Education is defined as, "an act or process of imparting or acquiring general knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and judgment, and generally of preparing oneself or others intellectually for a mature life" (Jackson). In Paulo Freire 's “The Banking Concept of Education” he uses several similes, metaphors and analogies to bring across his main point - the relationship between teachers and students, and the way the teaching process takes place. One specific problem that Freire points out in the "Banking" concept of education is that “students have become “containers,” into "receptacles" to be "filled" by the teacher. The more completely he fills the receptacles, the better a teacher he is. The more meekly the receptacles permit themselves to be filled, the better students they are” (Freire, para 4). Freire believes that there is another way to educate in the classroom that would not only benefit the students but help the teachers as well. In the “Problem-Posing” method the teacher would begin by explaining his point of view on the subject being taught, and then the student could take the information and use it to his or her advantage by implementing the information in their lives. Problem-posing is more than a technique that teaches critical thinking; it is a philosophy, a way of thinking about students and their ability to think critically and to reflect analytically on their lives (Nixon-Ponder). In this classroom teaching style, the student has moved from being a spectator to a re-creator, together the teachers and students help each other learn through authentic thinking. Both the student and teacher are able to add to their knowledge using the information from one another’s ideas. Freire points out in his essay, "Education must begin with the solution of the teacher-student contradiction, by reconciling the poles of the contradiction so that both are simultaneously teachers and student" (para 7). In the problem posing education method the class relies on the input from the students. Therefore, even classes in the same subject would be different for the teacher each time new students come through because of the various views and opinions each student brings to the discussion. Contrastingly, in the banking method the teacher would have the same explanation and lecture; nothing would change for the teacher even with different students. It is important that the teachers learn along with the students so that their arguments and explanations can become more broad and stronger along with each new class. Through my personal experiences, I have always enjoyed classes where the teacher has maintained a problem posing approach to teaching within the classroom. Sometimes it takes time and patience to get the students fully participating in the discussion, but once the students feel comfortable, the “problem-posing” approach becomes an excellent learning environment.
There are certain courses that would be easier to teach with the banking method of education, for instance on the first day of a chemistry class it would be tough for the students to jump right into discussion and make points on new and unfamiliar subject material. A certain amount of knowledge is required before taking advanced courses, and the best way for students keep up with these courses would require some memorization from previous courses. Teachers and students may find that the best method is a combination between the extremes of the banking lecture, and the problem posing interrelationship comparing. Furthermore, teachers should not just teach, and the students should not just learn, but both teachers and students should go through the process of learning together, eliminating the gap of difference that exists between the two. Not only does this eliminate the boredom that often occurs in classrooms, but actually results in motivation for students to speak out sharing what they know, which further increases their knowledge.
Works Cited
Freire, Paulo. The Banking Concept of Education, from Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Trans. Myra Bergman Ramos. New York: Continuum, 1993.
Jackson, Shenith. “The Definition of Education.” Helium.com. Helium Educational Philosophy, 2002. Web. 28 October 2011
Nixon-Ponder, Sarah. “Teacher to Teacher: Using Problem-Posing Dialogue in Adult Literacy Education.” Kent.edu. Kent University, 2010. Web. 29 October 2011
Cited: Freire, Paulo. The Banking Concept of Education, from Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Trans. Myra Bergman Ramos. New York: Continuum, 1993. Jackson, Shenith. “The Definition of Education.” Helium.com. Helium Educational Philosophy, 2002. Web. 28 October 2011 Nixon-Ponder, Sarah. “Teacher to Teacher: Using Problem-Posing Dialogue in Adult Literacy Education.” Kent.edu. Kent University, 2010. Web. 29 October 2011
You May Also Find These Documents Helpful
-
The point Wallace is trying to make is that education corrupts an individual’s ability to pay attention to what is going on inside of them. Education is good; it allows individuals to have knowledge about a certain field of study they love, but it becomes a problem when it intrudes onto the self and makes one feel as though their opinion means more just because they have received an education. According to Wallace, “learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience” (4). Individuals need to use their education to determine when to think for themselves and when…
- 626 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
