The Problem of Common Sense

In the article, Kumashiro defines common sense as something that makes us feels comfortable. It is a way of being that is so engrained in a culture or society that it almost goes unnoticed because it is so normal. She explains that she encountered cultural common sense in Nepal. They had a specific way of teaching that required the teachers to just follow a government issued textbook in order to prepare the students for the end of year exams. They also had specific functions for the local watering hole as certain times. Kumashiro was out of her element in this new culture. What seemed like common sense to the Nepali people, seemed different and uncomfortable for her. She also explains that the USA has it’s own common sense practices. In American schools there are the same core subjects areas that students must learn, school starts in the morning and ends mid afternoon, and teachers are expected to know more than the students. Common sense does not tell us what schools could be doing, but what they should be doing.

We must pay attention to common sense because oppression often hides in the normative, comfortable ways of a society. People are led to believe that this is the way it is suppose to be, and it should not be questioned. This is dangerous because this leads to certain groups of people being marginalized and oppressed. It is often easier to follow society and go with the flow, not questioning practices that may be unethical even though they are normal. However, many oppressive structures in our school systems have been dismantled because people were willing to stand up and disrupt the common sense. We must think critically as teachers and open our eyes to see what may be hidden in the everyday common sense practices that happen in our own lives, our schools and our world. I like what Kumashiro said at the end of her article, that there is a lot of work ahead of us, but there is hope that anti-oppvesive changes are possible.