Summary Of Banking Concept Of Education

“Banking Concept of Education” by Paulo Freire underlines the theme of miscommunication between students and the teacher. A lot of the passage is biased by the author, pointing fingers at both the student and teacher. The passage repetitively emphasizes that though teachers spout out important information, rather than learning the material, students purely memorize and then forget it instead. This fault is called the banking concept, which is contradictory to the point of education due to the give and take factor of students borrowing information but not utilizing it. Paulo Freire suggests the solution of problem-posing, meaning rather than seeing teachers as an authority who knows everything, the community should work together in striving for intellectualism.
In my experience as a student there
have definitely been classroom communities where not a single student made an effort to learn the material, but simply to memorize.
For example, my high school offered different science classes that did not correlate. Freshman year required biology, sophomore year I took chemistry, and senior year I took physics. While being in those classes, I know I “learned” a lot because I got A’s in all of them. However, if you were to ask me basic questions today about the science classes, I would not be able to answer the basic California state standards questions that they require we learn because I memorized facts, rather than translating it into knowledge.
Though I don’t know a lot about the educational state standards, I remember taking STAR Tests (Standardized Testing and Reporting) throughout elementary school, middle school, and part of high school. These tests strictly
consisted of multiple choice questions for English, math, and occasionally science. With that being said, I grew up with my intelligence being measured by statistics, considering I had a one in four chance of proving that I knew the answer. However, in middle school, education encountered a change: Common Core. My middle school teachers never properly explained common core to the students, they just said they had to teach them. Therefore, it just seemed like the new state standards for education, which is exactly what it turned out to be because we were still taking the STAR Test. Eventually, by my junior year, standardized testing was shaken up. The class of 2016 became the first to take the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC Test). The SBAC Test had a completely different structure, multiple choice as obliterated, the test was online, and for both English and Math, answers had to be explained through essays or short writings. Because the class of 2016 played as the guinea pigs for the SBAC, it was a learning experience for both the teachers and students because nobody knew what to expect. The test also gave an option to send ELM and EPT scores to colleges, which benefited me because my score exempted me from taking the MDPT placement test prior to college. Although the SBAC Test was easy to pass, the test itself was challenging solely because I had spent 13 years of my life choosing answers, not creating my own, let alone, explaining them.
Additionally, I believe students must realize how they learn best (auditory, visual, or kinesthetic) while teachers should ensure that their demonstrations appeal to all learning types and not just their own. In my experience as a peer tutor for struggling math students in high school, it became clear to me that it is not the fault of a single person that the material isn’t being communicated properly. Simply, it is consciousness, nobody teaches you how to think “correctly” or if there exists a correct way to think. What is the “correct” way to learn? Should teachers and students let state standards/common core limit their education?