In Chapter 2 of “The Banking Concept of Education” written by Paulo Freire, he discusses that teachers are the oppressors and the students are the listening objects. Freire explains how he believes teachers are filling the student(s) with knowledge about reality. Though, in reality you cannot prepare someone for that subject and therefore by filling the student with knowledge that has no significance or benefit to them. Freire uses this thinking into consideration of the teacher’s role and its use of oppression towards students.…
- 84 Words
- 1 Page
Satisfactory Essays -
Paulo Freire’s “problem-posing” teaching method is shown in “The Banking Concept of Education” through clear contradictions to the “banking method”. He makes several arguments against the banking method by attacking common teaching faux pas and explaining his method of problem-posing education, where the teacher-student relationship is of equal partnership. Freire also argues that the use of the banking method makes teachers more concerned with getting information out to the students than worrying if they understand it or not. Instead of “educating through the practice of freedom” (Freire 327), standardized tests like the Regents in New York and the MCAS in Massachusetts, “educates [students] as the practice of domination” (Freire, 327), limiting them to a strict, inanimate curriculum.…
- 1057 Words
- 5 Pages
Better Essays -
Paulo Freire proposes two styles of teaching: the banking concept and problem-posing education. Through Freire’s lens, Richard Rodriguez would be seen as a banking student, but could later be seen as a problem-posing student throughout the course of his life. Both styles are still viewed today in teacher-student relationships.…
- 972 Words
- 4 Pages
Better Essays -
A key element that Rodriguez and Freire both speak of is banking education. Freire feels that this type of education is almost useless. Banking is no more than just listening to someone speak at you and then regurgitating the information. Both speak about education in the context of the student-teacher relationship. The banking theory of education only allows for the teacher to rule over the classroom and allows for little interaction with students. Banking turns students into "receptacle" (pg 260) bins that are crammed with information that the teacher chooses to fill…
- 853 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
Last week, I read an article called the banking concept of education which is written by Paulo Freire, a Brazilian author who contributed to the world greatly as an educator and influenced the field of education. What is banking concept? The banking concept is an example to describe a method that students are regarded as a container and to be filled with different kinds of information and knowledge by teachers. What the students can do is just accept the things that they learned and memorize it. Freire demonstrates that the students are regarded as a bank and teachers “deposit” the knowledge into them. The biggest problem of the banking concept of education is that the students will never think carefully and they will lose their creativity and imagination without their critical thinking. Students just acknowledged the world should be like and inhibited by too many restrictions of their study. Freire demonstrates that the banking concept of education supposes that all the students are innocent. However, learning form the teacher is the only method for the students. The problem between the educator and the students won’t disappear although there’s a new curriculum introduced. Freire thinks the most effective way to solve the problem is Problem-posing concept of education.…
- 1258 Words
- 4 Pages
Better Essays -
In The “Banking” Concept of Education Paulo Freire, takes a deeper look into the teacher – student relationship and how they interact inside of the classroom. In his essay, Freire introduces two different approaches to teaching, the “banking” concept and the “problem- posing” concept. Throughout the essay, in numerous examples that Freire gives show that he is a firm believer that the banking concept of education exists. As a student and going through any type of educational system , we have all been exposed to each type of teaching concept, and in some form it has shaped us to be who we are today.…
- 784 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
One way that Freire thinks he can overcome this form of education is with the Problem-posing concept of education. The teacher and student come together as one and each learn from one another. This way neither one of them has an authority over the other. In problem-posing the students and teachers are attentive, active and actually think for themselves. Therefore problem posing education allows the students to develop their critical thinking because of the communication there is between the teacher and…
- 280 Words
- 2 Pages
Satisfactory Essays -
Freire believes that "Education is suffering from narration sickness" (1). He believes that students are being filled with just words and not with significant content. He says, "narration leads the students to memorize mechanically the narrated content. Worse yet, it turns them into containers, into receptacles to be filled"(Freire 1). Narration education is to make the teacher better not to help the students learn. The more humble and open a student is the better the student they are. Freire feels that the banking concept of education is, "in which the scope of action allowed to the students extends only as far as receiving, filing, and storing the deposits" (1). Knowledge should be thought of as a gift for those who will embrace themselves as being knowledgeable. Education must begin by allowing the student/ teacher role to coincide with each other and allow them to learn from each other. Banking education mirrors this contradiction of teacher being omnipotent and student being ignorant. Such examples of oppressing society are, “ the teacher teaches and the students are taught; the teacher knows everything and the students know nothing; the teacher talks and the students listen” (Freire2). This concept of education has always been around as long as I’ve been in school. In order for the teacher to prove herself as an educator the more content she has to fill the students with. It doesn’t matter if the students are actually learning and acknowledging the information but they are being presented it and tested on. As long as they repeat what was learned new content will keep being filed away. Freire believes that the “humanist, revolutionary educator cannot wait for this possibility to materialize…his efforts must coincide with those of the students to engage in critical thinking and the quest for mutual humanization” (4).…
