'CommonSense'

Discussion Questions

1. How does Kumashiro define 'commonsense?' Why is it so important to pay attention to the 'commonsense'?

I find Kumashiro defines common sense as a traditional aspect of the way things are for seen by people. I think this because when he talked about the way the students wanted to learn everything that was only in the textbook. They had the ideology that, that is how teaching is done and how students become successful. It is important to pay attention to common sense because it is a sense of how someone sees things from a specific perspective and most of the time has reasoning behind it. Common sense helps us as teachers and humans understand the people we are around and how to go about doing things with them. It's important to pay attention to the common sense because sometimes people take it for granted. I mean this because sometimes people see common sense as an easier way out of things, without actually thinking them through. Like thinking it's best for you but many others don't think that.

What type(s) of curriculum model did Kumashiro encounter in Nepal?

Lecture - practice - exam : Which is when you teach the students the content, they go ahead and practice individually that being in the classroom or at home then once they have learned everything from that specific topic they are then evaluation with an exam of the content that was teach, and the students have to be able to apply there knowledge to be successful and pass the exam.

Studied the four "core disciplines" that being social studies, mathematics, natural sciences and english language and literature.

What type(s) of curriculum model is the “commonsense” model in our Canadian school system? What might be the benefits and drawbacks to this model?

Curriculum as product is very commonly seen in Canadian Schools. Some benefits I find are that it shows the learner a little bit of everything they need, like how to read, so that you can read things within the world like street signs, emails and etc. Some drawbacks I would say is that sometimes the content learned doesn't help us with very important things like income text, how to read bills properly, how to budget, etc.

Curriculum as process is also very commonly seen in Canadian Schools. Some benefits I find are that in this process it shows students constant interactions with students and different ways of learning. I find now a days teachers are always trying new ways and strategies to help teach their students and get them to better understand the content being taught. Some drawbacks I would say is that sometimes teachers may over think the strategies and they become to complex for the students. It also may become hard for students to understand content if the teacher doesn't know had to address it in the proper way for the students to understand.