"According to Buddhism, life in this world involves suffering. And people suffer beacause they attribute meaning and substance and value to knowledge, signs, and represenations of reality rather than reality itself. Relating to the world through our knowledge can lead to suffering...Despite its problematic nature, we often cling to knowledge, perhaps because we have learned to find comfort in its everydayness or common sense, or perhaps because we see that the accumulation and reproduction of official knowledge matter in schools and society...the goal is to treat knowledge paradoxically: use it in ways that help us improve our lives, but constantly interrupt the suffering that results from how we learn and what we think." (Kumashiro, 47-48)

            I was interested by Kumashiro’s discussion of “willingness to learn” in the beginning of chapter 2. His stories about “M” and “N” demonstrate the idea that just because a student does not learn from one teaching style doesn’t mean they are unwilling to learn, they simply need a new strategy. This presents an difficult problem: while each student learns differently than their peers, a system of standards and norms still must be established in public schools which use taxpayer money. This allows for students to be incorrectly characterized.

Reading the introduction of Kumashiro's Against Common Sense really struck me for a number of reasons.  I was especially struck by Kumashiro's conflict with the kind of education he wanted to promote in his Nepali classroom; one that focused less on testing and imparting knowledge onto the students and more on developing dialogue and critical thinking as a group.  

I was very interested in Kumashiro's point about "good" knowledge and teaching.  To describe "good" teaching, he says it is what makes taking "effective," "successful," "desired," and "valued."  Kumashiro argues that "good" teaching is comfortable, but it often furthers oppressive structures and blinds teachers to the problems that they do not want to see.  What I notice most in these descriptions, though, is the subjectivity of each adjective.  How is effectiveness and success measured? Who is the one that determines what is desired or valued?  Obviously, just in these word choices there are voices silenced.  My question, I suppose, is how to enact change, when the system itself is not changing?

While reading Part I of Kevin Kumashiro’s “Against Common Sense,” I could not help but remember the comment I made in class earlier today regarding the sexual education enactment. My comment, as attempted during class-time, was focused on the fact that the purpose of sexual education is still in essence to educate students about sex but I failed to adequately explain how this varied from the conversation we were having about sexual teaching.

Different from the success strategies proposed under some government-led education reforms, Kirp gave his own diagnosis and treatment of the urban education crisis which suffocates America. The chapters began with stories of a classroom in a school in Union City. The close-up descriptions accentuate two features to my attention: the culture of abrazos and special education for ESL immigrant students.

I like how the introduction to the book consists of Kumashiro's experiences working in Nepal as part of the Peace Corp.  It felt like he wasn't trying to show off to his readers, more so trying to show the differences between what he thought was "good" education, and what Nepal students thought was "good" education.  However what I was really interested in was Kumashiro's idea of crisis, and what happens when a student experiences it.  I like the idea of instructing teachers in how to help students navigate crisis.