Banking Concept Of Education Summary

Katelyn Rudisill
ENG 111, Sec 303
10/07/14
A Response to “Paulo Freire’s ‘Banking Concept of Education’”
In Paulo Freire’s “The Banking Concept of Education”, arguments are made by Freire about politics in a classroom. Freire uses two different ideas to make these arguments. They are the Banking concept, in which students are seen as containers into which knowledge is deposited and the Problem-Posing concept, in which students and teachers participate in dialogue in order to create knowledge together. Freire uses great key points to show the similarities and differences of each education concept.
According to Freire, education is suffering from narration sickness, which means the teacher talks about reality as if it were nothing. The Banking Concept strongly possesses this narration sickness. This “sickness” makes the students feel alienated which means it is harder
for the students to learn. The word “Banking” refers to education becoming an act of depositing. The teachers are the depositors and the students are the depositories. This concept is not how the education system should be. Students will never learn from a teacher that just teaches the students. There is way more to teaching than that. It would be more helpful if the teachers would give the students certain topics or ideas to make the students think harder and to open the minds also. This Banking Concept according to Freire also makes the students feel as if the teacher knows everything which means the students know nothing. This makes the teachers more powerful over the students. The teachers sometimes over use this “power” against the students by depriving the rights to the student’s own purpose. The politics in a classroom using The Banking Concept of Education is clearly not how they should be.
The Banking Concept also refers to the students as objects and teachers as the “subject” of the learning process. This is called “necrophily”. A necrophilous person does not want things to grow, this person also has a desire to transform the organic into the inorganic. This means the students are to have a memory rather than an experience. This is what teachers make students do. Teachers take the creative minds of students and condemn the creative power. This makes students think like the teachers. Teachers should take the minds of students and open up ways to think more creatively. The Banking Concept of Education has a very good structure for a classroom, meaning the students still listen to the teachers and there are rules students still have to follow. But, the power teachers’ use should not be in the classrooms. Teachers should put this “power” behind and interact more with the students. That leads into the next idea Freire uses in his essay, the Problem-Posing Concept of Education.
Very different from the Banking Concept, Problem-Posing Education breaks with the vertical patterns characteristic of banking education.
According to Freire the teacher-of-the-students and the students-of-the-teacher no longer exist in this concept because a new term emerges: teacher-students with students-teacher. This means the teacher is no longer the one who just teaches, but one who teaches in dialogue with the students. This makes learning way easier and better for the students. The teacher and students are no longer necrophic, and jointly become responsible for growth in learning. The power in a classroom is no longer valid with the Problem-Posing Education because in order for a classroom to function properly this “power” needs to be set aside. This concept also does not dichotomize everything like the Banking Concept, which makes the relationship between the students and teacher stronger. The teacher spends more time interacting with the students and prepares the students for upcoming projects or assignments. The Problem-Posing Education also involves a constant unveiling of
reality. This shows that students are prepared for the real word by getting asked problems relation to themselves. Students develop a way to perceive critically the way they exist in the world, which is how students find themselves. Students are more likely to succeed using the Problem-Posing Education System.
These two educational concepts Freire writes about in his essay each have strong and weak qualities. The Banking Concept of Education makes the students feel like nothing while the Problem-Posing Education makes the students feel like someone who will be successful in life. Even if the Problem-Posing Education does not serve the interest of the teacher because the, this concept is better for the student. The teacher has to have some sort of power in a classroom, but the teacher needs to know how to control the power. But then again the teacher should use the teaching practices of the Problem-Posing Education. Each of these concepts help out in the classroom in different ways. The Banking Concept of Education shows good structure while the Problem-Posing Concept shows good ways to teach and interact with the students. Classrooms should use the structure and rules of the Banking Concept while the teacher should interact more with the students like in the Problem-Posing education. Each classroom is different in different ways, but both of these concepts are used in the classrooms every day.
Works Cited Bartholomae, David, and Tony Petrosky. "Paulo Freire 's "The Banking Concept of Education"" Ways of Reading: An Anthology for Writers. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin 's, 1999. N. pag. Print.