Monday June 10

Kumashiro - Against Common Sense

Goal is to prepare teachers to teach in ways that disrupt, challenge, work against, and critique the status quo.  Failure based on gender, race, class and it must be challenged.  Challenge for teachers to find the balance between teaching the 3Rs and "save the world".  Just because there are these challenges does not mean social justice issues and anti-oppressive teaching practices should be set aside. 

Essential to build a trust with parents and community leaders in order to be able to broach challenging issues in the classroom.  Interpersonal skills are key. 

One or our main responsibilities is to learn from and with students about their lives beyond the classroom and school. 

Not a question if schools should be oppression, but how.  Education is not questioned and it becomes the norm.  How do we begin to question and challenge that norm? 

Schools are political places and are involved in oppression - what we choose to put in or leave out is all a political decision. 

Teaching against common sense means

·      improving experiences of those historically marginalized

·      changing education experience of all students as to what we see of as the other

·      addressing reasons why anti-oppressive education is difficult

The idea of reflective critical practice - what do we want to address, is it working , what are other ways that this can be done?

Schools may perpetuate oppression by:

·      language of the curriculum - whose voices are represented

·      hierarchy of subject matter

·      western civilization focus - FN and immigrant not present

·      perceptions of non aboriginal people on assumptions of what is their knowledge

·      bathroom that is for kids who are trans-students

·      lack of demonstration of addressing racism and homophobia

Chapter one - teacher education programs

Traditionally teachers are taught about who the students are and how they best learn, about how to teach, and the subject matter that they would be teaching. 

Teacher need to know, but aren't traditionally taught about the limits of their knowledge. 

There is more than one model or lens to get to know the students and how they best learn.  

The subject matter that is traditionally taught is the "official knowledge"  - but there are many ways to think about the same subject matter.

Troubling knowledge

to complicate knowledge and make it problematic:

knowledge that is discomforting, disrupting and problematic

Teaching can never truly be neutral, as it can never be without perspective and can never be complete. 

Need to ask: in what ways does my practice reinforce oppression?  How can I look at my practice in differ ent ways?   What might the new implications be?

It is important to remember that this is a journey that will never be done.  We must always work toward becoming the anti-oppressive educator.  When we are done learning and changing ourselves, our identity becomes fixed

This video is very inspiring to me.  It is not directly about education, but there is a lot to learn about thinking differently

http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/The-Impact-of-an-Unconventional;search%3ATEDxVancouver