Anti-Oppressive Education...Does it exist?

I feel like I've read this article a million times under a million different titles. Anti-oppressive obsession education seems to be a more fitting heading. I found this article to be particularly frustrating as it is my firm belief that acknowledging the "other" as being an "other" only acts to reaffirm their place as a cultural subordinate. And while the term queer was an interesting piece of rhetoric in this article I again found it to only agitate my feelings towards Kumashiro.

It will do our students no good to overload them sensitivity training, "trauma care centers," and more feel good curriculum. Lets trust our students a little bit. Lets trust them to be able to discuss issues of race, sexuality and religion and not hide behind a facade of pink triangles. It's a harsh world out there and a lot of people have a lot of opinions that are in direct conflict with one another. By bringing these ideas and views out in the open and discussing them like adults (not like scared little children who can't handle hearing it!) we are showing our students that we trust them to make educated and thoughtful decisions in their lifetime.

This needs to be done early. Over Thanksgiving break I visited my girlfriend who was doing her student teaching in Prague. I went to a comedy show put on by the 4th, 5th, and 8th graders. The issues that were addressed in the comedy showed ranged from issues of sexuality all the way to racism. These kids left no stone unturned. To an outsider it may have seemed appalling but at the end of the skit the students all stood behind their student director who delivered a speech on their behalf making it very clear that while they made light of some pretty heavy issues, they did so with the utmost respect for anyone being parodied. It was brilliant and having spoken with some of the students I could immediately tell that none of them were racist and they were all definitely very intelligent. They did not fear the issues. They took them on head first. Maybe we can learn from this approach with our own students....