
• May insist on only certain knowledge and may not encourage
troubling knowledge and looking beyond.
Need to:
• Problematize any effort that claims what it means to be a “good”
teacher
• Remember commonsensical definitions of good teaching are
often complicit with different forms of oppression
• Examine “progressive” definitions of good teaching as being
partial and contradictory and are always in need of rethought
What are the messages to our learners?
http://www.education.gov.sk.ca/ministry-overview
It’s not only what we teach but what we don’t teach...
It’s not only what we do but what we don’t do...
It’s not only what we say but what we don’t say...
It’s not only what we include but what we leave out...
Expanding Teacher
Self-Knowledge
Expanding Teacher Self-Knowledge (1:27)
Since bias is often unconscious,
one of the first things we need to do is to
be aware of assumptions about our students.
Challenge the ‘common sensical’ notions of schooling.
• Know own strengths, gifts and weaknesses
• Examine own beliefs, values, assumptions
• Know own knowledge & limitations of being an antioppressive education
• Be willing to feel ‘discomfort’ in learning
• Ask what I want to learn/teach & what I resist
• Challenge ourselves to learn, unlearn, relearn
• Continue to ask:
What do I see? Not see?
What do I do? Not do?
What do I teach? What do I leave out? Why?
What kind of learner is privileged in my classroom?
Who is marginalized?
• AND if you think you have all the right answers, then
start asking different questions!
Kumashiro urges us to…
• Transform schools into spaces where all students will
be safe, addressed, and affirmed
• Create spaces within schools where students can go
for help, support, advocacy, and resources
• Change the knowledge that all students have about
people who are labeled ‘different’
• Broaden students’ understanding of differences and
different groups of people by integrating into the
curriculum a richer diversity of experiences,
perspectives & materials.
Kumashiro, K. (2009). Against Common Sense, p. xxxvii
AND remember…“An anti-oppressive teacher is not something that someone
is. Rather, it is something that someone is always becoming.”
Kumashiro, K. (2009). Against Common Sense, p. 15