Kumashiro - yet another response

As I would expect from any essay written on educational theory, Kumashiro's "Toward a Theory of Anti-Oppressive Education was a bit dry and wordy at times - however, I'll allow that the man did make some excellent points. I appreciated his use of the word "Other" and although I havn't necessarilly heard this exact terminology before, the topics that he brought up were very similar to others that I have discussed in a previous Currins class, as well as English 225 (I believe that was the number).
Anyway, I have read a few of the other responses and I do agree with the notion that Kumashiro was perhaps a bit negative with his assessment of the weaknesses of his 4 "anti-opressive" teaching methods but I also thought that there was some subtle optimism as well. First, it seemed to me that he listed the 4 methods in order from weakest to strongest - each method sort of building off of the strengths and weaknesses of the previous. Kumashiro made the point it's not enough to simply invoke empathy for "others" although it is a start. It is also not enough to simply incorporate "others" into lesson plans a couple of times a year when it is convenient - when in fact every lesson plan should be made as relevant as possible to all students at all times. (This of course is much easier to say than to do) Going further with this idea, I agree with Kumashiro's critical ideas about traditional teaching on page 39. He says "Critical pedagogy needs to move away from saying that students need this/my critical perspective since such an approach merely replaces one (socially hegemonic) framework for seeing the world with another..." I personally believe that in the middle school (or especially high school) setting, a good dialogue that involves student opinions and experiences is essential to everyday learning. A teacher is just a human and has the capacity to be wrong at times and should be open to other ideas and opinions. However, I'm sure the difficulty comes when trying to be open but at the same time retain an important authority over your students.
Finally, being a "non-queer" (I use this term half jokingly - this guy really liked the word queer) white male, I specifically liked when he spoke of privelage in pages 35-37. It's much easier to think of "others" as being under-privelaged and to attack the issue of oppression from this angle as opposed to looking at yourself as privelaged. It's easier to try to help other people get more - that is until you yourself are told that you might have to give something up - even if it is only just and right. I would be interested in hearing any other thoughts on this subject.