Paulo Freire

Paulo Freire
In the article “The ‘Banking’ Concept of Education” Freire talks about how education is no longer a pursuit of knowledge and authentic discovery, but a system that is used dominate human beings. Freire is a radical educational writer who promotes a classroom where teachers and students are equalized. In the essay, Freire criticizes the educational hierarchy and uses the allegory of a bank to describe the modern education system. A bank, as we all know, stores money, or in Freire’s case, information. “education thus becomes an act of depositing, in which the students are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor” (Freire, 260). What Freire meant by the word “depositing” and “depositories” is that education is no longer a way of exploration, testing, imagining and discovering. It is simply a collection of information. The banking system uses a hierarchy to differentiate the students and teachers from each other and promotes the strategy of tedious memorization as the mode of learning. Free thought and growing students are taken away and are being replaced by empty knowledge and automatons. “The more students work at storing the deposits entrusted to them, the less they develop the critical consciousness which would result from their intervention in the world as transformers of that world.”

Freire’s statements are true to some degree. The banking concept should not be enforced throughout a persons entire life, but it should also not be entirely eradicated. One problem in this article is that Freire himself overly dichotomizes the role between the teacher and the student. Throughout his essay he makes students look like blank canvases that are naïve to the world around them and are helpless to their “oppressors” influence. When in fact, students decide to be reticent and have not felt the need to step up and take matters into their own hands. The modern educational system may have flaws, but the student mentality and drive is also to blame for the lack of authentic curiosity and discovery. Students are not slaves of society, they are simply beings who have the choice to either challenge and change current circumstances or to live through by them.
Freire is very radical in his ideas and presumptions and assumes that all teachers are only in the education profession to control and exploit children for monetary values. He puts students on a pedestal, claiming that they should gain total equality with their mentors, while neglecting the fact that most of knowledge pertains to wisdom gained by experience and time. In general, adults have experienced more struggles, successes, and failures than children, therefore they have much to offer to the students. Indeed students also offer new and untraditional perspectives and ideas, but the traditional ways should still be retained. Just like everything else in the world, the future is improved by the mistakes and lessons learned from the past. Therefore, without the past, the future is nothing. Instead, Freire completely antagonizes teachers and the educational system “Oppression—overwhelming control—is necrophilic; it is nourished by the love of death, not life” (264, Freire). Freire’s bold statement shows how he is radicalized and overlooks the importance of “old education” and basic education. He files education under a category of control and knowledge-killing though he never proves or gives an example of such instances.
In the end, Freire presents a bold point about today’s educational system: it is a abomination due to the workings of the banking concept. Freire’s statements are correct until to a certain degree; there should be a balance between the banking concept and the problem posing method, not to “reject the banking concept in its entirety” (265). The problem posing method is when students and teachers have total equality and learn through problems reality. This is a more advanced way of learning that promotes free thought and consciousness of consciousness. When children are young and inexperienced, they need guidance and the right basic building blocks in order for them to create magnificent buildings of their own. Children aren’t born with all the experiences and building blocks they need to support themselves. Without the basic information that is mainly taught through memorization and instruction or the banking concept, students would build unstable structures, doomed for collapse. But once a student’s education has reached a threshold of independence, sufficient experience and basic knowledge, the education process should transition into the problem posing method. From there, a student can respond to challenges and gain new understandings. Once young adults have experienced a slice of life themselves, they can be considered equals to their instructors and create a relationship of simultaneous and synergistic education. There must be a balance between the banking concept and the problem posing method. The banking concept should not be overused as a tool of uniform thought, but should also not be completely disregarded as an abomination of education. Instead, the banking concept should be a basic tool kit for the problem posing method to utilize.