Professor Clara Gerl EN106 First Year Writing Seminar II October 30, 2010 Paulo Freire essay, “The Banking Concept of Education” is an essay to academia calling for change within academia. The population being discussed appears to be the poor and disenfranchised. Paulo Freire considers the banking concept stagnant, lacking creativity, unimaginative and oppressive. The banking concept of education deeply resembles the master/slave relationship. The teacher as master wields all the power (knowledge), continually demonstrating their superiority by assuming students are not knowledgeable.
Pablo Freire allows us to see what he believes is the ongoing problem with our educational system. He makes a very compelling argument stating that it is not the way we teach but how we mentally categorize learning. Teachers assume that they have all the knowledge needed to pass on to their students and students know nothing. As if the students are a blank canvas that the teacher get to throw their paint on. This is what Freire calls the educational banking system.
Gerald Graff points out the pressure that society and school put on students to be academically intelligent. Students must have the perfect grades and attend the highest ranking school. Students also have to go to extreme measures to just get through one class because they know that failing is not a option. As Graff says, “To say that students need to see their interests “through academic eyes” is to say that street smarts are not enough” (p.303). I agree with what Graff says and also agree when he says, “The challenge, as a college professor Ned Laff has put it, “is not simply to exploit students’ nonacademic interests, but to get them to see those interests through academic eyes” (p.302).
Then, it means the teacher treats the pupil accordingly acting as if the predications are already true. The pupils internalise the teacher’s expectations of their self-concept so that they actually become the kind of pupil that the teacher believed them to be when labelling. If the teacher believes that a pupil will fail, they more than likely will fail because they have been labelled to be a ‘failure’. Although, this is not always the case, some people will also be labelled like a failure but they will try and prove the teachers wrong and will try their hardest to pass
I find it rather scary, something that makes you truly think on it, as well as a little sad at the same time. The basic functions were written to involve everything from giving the children boring material, make the children all be alike one another as opposed to being individuals, determine what a students' role in society is, keeping them level grounded as opposed to going higher in life to be their best, selection of the better ones and humiliate the weaker with bad grades and the like, and even so much as having "chosen ones" that will excel to learn management and leadership skills, unlike the others, and rein over the oppressed
What’s the effect that “the banking concept of education” brings to our society by leading us to obviate thinking? In Paulo Freire’s essay “The Pedagogy of The Oppressed” he criticizes our current educational system, which he calls “the ‘banking’ concept of education”, because of its capacity to inhibit our creativity, make us obviate thinking, “dehumanize” us, etc., oppressing us in many ways. He says that the only way to liberate our oppressed society is upgrading our educational system by using the “problem-posing method of education” which stimulates students to think critically. By studying Freire’s essay it is easier to understand the importance of an education that will stimulate minds into going through a further analysis of things (problem-posing) and how the other method (banking concept) will lead us towards an oppression, sometimes without perceiving it. It is important to understand these two educational concepts because that way we can see the oppression, and might cause us to think a bit more about our education, encouraging us to take a few steps forward into demanding a more effective one.
Many novels challenges society’s ways, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley is one of these novels. The novel is about how the government, the World State, develops humans to believe in its model, “Community, Identity, Stability” (Huxley 1). In order to do this, the World State strips everybody of emotions, desires, and opinions. The novel is a satire of what society could become if technology became too great. Brave New World should be studied in school because it is a satire that challenges technology, human emotions, and society as a whole.
I’m blaming all of us as a whole because we have done this to ourselves and we just watched and let it happen. If “kids have convinced parents that it is the teacher or the system that is the problem, not their own lack of effort” (paragraph 10), where is the change in school administration rules to make the teachers, well, better teachers? Not only are we missing higher standards for our students, but also higher standards for teachers the district employs. If a teacher is unable to teach properly, how will the students ever learn correctly? It is almost as easy as a simple
According to this model students need limits that will guarantee their and other students’ rights. This model encourages teachers to set clear behavioral expectations and rules and establish consequences for students. They are to provide consistently
Their inability to comprehend can possibly lead to stress and frustration thus developing behavioural issues. Consequently, the fate of those students, as well as their peers, is jeopardized as a result of their scholastic incompetence. This practice has become an issue that threatens to strip America of its high rank. All the criteria taught in each grade is essential for future references. According to the Board of Education, 86% of the elements students learn in previous grades are used as a basis that is necessary in order to excel in further years.