Bad Teacher Analysis

“Common sense is not something that just is; it is something that is developed and learned and perpetuated over time” (Kumashiro, 2012, p. 17). In the first chapter of Kevin K. Kumashiro’s Bad Teacher: How blaming teachers Distorts the Bigger Picture, he speaks about his experience as a volunteer in Nepal working in the education field with the U.S. Peace Corps. One of Kumashiro’s main takeaways from his experience overseas is presented in the quotation above, he discovers that common sense varies depending on where you are in the world and it is not something that is really nationally accepted. Every place has its own “common sense”. Without any previous knowledge on the ‘norms’ of Nepal’s education, Kumashiro quickly realizes that his assumptions of schooling in America does not apply across the board.

After spending some time in the school, Kumashiro reflects back on his first assumptions, he states, “My initial reaction was to view Nepali schooling despairingly, as inferior to my own American upbringing. But further reflection forced me to turn that critical lens onto my own assumptions about American superiority and exceptionalism” (2012, p.16). It is important to have this critical eye when in a setting like this, which brings me to a similar experience I went through as a volunteer in Ghana, Africa working in many different schools across the country. My trip to Ghana was my first trip out of the United states and being the naive 15 year old I was, it definitely was not an easy adjustment for me. The U.S. was all I knew so it was difficult not to constantly compare these two very different worlds. Throughout my trip I visited several schools and everywhere I visited it seemed to be very strict way of teaching. There were not very many discussions- it was