The Problem of Common Sense

Kumashiro defines common sense as things that everyone should know that we tend to take for granted. When Kumashiro was in Nepal he had to learn a lot about the culture and language he was living in. He quickly learned from others that would help him and teach him about the language and culture that a lot of what he didn’t know was very basic and common knowledge to those who have lived there for many years. Many tasks and ways of communicating for Kumashiro were common sense to him but in Nepal he would get funny looks and questioned on what he was doing. One thing he did differently than the teachers in Nepal was how he ran his class and taught the course. His way of teaching is common sense to him but to the other teachers it was a foreign way of teaching. Kumashiro came to a realization that his common knowledge on certain subjects were different of those in Nepal which can make it difficult when us humans tend to expect people to have the same understandings that we do.

It can be very important to pay attention to common sense as many people you meet and places you go will have different meanings for common sense. Some people may believe common sense is one thing and someone else may believe it means something different. If you just assume that you share the same common sense as someone else you may find that the basic understanding you have is very different from someone else’s. It’s important to pay attention to common sense as some people may not know the same basic understanding of certain things like you do. In the classroom children may feel that they should know something but they don’t because where they are from and how they grew up they didn’t learn that basic understanding or common sense. We tend to expect that everyone shares the same type of common sense when in reality our common sense is different depending on where you grew up and how you were raised. As a teacher, it is important that we pay attention to our students and explain certain procedures or expectations as not everyone in the classroom shares the same knowledge or common sense when it comes to certain procedures or expectations.