Summary Of The Banking Concept Of Education
In “The ‘Banking’ Concept of Education” essay, the author Paulo Freire talks about two concepts of education – The Banking Concept and The Problem-Posing Concept. While the first concept focuses more on memorization, the second concept focuses more on learning. Freire believes in schools, education is more about memorizing stuff these days. It’s more about filling up containers, i.e. the students, with deposits. Due to this very reason, Freire calls it the “Banking Concept”. In this paper, I will be talking about how the problem-posing method is so much better than the banking concept through a few experiences. In other words, I will be responding to his essay with the help of extension and conversation. I did my schooling in India,
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where for some people, grades were a huge thing. And it was not even their fault. The education system forced people to give more importance to grades than to learning. In India, the tenth and twelfth-grade examinations are considered to be the most important exams of any Indian student’s academic career.
They are termed as the “Board Exams”. In both these grades, there’s just one exam in the whole year. The whole year is spent trying to prepare students for just that one exam. Until the tenth grade, every student has to study every subject, i.e. – Mathematics; Science; Social Science, which comprises of History, Geography, Political Science and Economics; English; and either Hindi or Sanskrit. After getting the tenth-grade results, the students are allowed to choose which stream they want to pursue a career in. The streams are – The Science Stream, i.e. either Computer Science or a Biology stream; The Arts Stream, i.e. for people who wish to study history or geography or any of the other subjects of social science; and The Economics Stream, i.e. for people who want to study business or finance. Not everyone is allowed to choose the Science Stream in India. Only students with more than a certain percentage are allowed to choose the science stream. The other students have to choose something between the other two streams available. This is because Mathematics and Science subjects are given lot more importance than the Arts subjects. Science
students are “Good Students”. Arts and commerce students are the ones who do not study and are “notorious”. This is one of the major reasons why everyone is so hyper about getting good grades for their tenth board exams. The twelfth-grade board examinations are a whole other issue. All good Indian Universities such as the Indian Institutes of Technology and the National Institutes of technology require a good percentage in the twelfth board examinations. Not only that, schools compete with each other to get the highest number of students scoring above a 90% in both these examinations. This makes teachers very competitive. The school wishes to be termed as the school with the best teachers and the best students. In all this, teachers do not realize that sometimes instead of teaching students, they force them to memorize it. On page 27, the author says, “The more completely she fills the receptacles, the better a teacher she is. The more meekly the receptacles permit themselves to be filled, the better students they are.” While some of the students who score above 90% in their examinations understand what they have been studying, most do not – they only memorize it. They act as receptacles and meekly permit themselves to be filled, only to be termed as “better students” than others. On page 33, the author writes, “The teacher is no longer merely the-one-who-teaches, but one who is himself taught in dialogue with the students, who in turn while being taught also teach. They become jointly responsible for a process in which we all grow.” While some of my teachers followed the banking concept of teaching, I did have a few teachers who preferred to use the problem-posing method. One of my high school mathematics teachers would always say, “When I come to class, I expect to learn something from you guys, as much as, you guys wish to learn from me. So, I want you guys to talk and participate.” His classes are one of the major reasons I love Mathematics. My father is a professor of Soil-Physics in one of the Indian Institutes of Technology. Back home, every time I had a question in either Physics or Chemistry or any other subject, he would be the person I would go to. He would talk about how and why that particular concept came up, but he would never answer my question. I would get very annoyed, because I would think he is just beating around the bush. When I would demand to know the answer, he would just laugh and say, “Oh, you should go read that section of your book again or check it out on the internet and then come and talk to me”. This would irritate me even more. But, I would go do as he said. I would first read that section of the book, and to my surprise, I would understand it. I would very happily go and tell him that I understood it. Instead of the expected “Good job!”, he would ask me crazily weird questions regarding that topic. Being the competitive person I am, I would try answering his questions. On page 34, Freire says, “Whereas banking education anesthetizes and inhibits creative power, problem-posing education involves a constant unveiling of reality.” Again, on page 36, he says, “Problem-posing education bases itself on creativity and stimulates true reflection and action upon reality; thereby responding to the vocation of persons as beings who are authentic only when engaged in inquiry and creative transformation.” Trying to answer my father’s questions would get my mind on the roll, and I would ask questions too. Although I would be annoyed at first, as we would continue asking each other questions, I would learn that particular concept in so much more detail. After reading this essay, I realized that my father used the problem-posing method to get my brain working, thus forcing me to think critically and creatively.
On page 36, the author talks about how the problem posing education helps in demythologizing, while the banking education attempts to conceal certain facts which explain the way human beings exist in the world, by mythicizing reality. He talks about how the banking education resists dialogue, while in problem-posing is all about dialogue. He talks about how problem-posing is based on creativity, while the banking education inhibits creativity. Being a victim to the banking concept of education at my school in India, has proved all these points again and again. In my opinion, problem-posing is not only a concept of education which provides students with better understanding, but it also helps teachers to learn from their students and in the process, it creates a two-way learning process with questions thrown from both sides, which helps the everyone to dive deeper into a certain concept or idea.
