In his essay “The Banking Concept of Education,” Freire makes a clear
distinction between the two fundamental ways of learning. The first is the “banking
concept” which is where the students just sits there and absorbs all the knowledge that the
teacher passes on to them. He strongly feels that this is not the right way of learning.
Friere says “the interests of the oppressors lie in changing the consciousness of the
oppressed, not the situation which oppresses them” (Freire, pg245). I think that what
Friere is trying to say is that the teachers deposit all this information into us, because they
think they are helping us. Based on what Freire says they are not really helping us, they
are only trying to change we think about the world around us. Therefore they are not
helping us but they are actually hurting us by not letting us think for ourselves. This is
also a form of dehumanization because an animal may have to be trained in a certain way
because they can’t develop their own consciousness, but by using the same way of
training with a human who is able to develop his own consciousness the teacher is
dehumanizing the student. This is clearly a form of oppression, because all though a
teacher is not physically oppressing us, she is preventing us from thinking for ourselves
which is a form of subjugation.
The second way of learning is through problem posing. As I understand, this
means that the teacher and student are supposed to be interacting with one another. The
teacher is supposed to learn from the students as well as the student learns from the
teacher. The only way a teacher and student can learn from each other is by
communicating and asking each other questions which will also help them create a
relationship between each other. This does not mean that they question each other and
argue the whole day, but rather each takes into consideration about what the other one has
to say.
As a high school student I was constantly bombarded with facts and things to
memorize. At first I never thought about it in the way that Freire speaks about it. Only
after reading this essay and thinking about it I began to relate to what Freire is saying.
Although in many ways it is easier to be told exactly what you should know and think
about, but I came to understand that if we are not thinking for ourselves then we are like
any other object in this world. I can think of many classes where the banking concept has
taken place, but there was a particular incident in a history class which stood out for me.
One day in history class we were discussing the American Revolution and the
teacher send us home with a homework question, which was an opinionated question.
When we came back to class the next day people volunteered to answer the question. As
soon as the first girl gave her answer the teacher said that was an incorrect answer. The
student then proceeded to say “I thought it was my opinion.” The teacher said “yes, but
there is still a correct answer.” Of course no one said anything because this was such a
normal thing for us to hear, and the class moved on. Now when I look back at it I am
shocked at the response the teacher gave because what she considers as “opinion” is
producing an answer that she would think of. Freire says “The more students work at
storing the deposits entrusted to them, the less they develop the critical consiousness…
The more completely they accept the passive role imposed on them” (Friere, pg.245). I
think that what Freire says is, the more we get used to this passive role of being students
who don’t know anything, the less we will begin to use our own thoughts. In this case of
my history class, even when we were asked to use our own thoughts, they were rejected.
Even further we didn’t object to the teacher’s statement because as Freier says we
“accepted” the fact that our role as a student was to simply sit and listen to the teacher
because she is the one who knows everything.
Going back to Friere’s quote “the interest of the oppressors lies in changing the
consciousness of the oppressed, not the situation which oppresses them” (Freire, pg245)
my history class incident can clearly relate to this. The teacher (oppressor) thought that
by asking us this question she is actually giving us an opportunity to think for ourselves.
When we offered our thoughts she quickly dismissed them. This is where the oppression
lies. By giving us a chance to think and taking that opportunity away from as just as
quickly, is oppressive because she is taking away our chance of expressing our thoughts.
She thought that by letting the student know that she is “wrong” she is actually helping
her by not “misleading” her to think that her answer is right. So clearly the teacher
doesn’t want us to think, but rather she wanted to tell us the right way of thinking. By not
allowing us to use our own thoughts the teacher was subjugating us because her actions
showed us that our thoughts were not important to her.
Freire speaks in great length about communication between teacher and students
which is something that is greatly lacking in our education system today. Communication
is the way in which thoughts can be shared among people. If a student lacks
communication with his teacher that means that they are not letting each other know their
thoughts. Freire puts this emphasis on communication, because through communication
the teacher and student can learn from each other. Sometimes the classes are too big, and
other times the teacher refuses to build that communication. If a teacher would really
think about her job and role as a teacher she would come to understand that she has to
help us see the world, but not in the exact way that she sees it. A teacher must challenge
her students to see for themselves. Friere says “rejects communiqués and embodies
communication,” (Freire 249) which I think means that the teacher must be open and take
into consideration the thoughts of her students. Communiqués is when the exact opposite
happens and the teacher rejects the thoughts of her student. I know that my teacher did
not care to communicate with us because she asked us an opinionated question, but yet
shut us out at the same time by dismissing our thoughts as being incorrect. She was not
really willing to hear what we have to say because otherwise she wouldn’t pass on the
thought so fast. This lack of communication between teacher and students leads a student
not only to feel inferior, perform poorly, and most importantly it prevent him from
“creating” his own conciousness.
The fact that this kind of incident happens not only in one classroom, but almost
in every classroom, points to the fact that society is not only allowing this to happen, but
it perpetuates it. When a student finishes college and goes out to find a job he is asked to
bring a resume and transcript with him. Based on the grades that a student received, that
is the way he is assessed to see whether he’ll be qualified for the job. Society looks at
your grades in order to determine how smart someone is. In that way we are all including
the teacher, are being pressured by society to memorize to show that we know something.
Yet it is in the hands of the teacher to give over the information to us, and it up to her to
make sure we obtain it in the right way. Yes, the teacher may be pressured to make sure
her students do well, but that does not mean she should take the easy way out and give us
the answers, and all we have to do is memorize it. The teachers’ duty is to make sure we
get the education that we need but at the same time she must do it in the right way by
communicating and interacting with her students.
Work Cited
Freire, Paulo. “The Banking Concept of Education.” Ways of Reading.
Ed. David Bartholomae, Anthony Petrosky. Boston: Bedford/St Martin,
2008. 242-254. Print.