The Banking Concept

The Banking Concept of Education:

Paulo Freire states “knowledge is a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable upon those whom they consider to know nothing” (139). He claims that in The Banking Concept of Education, the teachers treat the students as a bank in which they deposit information into them and the students never really get to think critically about the information they are learning. This method was widely used during the first twelve years of my formal education. The banking concept of education has not been a beneficial way of learning for me since it inhibited my creativity and ability to reason due to the fact that I was deposited with information from the teacher and told to memorize facts without understanding its true meaning.

Memorizing data without discussing its true meaning has handicapped my education and hindered my ability to reason. During my Economics class in year ten, I was intrigued by the various concepts that we learnt, especially the graphs of supply and demand and how they worked. I was very interested in the class and had a lot of questions for the teacher, but I was usually abruptly told to hold my questions till the end of class and these questions rarely got answered. Throughout the class, the teacher would emphasize the concepts and graphs he wanted us to memorize for the exam. Freire clearly stated that students in the banking concept were “not called upon to know, but to memorize the content narrated by the teacher” (324). By restricting me from asking questions in class at an early age and forcing me to memorize concepts, taught for exam purposes, I realized that for many years I lacked critical-thinking skills and the ability to reason. However, I mastered the ability to recall facts from class since that was the way to succeed at school.

The banking concept of education is more like a one-way street where the teachers give out information and the students accept it and do not question it, merely filling the minds of students with information. As Freire says, “The teacher’s task is to organize a process which already occurs spontaneously to “fill” the students by making deposits of information which he or she considers to constitute true knowledge” (321). Like my Economics class, instruction was based on the teacher teaching and us listening quietly. We were being spoon fed, and not challenged to think while the teacher was a figure of authority that we feared and did not question what they taught us. This meant that we did well in class by being diligent and attentive, not by asking questions or debating our point of views with the teacher. I did not see anything wrong with this initially, but soon realized that I was not very open to other peoples’ ideas, I found it difficult to express myself in a group, I did not have an opinion of my own and I could not challenge or question another person’s opinion or any given concept. I was so used to being deposited with information and having my thinking being conditioned to a certain way that I was not able to use my own mind to reason. This affected me greatly and for a long time, it made me feel inferior, until I had to unlearn that way of thinking and realize that I had my own thoughts and opinions and it was acceptable to express them. Therefore, the banking concept of education, to a great extent and for many years, has dwarfed my way of thinking and reasoning.