Banking Concept of Education

"The Banking Concept of Education" In Freire's "The Banking Concept of Education" he discusses how education is an act of depositing information into student's minds. It is a process where students receive, memorize, and repeat information. This type of system takes away from creativity, transformation, and knowledge in a person. The banking concept allows for educators to oppress and dominate their students. The more students store the deposits of information, the less they develop the critical consciousness to transform the world. In the writing, Freire uses two terms drawn from Marxist literature: praxis and alienation. Freire describes liberation as being "praxis", which can be defined as the action and reflection of men and women upon their world in order to transform it. This means they must use and communicate their knowledge to make change in the world. This term can be applied to the banking method and the study of education. The banking method is a system in which educators regulate and control the way the world enters into the students. The students receive the world as a passive entity, causing them to adapt to the world rather than transform it. Those who reject the banking concept reject domination, and allow themselves to be liberated. They abandon the system of depositing information and replace it with new ways of interpreting and communicating knowledge. Liberating education consists in acts of cognition, not transferrals of information, where they can use there consciousness to solve problems and make change in the world. Alienation is a term Freire uses that could be defined as an act of isolating a person of their knowledge and oppressing them of their individuality. Alienation can also be applied to the banking method and study of education. Educators that practice the banking method prevent students from engaging in the process of inquiry. They control what people know and how they think. The students knowledge is limited and can