The Banking Concept Of Education Summary

In Paulo Freire’s work, The Banking Concept of Education, he expresses that the modern education system is similar to that of a banking system because students are not learning despite taking notes and attending class all the time, they are information banks that take down information but don’t retain anything; Students have become robots. This is another fault in the education system aside from the discrepancy in education due to socioeconomic status. "Education thus becomes an act of depositing, in which the students are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor (Freire, 72)." If professors don’t have enthusiasm or passion for what they are teaching then how can students reciprocate the same passion for learning? There is no connection
between the professor and their students. It’s more like I talk, you listen. Modern learning has become a cycle of cramming, memorizing, and forgetting once the exams are over.
If school has taught me anything, it would be that if you follow the rules then it will bring you success. You have to go to school, work hard, attend college so you can get a good job, and live a happy, average life. The path is laid out for us to follow. We aren’t learning to gain knowledge, but rather to find self-worth in grades to receive a piece of paper that measures our qualifications while burdening ourselves deeper into student debt. Students, nowadays, have skyrocketing student debt to pay for this “education” so they could in return, get a job to pay back the debt they acquired from receiving an “education.” By following this path, human and social capital is acquired but at the loss of gaining real knowledge. Applying sociological imagination, I have become a robot like everyone else by conforming to what education has created of me. It has taught to me to think a certain way and to not stray from the norm. Conformity forces us all to act and think in similar fashion in addition to education enforcing these ideas, individualism is not advised. In a lecture full of students where nobody questions anything, it is out of the ordinary for a student to start a debate with a professor or if someone decides that they aren’t going to attend college, society perceives them as lazy and stupid. If someone decides to be an art major or anthropology major, they are told that they would never get a job and that they should choose something more practical like engineering or computer science. The education system teaches you how to be a good worker for society and to benefit the economy, but not how to satisfy your own individual needs. If I followed my passion, I wouldn’t be here at Binghamton University. I would be at FIT studying fashion with my heart on my sleeves but in truth, I’m too afraid to sacrifice the “safe route” to success because I’ve been conditioned by society to think that following your passion is silly. Societal expectations of me have forced me to forego my passion and to follow the conventional life map with the rest of the herd. I’m positive that I’m not the only one in this lost generation. If Mark Zuckerberg or Elizabeth Holmes didn’t follow their passion and ignored society’s doubts, even if it meant taking the unconventional route to success and dropping out of college to do so because they knew they would succeed, they wouldn’t be who they are today. The education system forces us to think that there is one clear path to success and many of us believe this because they have already stifled our ability to be imaginative, creative, and to think for ourselves. In modern education, it is almost as if the more we get more educated, the more we get uneducated.
I am neither Black nor am I White, I am Asian.
Yet, Asians do not receive the same lack of opportunities compared to other minority groups but also not held in the same light as to someone who is White. Being at Binghamton University where the faculty is 80% White and the students are 68.3% White (Martin & Pragacz, 2013). I could sit in a lecture full of students and be the only Asian. Although, I don’t think I feel as out of place as opposed to if I were Black. The Black student population on campus is only 7.3%. My friend, who is a person of color, told me, “It is hard being a person of color on campus.” I don’t experience the same struggles because although Asians are minorities, we are the “model minority.” It’s a strange concept because it promotes this idea that Asians are the superior minority group because of the stereotypes that we’re hard working, docile, and passive. Asians have displayed the ability to assimilate into White culture as well as letting go of the past where they were mistreated and racialized by Whites, while Blacks have had a harder time doing the same. With that being said, it’s not to say that I’ve never been prejudiced against. Despite being the “model minority,” there are many barriers for Asians to overcome such as affirmative action, the glass ceiling, or even the presence of Asians in the media or politics – it’s close to nil. While affirmative action helps other minority groups, it works against Asians and keeps them from attending prestigious universities despite having the qualifications for
it.
Schools continue to reinforce inequality between people whether it be the rich and the poor or Whites and Blacks, it is a brain-washing institution. Education, its villainous counterpart, proves that the more we progress by attaining all these degrees, the further back we go. The lost generation will never be able to free themselves from these shackles until we break the mentality that attending school is not the same as receiving proper education. We are worth more than our fancy schools and degrees, we are individuals who are capable of so much more than what education and society has set in stone for us. Despite it being decades since the abolishment of segregation, the divide has grown further apart than ever before. We have been backed up into a corner to think that we are unable to change society, but together we can work to rid these engines of inequality and homogeneity.