Paulo Freire's Problem-Posing Education

Paulo Freire in his nonfictional work, “The ‘Banking’ Concept of Education” (1968), argues that the predominant model of education suffers as a result of a power struggle between students and teachers, its shortcomings resulting in the production of inadequate minds, and offers ‘Problem-Posing Education’ as a solution. Dead Poets Society (1989) is a film about the pupils of a dissident new English Teacher, John Keating, in a preparatory school. It is implicitly stated in Freire’s writing that students produced under counter-revolutionary systems have minds unsuitable for revolution, and that they must be produced under revolutionary systems to be suited towards revolution, a notion exemplified by Dead Poets Society in the characters of Richard
Keating. These unfortunate souls would find it especially challenging to write a lengthy essay on the subject. Upon looking deeper, there is some evidence for this connection however. For example, in the symbolic language of mediums like film, directors often use the eye-height of characters to indicate their symbolic status. In having his students stand on their desks, Mr. Keating reverses the strict sitting-student and standing-teacher roles and power-struggle, by literally placing the students and teachers on the same symbolic standing (and above the rest of the school.) The evidence of the beneficial consequences of Mr. Keating’s teachings is the apparent overcoming of interpersonal-anxiety and non-confrontational tendencies by Todd Anderson, seen plainly at the end of the film. The evidence for the superiority (in practical rather than political metrics) of students taught via ‘Problem-Posing’ methods in Freire’s writing is not given (but demanding evidence is a common tactic of the oppressive intelligentsia and this objection can therefore be discarded forthwith.) There are twofold clear parallels between Freire’s ideal ‘Problem-Posing’ student, and Todd Anderson. First is that of liberation. Mr. Anderson experiences education that could be described as both ‘Problem-Posing education’ and ‘Banking education’ during his time at Welton Academy, but he would go on to become, in a sense, liberated by ‘Problem-Posing education.’ The overcoming of his shyness is a type of liberation similar to the liberation described in “The ‘Banking’ Concept of Education.” Those who doubt that Freire’s thesis is one that is primarily centered on revolution need only look towards Peter McLaren’s A Pedagogy of Possibility where he notes “Freire's stress on revolutionary class struggle” and its “current relationship to broader liberation