Response to Paulo Freire’s The “Banking” Concept of Education
I believe our education system has failed to allow students to achieve their full
potential. This system has also opened the door for propaganda to be spread in
classrooms. That is why I agree with Freire when he said, ”The capability of the
banking education to minimize or annul the students’ creative power and to
stimulate the credulity serves the interests of the oppressors, who care neither to have
the world revealed nor to see it transformed”. I do not understand all of Paulo
Freire’s concepts yet, and many seem extreme to me, however I have seen how the
“Banking “ system can suppress as well as altered students’ thoughts and
beliefs. I think that due to the banking system of education students are forced
into making performance goals, each semester, to keep a good quantified result
of how smart they are. In John Tagg’s article, Why Learn? : What We May
Really be Teaching StudentsHe spoke about how types of goals tended to
affect learning, when he said,”Those who set performance goals tend to take a
surface approach to learning; those who set learning goals tend to take a deeper
approach.” When people are ranked quantitatively by their Grade Point Average to
show how smart they are, they tend to want to get a high grade therefore setting
a performance goal. Even though the G.P.A. does not adequately represent
knowledge and understanding. Students should be learning more of the concepts
behind the answers. In the “banking”system even some old students that are now
teachers do not understand a lot of these fundamental concepts. In this way I
feel we have taken a step backwards in education. We need a way to influence
more student’s into making more learning goals as apposed to performance goals,
by doing so we can give them a deeper understanding of concepts that can be used
in many different aspects of life. Freire posed a method of education called
“Problem-posing” where teachers and students are in dialogue instead of the
teacher solely narrating the class.“Problem-Posing” education reminds me of the
method which the philosopher Socrates used to teach his students, his method was
to ask series of questions to encourage fundamental insight into different
ideas. I like the“problem-posing” idea, but I’m not sure how history could be
taught with this method. Maybe we need some sort of individualized balance
between different types of education to have each student reach their full
potential.
Works Cited
Freire, Paulo. "The "Banking" Concept Of Education." In Composing
Knowledge Readings for College Writers, by Rolf Norgaard,
239-251.
Tagg, John. Why Learn?
What We May Really Be Teaching Students.
2004.
I believe our education system has failed to allow students to achieve their full
potential. This system has also opened the door for propaganda to be spread in
classrooms. That is why I agree with Freire when he said, ”The capability of the
banking education to minimize or annul the students’ creative power and to
stimulate the credulity serves the interests of the oppressors, who care neither to have
the world revealed nor to see it transformed”. I do not understand all of Paulo
Freire’s concepts yet, and many seem extreme to me, however I have seen how the
“Banking “ system can suppress as well as altered students’ thoughts and
beliefs. I think that due to the banking system of education students are forced
into making performance goals, each semester, to keep a good quantified result
of how smart they are. In John Tagg’s article, Why Learn? : What We May
Really be Teaching StudentsHe spoke about how types of goals tended to
affect learning, when he said,”Those who set performance goals tend to take a
surface approach to learning; those who set learning goals tend to take a deeper
approach.” When people are ranked quantitatively by their Grade Point Average to
show how smart they are, they tend to want to get a high grade therefore setting
a performance goal. Even though the G.P.A. does not adequately represent
knowledge and understanding. Students should be learning more of the concepts
behind the answers. In the “banking”system even some old students that are now
teachers do not understand a lot of these fundamental concepts. In this way I
feel we have taken a step backwards in education. We need a way to influence
more student’s into making more learning goals as apposed to performance goals,
by doing so we can give them a deeper understanding of concepts that can be used
in many different aspects of life. Freire posed a method of education called
“Problem-posing” where teachers and students are in dialogue instead of the
teacher solely narrating the class.“Problem-Posing” education reminds me of the
method which the philosopher Socrates used to teach his students, his method was
to ask series of questions to encourage fundamental insight into different
ideas. I like the“problem-posing” idea, but I’m not sure how history could be
taught with this method. Maybe we need some sort of individualized balance
between different types of education to have each student reach their full
potential.
Works Cited
Freire, Paulo. "The "Banking" Concept Of Education." In Composing
Knowledge Readings for College Writers, by Rolf Norgaard,
239-251.
Tagg, John. Why Learn?
What We May Really Be Teaching Students.
2004.