Paulo Freire The Banking Concept Of Education Summary

The Bank of High School
Paulo Freire’s essay “The Banking Concept of Education” talks about two methods of teaching. These methods are the banking concept and the problem-posing method. When it comes to the topic of education, most of us will readily agree that Freire makes a good point by saying students are used as “patient listening objects”. Where this agreement usually ends, however, is on the question of how the teacher and student roles can be reversed. Whereas some are convinced that teachers and students can learn equally from each other.
Throughout most of my education, unfortunately, my classmates and I were used as banks. The banking method comes to mind especially when I think back on jr. high and high school. My classmates
and I were definitely not treated like equals. We had no freedom and were just seen as immature. One of the biggest examples that I can think of is my junior year psychology teacher. This teacher in particular loved using the banking concept. He made it seem like he was open for new ideas but he would always shut anyone down who tried to challenge his statements. His opinion was the only opinion that mattered and he made his students feel stupid for thinking any different way.
The tests in this class were based on facts about psychology but he put his own definition behind them. They could not be interpreted in a different way. We were as Freire said “patient listening objects”. The way this teacher taught made most people resent him and made it so hard to even pay attention and actually learn anything about the subject. His classroom was a terrible learning environment and it felt like we were being alienated the whole hour and a half. We were being brainwashed into thinking just like him and learn about psychology through his eyes. He acted as though he was giving valuable information and preparing us for the world. It was more like he was preparing us for his version of the world, what he “knows”, and his experiences. We are not all the same. It was annoying to be categorized that we were.
Students should be encouraged to explore new ideas and be able to speak their thoughts and ask questions without being shut down or embarrassed.
I think the way Freire describes oppression is exactly what it felt like in this class. “Oppression- overwhelming control- is necrophillic; it is nourished by love of death, not life.”(220) The way a lot of teachers run their classroom is through complete control. There is little room for change and communication. Especially when students are required to read pages from a textbook and memorize all of the information. It’s overwhelming having to read a few pages and have to engrave it into our minds so we can get a decent grade on a test. This teacher made us feel like we were all on a lower level than him. He really loved making his students feel like we didn’t have any idea about anything and had no motivation. He went as far as saying he was worried for our generation and he was seriously concerned we weren’t going to make it in the world. He told us he was scared what was going to happen in the future with the world in our hands. He was just filling our minds with these really discouraging thoughts and definitely not using the problem-posing method to treat us like
equals. He would almost scare us into thinking we weren’t going to make it at any rate. He was paranoid and he wanted us to be too. I remember being so scared during that month with the suspicions of North Korea and their nuclear bombs. This teacher made us think that we needed to be prepared and that it needed to not be ignored because he truly believed it was going to happen. It was a terrible environment to learn in. We weren’t learning we were just being drilled with these crazy ideas. Another thing that affected our learning experience is that he was frequently gone. He was a basketball coach and that meant the world to him. In my opinion, his coaching came first before his teaching. There is no way to develop a real teacher-student relationship if the teacher is never there. Even when he was there I don’t believe we as students were getting the education we deserved. If we weren’t writing down a crazy amount of notes from his power points and listening to his thoughts on the world, we were watching some kind of movie that had no educational benefit about psychology to us.
After being forced to listen to his opinions, we were given pages to read out of our textbook. He would assign them to us at the end of class and we would all sit in silence and try to interpret and memorize the words. We had no discussion about the readings so we were forced to understand it on our own. Many students, including myself, would just skim the page and look for the highlighted words and be done. By doing this, we only knew what the definitions of the words were and not how they are applied to real life and our world.
Freire says that teachers should relate their teaching to their students’ own worlds, not force their views on their students. This particular teacher never showed an example of “reflection”. He was an example of how the relationships that are created between teachers and students are not equal and the roles can never be reversed. To change this, Freire says, “To resolve the teacher-student contradiction, to exchange the role of depositor, prescriber, domesticator, for the role of student among students would be to undermine the power of oppression and serve the cause of liberation.” Students need freedom from being limited on their thoughts and should be encouraged to create original thoughts.
When teachers relate to their students, they are not only helping them learn in a way that grabs their attention but they are also gaining their students’ respect. Teachers need to be open to their students’ ideas in order for their relationship to reflect and allow their roles to be exchanged. Learning in an environment where students feel they can voice their opinions is so important for education. Students should not feel threatened by their teachers and scared to even ask a question.
In Freire’s article he says, “Through dialogue, the teacher-of-the-students and the students-of-the-teacher cease to exist and a new term emerges: teacher-student with students-teachers.” In discussions of education, one controversial issue has been dialogue. On the one hand, teachers argue that students do not want to have discussion because they are uninterested in the topic. On the other hand, students contend that they would be more interested if they were asked to voice their ideas. My own view is that dialogue is such a key part in a successful classroom. Many more of the students in my psychology class would have succeeded if my teacher had used more dialogue rather than just lecturing all period. It allows everybody to voice their opinion and add on to and build off of each other’s ideas.
I have been introduced to banking and problem-posing styles of teaching and I would pick problem-posing every time.
The freedom makes students want to learn and want to voice their ideas. We don’t have to sit back and just listen to what our teachers are trying to make us memorize. In problem-posing education students get the opportunity to create original thoughts and explore different ideas.
If problem-posing education is to be achieved, teachers need to let their students think for themselves and work with them as equals. Teachers should always try to involve every student in the class and get everybody’s idea. Every opinion should be considered and not shutdown. The whole class should work together to find the right answer or interpret a reading. It is rewarding for both the students and the teachers when a student succeeds.
If my teacher had used any of Freire’s methods I think the class would have been much more interesting and his students would want to show up and actually learn. Learning is completely different from just memorizing material from a textbook or notes from a power point. Students should not be used as “containers” and “patient listening-objects”. Teachers need to involve their students in a way that means something to them in order to have a successful classroom. Teachers aren’t the only ones who have a voice; students deserve to be
heard.

References
Freire, Paulo. “The Banking Concept of Education.” Ways of Reading. 10th ed. Ed. David Bartholomae, Anthony Petrosky, and Stacey Waite. Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2014. 216-226. Print.