Freire vs. the "Banking" Concept of Education
CONTINUED
Unsurprisingly, based on personal experiences, there is no greater oppression than denying a mind from wonderment and the exploration of the impossible
Renato Queiroz shares his ideas about how Freire's work reflects problems that he has experienced in the classroom.
"The lack of an open space to entertain possibilities beyond the vacuum-full words spoken by a teacher, brings me to the second point - the dampening of the student's creative power. According to Freire, the banking concept of education is an oppressive system, and its 'capability to minimize or annul the students' creative power and to stimulate their credulity serves the interests of the oppressors' (2). Unsurprisingly, based on personal experiences, there is no greater oppression than denying a mind from wonderment and the exploration of the impossible. When creativity is constantly shut down, a student loses spontaneity over time and gives in to creative shyness, they lock away the capacity to wonder and go beyond of the now and then. I have always had a great interest in the arts, and fashion. In eighth grade, still in Brazil, I had drawn quite a few sketches of different dress designs that I thought were fun and for the first time I had confidently used color in my drawings. I brought them to school and showed them to my classmates; they in turn criticized it to the ground with comments such as 'the model's head is too big', 'this color doesn't go with your other colors', 'why would you draw it this way', etc. I was so upset with the situation that for a very long time I did not touch a pencil. While this situation did not take place in the classroom, the criticism I received was often the norm for feedback received from teachers. Destructive and reductive criticism, a style that never builds the students confidence or encourages thinking beyond the chalkboard front of them."
Queiroz's experience shows how this oppressive system can dampen a student's excitement for learning, which can ultimately discourage a student from learning anything at all. This seems to run counter to the overall purpose of education.
Throughout the course of my educational experience, it was a daily occurrence to witness educators force-feed knowledge to students while lacking all, if any, consideration of conversational inclusivity with the students.
Keely Fowler knows that the banking concept doesn't work.
Photo credit: Keely Fowler
Like Queiroz, Keely Fowler recalls times in her life as a
student when a teacher's adherence to this "banking" concept resulted in
negative experiences that left her frustrated, embarrassed, or unfulfilled as a
learner.
"[My experience] has depicted itself to be a mirror image of what is known as the 'banking' concept of education, as described by educator and philosopher Paolo Freire. Throughout the course of my educational experience, it was a daily occurrence to witness educators force-feed knowledge to students while lacking all, if any, consideration of conversational inclusivity with the students. 'In the banking concept of education, knowledge is a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable upon those whom they consider to know nothing' (Freire 2). This quote offers a unique take on the catastrophe that is society's educational curriculum...[wherein students are] stifled by the depository method, which is used to simply relay meaningless words and facts. 'They must abandon the educational goal of deposit-making and replace it with the posing of the problems of human beings in their relations with the world' (Freire 5). Here, Freire is referencing education curriculums' constant transfer of knowledge, which is solely meant to be memorized and recited by the students, and in turn, this dissuades teachers from presenting them with a dialogue that allows both parties' horizons to be expanded."
Fowler describes one experience when she asked a question while attending an astronomy class at another college. The professor's first reaction was to laugh at the question, which resulted in Fowler feeling discouraged in class and embarrassed in front of her peers. Because the professor laughed at her question instead of conversing with her respectfully, the opportunity for her to expand her interest and knowledge was lost. The professor, instead, just went back to sharing dry lists of facts that students were supposed to memorize without any interaction.
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Instead of understanding, the teacher felt as though I was challenging her as well as the curriculum and proceeded to humiliate me. She gave me an assignment that she knew was well-beyond my reading comprehension. This incident reinforced her superiority, and it made anyone else in the class think twice before arguing against the curriculum.
Like Fowler and Queiroz, Lesley Sandoval reflects on a time when she felt powerless in the classroom. Education should bring empowerment and growth; however, this experience brought neither.
"Freire discusses the educator's superiority over pupils' multiple times throughout his essay to show the importance of this concept. He places emphasis on the lack of voice and decisions that are given to students, despite it being their education. Freire states, '[i]n the banking concept of education, knowledge is a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable upon those whom they consider to know nothing' (2). Freire is making a comparison of knowledge to a gift because it shows that some educators believe themselves to possess something that students do not [and this makes students inferior to the educators].
At an early age, I realized that I had no voice in my education. This conclusion was derived from an incident where I spoke out of turn during class to explain to a teacher that I felt as though the assignments were too easy for me. Instead of understanding, the teacher felt as though I was challenging her as well as the curriculum and proceeded to humiliate me. She gave me an assignment that she knew was well-beyond my reading comprehension. This incident reinforced her superiority, and it made anyone else in the class think twice before arguing against the curriculum. It is a clear example of Freire's argument on how some educators prey on students to establish dominance."
