Oppression

I thought Kumashiro's article was extremely informative, and brought up some very interesting points. One of Kumashiro's statements that really stood out to me was that "teachers need to teach to all students." I believe that many times, teachers avoid "controversial" issues with their students because the whole situation is uncomfortable. Kumashrio goes on to say that "educators need not only to acknowledge the diversity among their students, but also to embrace these differences and to treat their students as raced, gendered, sexualized, and classed individuals" (28). Looking back at my own experience, my teachers never really addressed issues such as homosexuality, learning disabled, different races, and so forth.

In Currins 100, I know we all had to read the book White Teacher, and I remember how she used the different cultures of her students to shape lessons. She asked the students of a particular culture if they could offer information about their culture, and therefore, involved them in the lesson planning as well. I know this may be a risky approach to creating lessons, especially if you have a classroom full of very diverse students. Something to be cautious of is to of course, include all students. And of course, the lessons have to fit into the curriculum, but that's an entire different post in itself! I just think Kumashiro had it dead on, when he said teachers need to teach to all students. Not just the ones that they feel the most comfortable teaching...after all, what is that really teaching?