Anti-Opressive Education, 1/27/09

After finishing Kumashiro's piece, I couldn't help but feel...well...a little marginalized. I'm fairly sure that the demonizing of middle class white heterosexual males wasn't Kumashiro's ultimate point, but belaboring the point that such individuals are the most privileged class in western society distracts from his urgency in pushing the anti-oppressive education concept. It's also somewhat hypocritical, since marginalization of any group, including those who enjoy social privilege goes against the idea of anti-oppressive education. Maybe, just maybe the idea of a safe place in the classroom for all students would be a more palatable one. Otherwise, what incentive do those who are privileged have to surrender or share their privilege with others? Leading with righteous indignation against a group of people who - for the most part - are more than willing to share resources hoarded by their more avaricious ancestors might not be the most intelligent way to resolve differences between the "Norms" and "Others." I also somewhat resent Kumashiro's pretension in both inventing his own terms to describe marginalized people and by deliberately provoking controversy by using pejoratives as a part of academic discourse (especially when one recognizes the pejorative and admits to using it mostly for shock value, page 43). While doing so is probably fairly impressive around the academic water cooler, it doesn't do anything to actually help the marginalized people themselves (which I assume was the point).

His research itself was also a point of contention, as some of it is just plain out-dated and wrong. He mentions on page 32 the lack of "discussion of labor exploitation" in school curriculums, and cites a source from 1979 as his support. From personal experience, I know this to be untrue, since I not only had an entire history unit in both grade school and high school on the rise of the labor movement to combat the dismal factory conditions found in the industrial revolution, I also taught the same basic unit to a fourth grade class during my Currins 100 placement (and I assure you, that wasn't thirty years ago).

Kumashiro is also guilty in this piece of a faulty syllogism; i.e. just because one calls his piece an article doesn't make it less of a survey of scholarship. He fails to introduce any original ideas (aside from his extensive quotes from his own past work) until the final page, where he suggests that the principles of Buddhism might make for an interesting educational study, and that their partial implementation in western schools might make for a less oppressive atmosphere. I too would be interested in seeing the results of this, even though it makes Kumashiro's point all the more irrelevant. Why? Because in stressing the absence of self (while at the same time denying the past and future to exist solely in the moment), Buddhism effectively erases Kumashiro's "marginalized Others," since there can be no gender, sexual, or racial differences if there is no self. What Kumashiro fails to mention is that without the self, there is also no cultural diversity to be embraced by educators.

I realize that I'm not cutting Kumashiro any slack here, so maybe I'll do that for a paragraph. I do like his idea that the classroom should be a safe place where stereotypes and negative cultural imagery can be discussed and disowned. I've never been a proponent of the idea that if one simply ignores differences in class, gender, race, or sexual orientation that things will all work out without any problems. These issues need to be brought up in a safe environment, or the same prejudices of the previous generation will simply play out again in the current one. There are reasons why things like the anti-gay marriage amendment passed in California, namely ignorance and intolerance. Racism and sexism remain alive for the same reasons. Such topics can and should be talked about in the classroom, but if and only if they relate to the subject matter being discussed. I will not, for example, be talking about gay-rights while reading The Jungle with a high school English class. I might just touch on class differences and inequalities in what should be a fully democratic, equal society, however.

Some questions for a finisher:

1. Kumashiro often mentions that being "queer" is considered a sign of sexual deviancy. To what extent is this actually present in our local environment (in terms of things like "Fair Wisconsin Votes No", etc.) and is there any way of making a discussion for this topic outside of, say, a social studies or English classroom? Could a math teacher do so? How?

2. Throughout most of the survey, Kumashiro calls for changes in education to make it less oppressive and more welcoming to the "Others." He later mentions (page 46) that change for the better isn't the right goal, and that educators should seek change simply for the sake of change. Is this a contradiction? Why or why not?


Just for Fun:

1. How many times does Kumashiro quote himself in this survey?

2. How many times does he use the word "pedagogy" (double points if it's in a parenthetical)?