Banking Concept Of Education - Essay Example

BANKING CONCEPT OF EDUCATION Freire’s banking concept opened my eyes to new things that I never understood before. The banking concept that made students as containers was something familiar to me. In Saudi Arabia this was the teaching methods widely used. Even though I never realized it, I knew there was something wrong with the way we were getting information. Mastering the science of memory has become part and parcel of student’s learning processes in recent times. The ability to recall facts from their classroom makes the differences between success and failure in most schools. Memorization of vocabulary cards, outlines, overhead notes, and harvested concepts will enable students to achieve the expected “A” marks (Freire Paulo, 59). In Saudi Arabia, many of the students and educators have not realized that this system of education is not just ineffective, but to a larger extent harmful. Going to our classes, we all had one goal in mind getting as much information for the test and getting out. Now that I am studying in America I realized how it is. The whole situation seems like feeding us information on a silver spoon. We were expected to stay quiet for the whole 60 minutes. Not knowing that it was wrong, we did what we were told to do. In the essay, The Banking Concept of Education, Paulo Freire argues that modern education is widely recognized as a chance for teachers to feed students with information as the students submissively accept it. In my years as a submissive recipient of information both in the Saudi Arabia and USA, I have come across numerous educators who fit Freire’s cynical description (Freire Paulo, 13). However, not teachers are the same, in that I have also realized a professor whose style of teaching is different from those Freire scorns, and she created a beautiful environment and splendid environment during the learning process. Her methods proved that it is very possible to develop a learning environment where students do not suffer from “narration sickness”. Freire’s book touches on numerous topics that we have discussed in class. The most interesting line that caught my attention was, the educated individual is the adapted person, because he is better ‘fit’ for the world.” This line reminded me of the need to be critical thinkers and be good users of our knowledge. The class that changed my opinion of education was the chemistry class. The professor, who was as highly educated as the rest of the faculty educators, initially stacked to the idea that she could learn as much from us the students as we from her. Freire demonstrates a number of qualities of the Banking Concept of Education, and argues these qualities are available in each and every classroom, and are reflected by “oppressive society in general” (Freire Paulo, 75). One of the first qualities demonstrated by Freire is that: the educator educates and the learner is taught. In our chemistry class, the professor had very little to do with the learning process. Every student submitted a new chemistry models every week, and our peers in the class provided with a feedback on our work. The professor was just there to show guidelines and to expound on complex chemistry concepts that we could not understand as a class, and to ask leading questions to prompt discussion. By reading our work and having the students explain to her, the professor also learned many things (Freire Paulo, 43). This logic is firmly related to Freire’s second listed quality which states that: the educator knows everything and the learner knows nothing. However, since most of the feedback came from other students, it was usually the opinion of students that was valued highly in the class. According to Freire, knowledge arises only through invention and reinvention, through impatient, restless, continuing, inquiries pursued by human being in the world, with the world and with each other. That is, true comprehension can only be fashioned though questioning, conversation, and sharing of one’s interpretations by everyone in the class. In this regard, Freire calls for a level playing field, or what my teacher called “mutual humanity” (Freire Paulo, 67). The professor’s work was laid out for examination as well, so we were given a chance to think about her lectures, how they differed or likened from our chemistry models, and the most useful thing to remember about the lectures. The syllabus was the only demonstration that the professor did without including us. This was necessary to give the much needed direction of the course. However, she still gave us the freedom to deviate from the syllabus most of the time if we were not motivated by the options she presented to us. It is therefore a fiction to claim that in a learning environment, the teacher’s role is to talk and the student’s is to listen. As mentioned above, our professor did little talking because it was up to the students to give honest and detailed feedbacks about their peer’s work. In my opinion, I think low standards of education in most parts of Saudi Arabia are caused by Banking Concept of Education as discussed Freire. This has made most students not to come to school are they fear the workload they are going to undertake in class, and hence dropping out in schools and not giving success a chance. By operating in this sense it limits the students from attaining their full potential (Freire Paulo, 30). It is not true to claim that all schools in Saudi Arabia are characterized by the Banking Concept of Education. There are some schools that had not applied this method and in the process their students have enjoyed a lot of wonderful environment in classroom. For me, in my high school I was in the American diploma system. I know it could have been more useful to us as students not to understand everything by shoving the information down our throats. Using the banking concept was not the right thing to do as educators. Giving student the idea that they have a say in the class is a hard thing for schools in Saudi Arabia to do, sticking to old ways and method as all third world countries do. Operating the banking method of education is the only way in my opinion they know how to teach which is a huge disaster because student aren’t getting as good of an education as they deserve only to serve the country’s selfish needs not to expand and be more of an open country rather then a conservative one. Having Saudis to freely express their thinking is the way to go. As a student in high school I never understood why we were missing good education, my job was to attend class and do the best I could to accomplish the goals of a student, which was a struggle and now I know why. The banking concept was the first step for controlling the nation (Freire Paulo, 31). Education is a practice of freedom. The learning process is liberating and hence should be undertaken in an environment where the practice of domination is not evident.  Freire states, “Education denies that man is abstract, isolated, independent, and unattached to the world” (Freire Paulo, 89). Ideally, a liberating educational method should be applied in classroom. Having gone through two systems of education in two different countries, I comply with Freire’s idea that problem posing education focuses on ideas that have practical application of concepts or theories learned through education. When we are faced with problems as opposed to the information only, the learning process becomes more practical and less alienated. The students are pitted with the obligation of critical thinking when there is no correct answer. In nutshell, education should provide tools and practice in critical thinking for students as opposed to absolute answers. Work cited Freire, Paulo. The Banking Concept of Education. Ways of Reading. 8th ed. Bartholomae, David and Anthony Petrosky. Boston: Bedford- St. Martin’s, 2008. 242-254. Print. Read More