Summary Of The Banking Concept Of Education

n our society, we’d like to think that we as humans perform critical thinking on a daily basis, contributing to the world around us. Critical thinking is essential in providing the best atmosphere for ourselves and those to come after us. The heart of the ability to creatively, critically think for ourselves starts at an education level. In Freire’s, “The Bank Concept of Education” he discusses just that- the ability to free think and apply it to our reality. We are going to address Freire’s work in analyzing the “banking concept” and the “problem-posing concept”.Our very knowledge starts right within the educational system as this is our beginning of understanding. In “The Banking Concept of Education”, Freire addresses the issue of teacher-student
Instead of communicating, the teacher issues communiques and makes deposits which the students patiently receive, memorize and repeat.” (Freire, para 5). You can probably see how this is an issue. This requires little to no critical thinking for the individual student. Therefore, they will never learn to apply the concepts they are learning to their own reality, leaving little impact on the world they live in. The opposite of the “banking method” is to promote critical thinking and the structure that creates all men and women into creative thinkers and individuals who can better suit society, otherwise termed by Freire as “problem-posing concept”. Through this concept Freire states that the roles of teacher-student should be adaptable to reverse, “Yet only through communication can human life hold meaning. The teacher’s thinking is authenticated only by the authenticity of the students’ thinking.” (Freire, para 21). As we can see, it is very important to be able to hold the “problem-posing concept” within our classrooms as it is the foundation of our humanism to critically, creatively think; “The solution is not to ‘integrate’ them into the structure of oppression, but to transform that structure so that they