Sandoval expresses how this kind of teaching is problematic and cruel and certainly does not encourage and support students in their academic growth.
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As Freire said, teachers have command over students and students are just supposed to do what they say.
Like Sandoval, Fowler, and Queiroz, Angel Martinez recounts how an experience from back in high school demonstrates one of Freire's points. Martinez shares his perspective about this "banking" concept.
"Freire states what's wrong with today's education system's teachers: they choose how everything is going to be run, and the students are supposed to do it without question. As stated in the [Freire's] text, 'the teacher chooses and enforces his choice, and the students comply' (Freire 2). As Freire said, teachers have command over students and students are just supposed to do what they say. I experienced this one morning when I was going into school. I hopped off the bus, and I entered through the main entrance with my music playing in my ears, walking to my next class as I walked past the English wing. There was a teacher outside looking at me. When I passed by him, he started approaching me, grabbed me by the shoulder, and told me to take off my headphones. To him, my music was too loud even though technically, school hadn't even started..."
Although school was not in session, the teacher enforced a rule of his choice that seemed rather unfair, and the student had no choice but to listen to the teacher or get in trouble.
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This conflict we [students] were experiencing caused much apprehension because the point of this occurrence might have been to highlight the social commentary of the novel by acknowledging the racism, but the way it was demonstrated came off as promoting racism more than anything else."
Like the previous student accounts, Morgan Richard discusses the problems that can occur when teachers assume that their perspectives are more important than the students' perspectives.
"I experienced a prime example of a teacher's failure to consider the environment they were teaching in during my junior year of high school. That year, I took an honors English class and one of the novels we covered was The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain. This novel is meant to be a social commentary on racism. Twain, to help further his point in this fictional tale, happens to use the n-word many, many times. We first encountered this word as a class while our teacher was reading the story aloud. After deciding to not censor the word and instead read it as is, our teacher also decided to go on a tangent about how 'we need to say the word n-' because 'it is just a word' and by not treating it as such 'we are being more incentive when discussing racism than if we did not say it.' This teacher then furthered their point by saying 'whenever racism is discussed,' we should always 'say the word n-- freely.' Following this passionate declaration, this teacher proceeded to read every single n-word aloud whenever we came across it.
As the students, we were all made very uncomfortable by this repeated act. We knew this teacher tended to be unrefined in his lecturing but this was too far. Our school district was small, rural, and mostly white, so we were familiar with other students using the n-word when they really should not have been. Most of us could also recall our parents saying to not use that word-- no matter the context. Now that a teacher was telling us it was suddenly okay to use the n-word, there was a contradiction to what we had always known coming from someone we trusted. This conflict we [students] were experiencing caused much apprehension because the point of this occurrence might have been to highlight the social commentary of the novel by acknowledging the racism, but the way it was demonstrated came off as promoting racism more than anything else."
Richard shows the issue with teachers assuming that they are the ultimate authorities without considering ways that they could work to improve their teaching to be more successful or more current in the ways they teach.
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The previous student accounts and the work of Freire show how this way of teaching is problematic. According to Dr. Bill Dalessio, CCRI English professor and author of Are We What We Eat?, the "banking" concept of education is important to share with students because "the essay provides a framework for students to understand what has happened and, unfortunately, continues to happen to them in some of their classes. Plus, Freire's work allows students to vent and talk about their own experiences, both good and bad, in class discussions and essays that mix critical analysis with autobiographical writing. "
When asked why he shared such a sophisticated and theoretical work with his Composition I class, Dr. Dalessio explained, "I assign Freire's article because my CCRI students appear to enjoy this work. I have used this article in composition classes at several schools, such as UConn and PC, and like those students, my CCRI students appear to enjoy it during our class discussions and written assignments."
Dr. Dalessio believes that by "tackling the issues involved in Freire's work, my students and I are working to undermine the 'status quo' of what 'should' be assigned in a community college writing class. I believe that as educators, we need to do what Freire espouses, and help each student develop her/his/their critical consciousness to challenge the status quo both in the educational system and in society at-large."
Luckily for Dr. Dalessio's students and the many other CCRI students who have been enrolled in the classes of creative, skilled, and motivated professors, the "banking" concept of education is a sad, distant memory. Hopefully, those instructors who do not care about being effective teachers will soon come to realize that the "banking" concept of education leaves students and their teachers nothing more than bankrupt.