Reviews

Against Common Sense: Teaching and Learning Toward Social Justice by Kevin K. Kumashiro

schomj's review against another edition

3.0

A fast, easy read. I agree with the general principles put forth but -- probably because this is written for such a general audience -- a lot of the actual content was oversimplified so much that I found some of the examples more distracting and frustrating than helpful. (e.g., all of the stuff about gender and queerness.)

lmurray74's review against another edition

5.0

I read this at the same time as Alfie Kohn's Feel-Bad Education and they complement each other very well. Kumashiro draws on his experience as a K-12 teacher as well as a teacher in teacher education. A simple take-away from this book is that we must always be questioning our teaching in order to genuinely be social justice and anti-oppressive educators. I was also reading this at the same time as Angela Davis' book 'The Meaning of Freedom' and a lot of what she write ties in here too, in particular the intersectionality between oppressed groups. As educators we may be addressing one form of oppression while unconsciously promoting another form of oppression. This book was written to address pre-service teaching education but I found it valuable for my own work as an Early Childhood Educator, and I think anyone interested in pedagogical practices that challenge hegemony will find much of value in this book too.