Faulty Education from Two Different Perspectives

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Michael Mainor Instructor Dickerson EN106 – First Year Writing Seminar II: Academic Research & Writing April 8, 2012 Faulty Education from Two Different Perspectives – Freire and Loewen As we look at and study education as we know it to be to date, is there a problem as some may suggest? From the perspective of two well-known writers, Paulo Freire and James W. Loewen, you will see two different perspectives that will challenge our educational system as some know it to be, inaccurate and lacking. Although Freire and Loewen both criticize the education system from two different perspectives, they overlook the important question of who is to blame: students or teachers? Education as the world practices it is wrong, at least in the eyes of Paulo Freire and James Loewen. Paulo Freire was a Brazilian education philosopher and in his 1970 excerpt, “The Banking Concept of Education”, Freire describes his view of education in two drastically opposed points of view. Education, as the “banking concept” is different than the concept of “communication” between teacher and student as Freire argues. Then on the other hand, you have James Loewen, an American professor of sociology for over twenty years with a focus on history and sociology of U.S. race relations. “Loewen is an expert at surprising his readers and audiences with historical facts most of us never learned and teaching us what history books get wrong and why we should care.” (332) In the excerpts from one of Loewen’s well-known books, “From Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong,” you can see how Loewen views the inaccurate facts for history and how they are taught to students. In Freire’s essay, his viewpoint in general terms, is that the education as the world knows it to be, is nothing more than information provided, memorized, and then

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