- 589 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
Education, the process of taking in and applying information, is an important part of life that directly impacts an individual’s judgement and reasoning of both themselves and society. A person’s educational experience has the ability to influence their life despite their intelligence level or home life situation. In Paulo Freire’s book, The Pedagogy of the Oppressed, two major learning styles, the “banking” concepts and the “problem-posing” methods of education, and their effects on students are discussed. My personal early education was within a public school system in the small town of Canton, Massachusetts. While public schools are often stereotyped as being both diverse and inferior compered to private schools, my high school was mainly white and Roman Catholic and it contained many students that were academically focused and capable of getting accepted to prestigious colleges such as the University of Miami. In my experience, certain teachers within this school system have helped me to see, through a process of trial and error, the best way I take in new information. My education has undoubtedly been molded by a combination of both the “banking” concept and the “problem-posing” method and has allowed me to develop into the person that I am today.…
- 1378 Words
- 6 Pages
Good Essays -
Settersten, Richard and Barbara E. Ray. "Education, Education, Education." Not Quite Adults. New York, NY: Bantam Books, 2010. Print.…
- 1415 Words
- 6 Pages
Better Essays -
In “Pedagogy of the Oppressed”, Chapter 2, Paulo Freire is contrasting different educational processes. Freire discusses his beliefs of how modern education is forced by the state onto students and the greater public, as a violent oppression. The ruling elite’s attempt to moderate the student and population at large, by controlling their thoughts and culture through a process of instruction of an ideal perception of reality that they preconceived for the oppressed. Freire’s way of explaining this course of oppression is seeing educators as a banking concept, were the objects, ideas, and actions that make up the views of the ruling elite are deposited into the student from the teacher. He describes the banking concept as promoting a strict dichotomy and thus reactionary regime between two poles. In his problem-posing scenario the teacher and the student interact with a free flow of ideas, around and around, coming to an understanding of reality together. Student and teacher constantly change roles; student, teacher, teacher, student, and on and on. Teaching and taught co-join allowing the student to self-educate themselves on the exact nature of a universal reality and become revolutionary in life being able to cause reality to change around them to become what they want rather than accepting life as presented to them by the oppressors.…
- 553 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
In the words of Paolo Friere, professor at Harvard University, in “The Banking Concept”, “education thus becomes an act of depositing, in which students are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor.”(Friere 74) Education is nothing more than the act of spitting out information by the teacher for the student to be able to “patiently receive, memorize, and repeat.”(Friere 75) Friere believes that education should be the act of working together between the teacher and the student to give out and obtain knowledge. But really he sees that education is nothing like that. He sees only one solution to fix this “banking concept” problem and that is to find a “solution of the teacher-student contradiction, by reconciling the poles of the contradiction so that both are simultaneously teachers and students.”(Friere 75) Friere sees here a solution for the education problem in schools.…
- 1031 Words
- 5 Pages
Good Essays -
In his essay “The ‘Banking’ concept of Education”, Freire introduced the readers two methods of teaching, that are “banking education” and “problem-posing education”. A “banking educator” makes the students mechanically memorize the information he or she unloads on them just like depositing in a bank, while a “problem-posing educator” inspires the students to be critical and aims for the liberation of society.…
- 761 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
“This is the ‘banking’ concept of education, in which the scope of action allowed to the students extends only as far as receiving, filing, and storing the deposits”(318). In his essay concerning ways of teaching, Freire discusses how students never engage in discussion with their educators, let alone with each other, about what they learn; they are “oppressed” by their teachers, the “oppressors.” Unfortunately, it seems to be as though more teachers approach their students with this “banking” concept instead of using…
- 1339 Words
- 6 Pages
Better Essays