The Banking Concept of Education Summary

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Workman, Marina EN106 First Year Writing Seminar II: Academic Research and Writing Betty Nazarian 14 June 2015 Essay 1 Summary The essay, “The Banking Concept of Education,” from Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire, was written to make readers aware of the different problems within the education system. The problems begin with the relationship between the teachers and the students. Freire describes the teacher student relationship as narrative on all levels. “This relationship involves a narrating Subject (the teacher) and patient, listening objects (the students)” (Freire, 1993, para. 1). The teachers are the narrators and the students are programmed to memorize the narrated content. “Narration (with the teacher as narrator) leads the students to memorize mechanically the narrated content. Worse yet, it turns them into "containers," into "receptacles" to be "filled" by the teacher” (Freire, 1993, para. 4). As the teacher student relationship continues to be narrative it reveals itself like a banking system. Teachers are depositing information into the students’ minds just as a depositor deposits into a bank account. Students are taking the information and memorizing it rather than connecting with it and knowing why they are given this information. “Education thus becomes an act of depositing, in which the students are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor. Instead of communicating, the teacher issues communiques and makes deposits which the students patiently receive, memorize, and repeat. 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” (Freire, 1993, para. 5). The education system isn’t allowing students to utilize their brains for thinking but only for memorizing. Creating this type of institution oppresses students.

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