The Banking Concept Analysis
Isabelle Gorman
Prof. Rose
ENG 1310
September 23, 2014
The Banking Concept Have you ever gone into a class, sat down, staring at the teacher, bored out of your mind? If this rings true for you, then you are familiar with Paulo Freire's "banking concept". The banking concept is an educational technique where teachers deposit information into students' minds. I believe that this system does not work because the students never really have to understand what they are learning. Students just have to sit through a class, remember what the teacher tells them for the test, and never have to remember that information ever again. My high school AP environmental science class used the banking system and failed because it was memorization based, …show more content…
it lacked creativity, and had limited open discussions.
This class was very memorization based, which made me realize that I only had to know certain things for a test out of everything that Mrs.
Gilbert, my AP environmental science teacher, taught me. Every time we were about to take a test, she would offer a study session, in which she would literally give us the question and answer to everything on the test. All we had to do was memorize the question and the answer and we could easily ace the test. I never really learned anything in that class. She expected us to take in all the information, put it off to the side in our minds, and then remember it for the test a few weeks later. I never truly had to understand the material being taught to us. If Mrs. Gilbert had made sure we understood the material, as opposed to just memorizing everything, I would have actually wanted to learn the material she taught …show more content…
us.
One of the worst things about this class was that fact that it lacked creativity, which made me uninterested in the class altogether. She made us copy her notes word for word and a lot of the times, they didn't make any sense. She would make sure no one would fall asleep in her class, but she turned off the lights when we were taking notes, so it was hard to stay awake. Especially when we didn't know what she was talking about half of the time. We never got to do any kind of project or experiment that would have helped us understand what she was teaching us. A lot of times we would all be sitting there looking more and more confused the more we wrote her notes. Then, we would try to ask questions, but she would never really answer them, so we eventually just stopped asking questions. Because the class lacked creativity, I believed that everything she told us was not important enough to remember after the test.
Every day that I had that class, I would walk in, sit down, and take out my notebook to take notes from the beginning of class to the end.
Any time that we wanted to ask questions about something she was talking about, she would tell us to wait until after class to ask her. We didn't have any open discussions or class debates about a topic. We never got to hear other people's opinions, which was troublesome because there are a lot of debatable topics in environmental science. When we got to the section about global warming, I got excited because I thought that she would finally have a class debate. I got disappointed when I walked in and saw a TV in the front of the room. We watched Bill Gates' movie about global warming, which was the only thing we did for the whole topic of global warming. Due to the lack of open discussion about topics, I felt that everything we learned was
one-sided.
The banking system is a cruel education technique because it is robbing the students of a good education. My high school AP environmental science class was a good example of why the banking system doesn't work. This is because we only had to memorize certain things out of everything that she taught us, we never got to do anything creative and fun to help us understand the material, and we never had open discussions on anything she taught us. If just a few things would have changed in that class to make it more exciting and made me want to learn the material, than this class would have been better for me and the other students. There are ways to get around the banking system in all classes, even a class that is very fact based. I believe that students will do better overall in school if the banking system got cut out of education completely. Students would have more interest in the class and would receive higher grades in the class because they actually understand the material being taught to them. Therefore, the banking system is an unsuccessful technique that should never be used by any teacher ever again.
Prof. Rose
ENG 1310
September 23, 2014
The Banking Concept Have you ever gone into a class, sat down, staring at the teacher, bored out of your mind? If this rings true for you, then you are familiar with Paulo Freire's "banking concept". The banking concept is an educational technique where teachers deposit information into students' minds. I believe that this system does not work because the students never really have to understand what they are learning. Students just have to sit through a class, remember what the teacher tells them for the test, and never have to remember that information ever again. My high school AP environmental science class used the banking system and failed because it was memorization based, …show more content…
it lacked creativity, and had limited open discussions.
This class was very memorization based, which made me realize that I only had to know certain things for a test out of everything that Mrs.
Gilbert, my AP environmental science teacher, taught me. Every time we were about to take a test, she would offer a study session, in which she would literally give us the question and answer to everything on the test. All we had to do was memorize the question and the answer and we could easily ace the test. I never really learned anything in that class. She expected us to take in all the information, put it off to the side in our minds, and then remember it for the test a few weeks later. I never truly had to understand the material being taught to us. If Mrs. Gilbert had made sure we understood the material, as opposed to just memorizing everything, I would have actually wanted to learn the material she taught …show more content…
us.
One of the worst things about this class was that fact that it lacked creativity, which made me uninterested in the class altogether. She made us copy her notes word for word and a lot of the times, they didn't make any sense. She would make sure no one would fall asleep in her class, but she turned off the lights when we were taking notes, so it was hard to stay awake. Especially when we didn't know what she was talking about half of the time. We never got to do any kind of project or experiment that would have helped us understand what she was teaching us. A lot of times we would all be sitting there looking more and more confused the more we wrote her notes. Then, we would try to ask questions, but she would never really answer them, so we eventually just stopped asking questions. Because the class lacked creativity, I believed that everything she told us was not important enough to remember after the test.
Every day that I had that class, I would walk in, sit down, and take out my notebook to take notes from the beginning of class to the end.
Any time that we wanted to ask questions about something she was talking about, she would tell us to wait until after class to ask her. We didn't have any open discussions or class debates about a topic. We never got to hear other people's opinions, which was troublesome because there are a lot of debatable topics in environmental science. When we got to the section about global warming, I got excited because I thought that she would finally have a class debate. I got disappointed when I walked in and saw a TV in the front of the room. We watched Bill Gates' movie about global warming, which was the only thing we did for the whole topic of global warming. Due to the lack of open discussion about topics, I felt that everything we learned was
one-sided.
The banking system is a cruel education technique because it is robbing the students of a good education. My high school AP environmental science class was a good example of why the banking system doesn't work. This is because we only had to memorize certain things out of everything that she taught us, we never got to do anything creative and fun to help us understand the material, and we never had open discussions on anything she taught us. If just a few things would have changed in that class to make it more exciting and made me want to learn the material, than this class would have been better for me and the other students. There are ways to get around the banking system in all classes, even a class that is very fact based. I believe that students will do better overall in school if the banking system got cut out of education completely. Students would have more interest in the class and would receive higher grades in the class because they actually understand the material being taught to them. Therefore, the banking system is an unsuccessful technique that should never be used by any teacher ever again.