"Learning is not a comfortable process that merely repeats or affirms what students have already learned. Learning is a disarming process that allows students to escape the uncritical, complacent repetition of prior knowledge and actions." (Kumashiro 2015)
In his book, Against Common Sense: Teaching and Learning Toward Social Justice, Kevin Kumashiro puts forward a case for all educators to reexamine their practices and move towards a more anti-oppressive education that teaches social justice. He suggests that, by avoiding controversial and uncomfortable issues, we are reinforcing stereotypes and allowing discrimination to continue. We need to be more aware of what is learned, how it is learned and why it is being learned. Certain lenses (political views, sexism and racism ) have become the norm because they go unchallenged and remain invisible.
The author illustrates this point within the curriculum of several disciplines. Take what we choose to read, for example. If we are reading for pleasure, or research, or affirmation, we choose books we agree with and which make us feel better. By ignoring all the literature we disagree with, or which causes us discomfort, we are reinforcing what we already know, and therefore unable to break out of the simple mold of our understanding. Kumashiro believes it is important to raise questions about the partial nature, or the over simplification, of our learning. We also must choose to read more diverse books, and choose to read them differently.
Alongside Kumashiro's book, I am reading from a favorite of mine:
The No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency Series, by A. McCall Smith. I love the books for their insights into Africa, and the positivity of the genre. These books are "feel good" books that give the reader a sense that every problem is solvable with a little commonsense and compassion. I have never before questioned the authenticity of the message, nor the nature of what was deliberately being left out of the story in order to allow the reader to feel this way.
On the surface the books promote diversity. The main character is a woman in a man's world, who is overweight and independent. All the characters are black Africans from different tribes in Botswana. However, Kumashiro's book is pushing me to read differently, looking for what was missing; what parts of Africa were deliberately being left out? Furthermore, is it wrong to promote a partial view of the world in order to hide the ugly and uncomfortable? I now see that there is a real danger in ignoring history and modern-day problems. As one article put it, "these texts strive for an imagined realm in which history does not begin and passes by unseen."(Counihan 2011) It is in ignoring the complexity of the hidden partiality that creates stereotypes.
This book is not an easy read, but then that is the point! The author draws from his diverse experiences growing up in Hawaii with Japanese parents, Peace Corps in Nepal, and various short term teaching positions throughout the US. And in Part 2, he provides practical application within several disciplines. In Social Studies he advocates, "it is not just teaching about different groups of people, but how the US acts against those people." We must take into account that no research is ever neutral, or complete! There is room in both Science and Math for questioning the conclusions and the context of any research conducted. Similarly, in reading the classics, it is important to entertain the idea that these books may be reinforcing the dominance of the ruling class. It is not necessary to throw the classics out entirely, but to read them differently and make them just a small part of all the literature introduced in school.
Through all the disciplines, arts and sciences, there is opportunity to teach about the Other, and in turn, let the experience teach us about ourselves and our understanding of the world.
Kumashiro, K. K. (2015).
Against common sense : Teaching and learning toward social justice. ProQuest Ebook Central
https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.ezproxy.mnsu.edu
COUNIHAN, C. (2011). Detecting Outside History in "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency".
Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal, 44(2), 101-118. Retrieved November 6, 2020, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/44029511
Interesting comment about looking for what is left out--in a novel or history. I find myself doing this all the time now.
ReplyDeleteGreat blog post! One piece of knowledge I learned several years ago was that most books about countries or people in Africa, were not written by people from Africa; they were written by Europeans. Chinua Achebe was really the first African to write a story about Africa (it was fiction). When I first learned this, I was truly surprised because I always assumed individuals who live in each place would more likely be the ones to write literature reflecting that place. It really does change your perspective.
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