Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Banking Concept of Education
I understand Freire's concerns with the banking concept. In todays education system many teachers are under the pressure to produce impressive numbers, but are also given difficult situations that may limit their ability to teach effectively. So to meet the expectations they often take short cuts when teaching. Instead of thoroughly going over concepts and methods, to ensure that a student is comprehending the material, they will instead quickly look through the material and teach the very basics of what they need to know. The students often recognize what is expected of them and work minimally to fully comprehend the subject, but instead work to memorize the facts and what is essential to know for the next "big" test. Once that test is done with and the teachers see an outcome they are comfortable with they will move on to the next lecture and the students will move on to the next set of facts to memorize. I can relate completely to the banking concept, because now that I look back at my high school education that is all it was. I would learn the material, study hours on end, ace the test, and then forget about everything is just jammed into my brain. I do not think that was a proper way to learn now that I find myself at a university that everyday challenges my critical thinking. Somewhere in the four years of high school I lost my sense of critical thinking. I was no longer asked to question what was being taught, or to express my opinions and concerns. This is where I agree with Freire. Not being able to think critically or outside of the box does oppress oneself in the sense of education. The banking concept inhibits creative thinking and instead "deposit facts". I believe that my memorization approach to learning has limited me in many ways that I was unaware of before coming to college. I find myself having difficulties writing and appropriately answering professors when they ask me to think critically of different subjects and topics. Something I now have to work towards to be a successful student.
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It is amazing isn't it that you get to college and its like we have to give you back your authority for thinking? High school (and before that) is about seeing how well students can "adapt" to a given situation. In other words, how well they can soak up information. The problem is that the most important knowledge in the world is not a set of facts, but rather how to deal with the facts. It is also to recognize that there is no "one authority" that is going to tell you what to do--what is meaningful in your life. No one has absolute authority to say "this is how the world works." Rather, even in academic disciplines, scholars debate about some fundamental questions of life, science, ethics, and politics (which are, by the way, not all separate entities).
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