On page 27 of the essay, Freire says, “Education is suffering from narration sickness.” This essay is a part of his famous book – The Pedagogy of the Oppressed. The book was published in the year 1968. This also means that it has been almost fifty years since he wrote the book. Even after, fifty years of this book being published, the “Banking” concept of Education still does exist, which is a shame.
where for some people, grades were a huge thing. And it was not even their fault. The education system forced people to give more importance to grades than to learning. In India, the tenth and twelfth-grade examinations are considered to be the most important exams of any Indian student’s academic career.
They are termed as the “Board Exams”. In both these grades, there’s just one exam in the whole year. The whole year is spent trying to prepare students for just that one exam. Until the tenth grade, every student has to study every subject, i.e. – Mathematics; Science; Social Science, which comprises of History, Geography, Political Science and Economics; English; and either Hindi or Sanskrit. After getting the tenth-grade results, the students are allowed to choose which stream they want to pursue a career in. The streams are – The Science Stream, i.e. either Computer Science or a Biology stream; The Arts Stream, i.e. for people who wish to study history or geography or any of the other subjects of social science; and The Economics Stream, i.e. for people who want to study business or finance. Not everyone is allowed to choose the Science Stream in India. Only students with more than a certain percentage are allowed to choose the science stream. The other students have to choose something between the other two streams available. This is because Mathematics and Science subjects are given lot more importance than the Arts subjects. Science
students are “Good Students”. Arts and commerce students are the ones who do not study and are “notorious”. This is one of the major reasons why everyone is so hyper about getting good grades for their tenth board exams. The twelfth-grade board examinations are a whole other issue. All good Indian Universities such as the Indian Institutes of Technology and the National Institutes of technology require a good percentage in the twelfth board examinations. Not only that, schools compete with each other to get the highest number of students scoring above a 90% in both these examinations. This makes teachers very competitive. The school wishes to be termed as the school with the best teachers and the best students. In all this, teachers do not realize that sometimes instead of teaching students, they force them to memorize it. On page 27, the author says, “The more completely she fills the receptacles, the better a teacher she is. The more meekly the receptacles permit themselves to be filled, the better students they are.” While some of the students who score above 90% in their examinations understand what they have been studying, most do not – they only memorize it. They act as receptacles and meekly permit themselves to be filled, only to be termed as “better students” than others. On page 33, the author writes, “The teacher is no longer merely the-one-who-teaches, but one who is himself taught in dialogue with the students, who in turn while being taught also teach. They become jointly responsible for a process in which we all grow.” While some of my teachers followed the banking concept of teaching, I did have a few teachers who preferred to use the problem-posing method. One of my high school mathematics teachers would always say, “When I come to class, I expect to learn something from you guys, as much as, you guys wish to learn from me. So, I want you guys to talk and participate.” His classes are one of the major reasons I love Mathematics. My father is a professor of Soil-Physics in one of the Indian Institutes of Technology. Back home, every time I had a question in either Physics or Chemistry or any other subject, he would be the person I would go to. He would talk about how and why that particular concept came up, but he would never answer my question. I would get very annoyed, because I would think he is just beating around the bush. When I would demand to know the answer, he would just laugh and say, “Oh, you should go read that section of your book again or check it out on the internet and then come and talk to me”. This would irritate me even more. But, I would go do as he said. I would first read that section of the book, and to my surprise, I would understand it. I would very happily go and tell him that I understood it. Instead of the expected “Good job!”, he would ask me crazily weird questions regarding that topic. Being the competitive person I am, I would try answering his questions. On page 34, Freire says, “Whereas banking education anesthetizes and inhibits creative power, problem-posing education involves a constant unveiling of reality.” Again, on page 36, he says, “Problem-posing education bases itself on creativity and stimulates true reflection and action upon reality; thereby responding to the vocation of persons as beings who are authentic only when engaged in inquiry and creative transformation.” Trying to answer my father’s questions would get my mind on the roll, and I would ask questions too. Although I would be annoyed at first, as we would continue asking each other questions, I would learn that particular concept in so much more detail. After reading this essay, I realized that my father used the problem-posing method to get my brain working, thus forcing me to think critically and creatively.
On page 36, the author talks about how the problem posing education helps in demythologizing, while the banking education attempts to conceal certain facts which explain the way human beings exist in the world, by mythicizing reality. He talks about how the banking education resists dialogue, while in problem-posing is all about dialogue. He talks about how problem-posing is based on creativity, while the banking education inhibits creativity. Being a victim to the banking concept of education at my school in India, has proved all these points again and again. In my opinion, problem-posing is not only a concept of education which provides students with better understanding, but it also helps teachers to learn from their students and in the process, it creates a two-way learning process with questions thrown from both sides, which helps the everyone to dive deeper into a certain concept or idea.
On page 27 of the essay, Freire says, “Education is suffering from narration sickness.” This essay is a part of his famous book – The Pedagogy of the Oppressed. The book was published in the year 1968. This also means that it has been almost fifty years since he wrote the book. Even after, fifty years of this book being published, the “Banking” concept of Education still does exist, which is a shame.