The Banking Concept Of Education - Essay Example

The Banking Concept Of Education The “banking” concept of education is the one in which a teacher does not communicate but issues communiqués and deposits, something that the student has to receive patiently, memorize it and repeat it again and again. The students are only on the receiving end, their only scope, where they have to memorize what has been told to them and repeat it. Problem-posing Education In the problem posing education, a teacher is not only a person who teaches but also learns through dialogues with the students. Both teachers and the students are responsible for the learning process in which both of them grow. Applying Paolo Freire’s “Banking Concept of Education” to my own educational experience I went to a high school in China where there I got a chance to study with other students from different countries along with the local students. This made me experience studying in a multi-cultural environment for the first time. Everyone came with a general myth that studying abroad will be different compared to studying in their own country, especially students who came from the sub-continent. The first class looked very promising as we were told about how it would be like studying in China and what could be accomplished in future. As we proceeded, we got to know that we will be taught in the Chinese language and the students will have to acquire the education in that language only, albeit of their understanding of it or not. At first, the passion we had of studying abroad made us think of it as a challenge and we decided to be up to it. The teachers took delivered their lectures in their own way, only for us to wonder what he has spoken about. We first thought for a couple of days that its just a matter of time before we are actually able to understand everything just like the local students do but that time did not come any time soon. We were more concerned about our futures when we had discussions with our peers. The teacher’s seemed to follow only one rule: ‘it’s either my way or the highway’ and the students were supposed to listen only. If anyone argued with what he said or anything wrong with the way he taught, he had to go through really harsh words. The worst part was when a student’s ID card was taken to be submitted to the management so that a strong disciplinary action could be taken against him. We had no option rather than just to attend the lectures even though they were hardly of any benefit. The teacher seemed to be more like a dictator who dictated his terms and we were only supposed to follow to what he said, whether we understood it or not. As time passed we were more concerned about our academics as we were wasting our time and got to study nothing. We were never told about the policy of our school that the medium of language to be used will be Chinese only. The school did not seem to care about the academics of students and seemed to be more of a profit-oriented institution rather than an educational center. I remember once when I asked the teacher about the meaning of a sentence which was in Chinese. The teacher did understand and spoke English but he gave the answer in Chinese. As I could not understand to what he said, I told him to please answer in English. To this, he replied abruptly “I am not here to answer your questions, go learn Chinese”. All I could do was turn around and go back to my seat. One thing was pretty clear, it was that the teacher only had to choose the program content and the student had to adapt to it. He definitely seemed to confuse the authority of knowledge with his so called professional authority, which is set up in opposition to the student’s freedom. It was more of an ideal world in which the teacher knew everything and the students knew nothing, a world which in reality never existed. This banking concept of education regards students as adaptable and manageable human beings, who just have to be more of a ‘YES’ man to teachers. As Paulo states, this type of education leads to nothing, “the more the students work at storing the deposits entrusted to them, the less they develop the critical consciousness which would result from their intervention in the world as transformers of the world”. The teacher only used to enforce his choice and the students had to comply regardless of their will. Their used to be pin drop silence in the class when the teacher used to deliver his lecture. The teacher used to discipline and the students had to be disciplined. If anyone ever tried to break the bestowed law, he was entitled to face the music. The teacher is the one who acts and the students have the illusion of acting through the actions of the teacher. This type of education works well for the oppressors who do not care about the world being revealed and can not see it transformed. They do not want to experiment anything new in the existing educational system as they are more concerned about preserving a profitable institution. They only think about stimulating the faculty members who are critical and try to relate this reality to other problems in one way or the other. The students were not supposed to indulge in the concept of knowing but only had to memorize what had been the contents which were narrated by the teacher. They did not care about the understanding of the student, whether he understands Chinese or not, and were more concerned with getting through their lectures on daily basis. We were just forced to understand their language regardless of our will. Apart from us even the local students who did understand their language were not supposed to ask questions as it was considered strictly against the rules of the school. Paulo states: “In the name of preservation of culture and knowledge we have a system which achieves neither true knowledge nor true culture”. The banking education is more about anesthetizing and inhibiting creative power and attempts to maintain the submersion of consciousness. Knowledge is more of a gift for the ones who consider themselves knowledgeable compared to those whom they consider to know nothing. It was becoming more and more difficult to survive in our school. We went there and started to believe that we are unfortunately destined to it. We could not turn our backs to the school as our parents had paid a huge amount of money on our will to get us admitted in the school and they lived with pride back in their homelands that their children our studying in a renowned school of China. The only option we had was to survive in this cruel world of school dictatorship as it was the only way out. It also made an impression on us that studying at our own country would be beneficial as foreign schools are least concerned about students from abroad and the language they speak. The teacher was more of a subject of what was the learning process and we, the students, were the mere objects. He presents himself to the students as the necessary opposite. He does this by considering their ignorance as absolute while on the other hand he justifies his own existence. The students, however, have to accept the teacher’s existence and are bewildered in the world of alienation. As time passed, we were quite used to it. We sat in the class staring at the teacher in a way that he thought we were really concentrating on his lectures. Once it happened that one of the teachers did give me a good remark: “Good boy you are!” As I turned around, there were faces trying to control laughter as they knew that I didn’t use to get anything what the teacher said. This conditions and continuous exams made us quite used of how to prepare as we just had to memorize the terms which were in the text books in the exact way as they were written. This at least made sure that we somehow pass our examination. Even though we learnt nothing, our motive became just to pass and get rid of this school were we had wasted an important part of our lives. It was more of a system in which the bank had to pay dividends to its depositors, the teachers, and this way the students were always going to get ruined. The more we were accepting the passive role imposed on us, the more we were tending to simply adapt to the world in the way it is and to the fragmented view of reality which was being deposited in us. We were supposed to mechanically memorize the narrated content without making any arguments with the teacher. It made us more of the containers to be filled by the teachers in whatever way they like. The more completely the teacher fills the containers, the better the teacher he is. And the more meekly the containers permit themselves to be filled, the better the students we are. We as students are ourselves taken away through the lack of creativity, transformation and the pool of knowledge through this misguided system which was being practiced in our school. As time was passing, we got more adapted to the system and were not much concerned about what negative effects it was having on us. Our sole aim was to pass our exams by memorizing our text books and get done with our proclaimed degree. We were not concerned about what learning we were getting through this banking concept of education and teachers took us for granted. Apart from the praxis, students were not becoming true humans as they were not getting anything to learn which may help them in their lives later. Paulo states: “Knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other”. When a person absolutely ignores others, a characteristic which is the ideology of oppression, he also negates education and the knowledge as the processes of inquiry. Our motive was now to get through with this rigid life of schooling and according to the banking concept, close our account in the bank which was always non-profitable as far as acquiring knowledge was concerned. We were more inclined to live in democracy rather than being dictated. It was time for the bank to refuse the acceptance of deposits for its benefit. Somehow I was done with my school life with a passing grade and moved on to study elsewhere. My aim became to find a better place to study in which I get to learn something rather than sit in front of a dictator. Education was something which was bestowed in somewhat the traditional methods which lacked creativity and the teacher-student relationship was only one way in the vertical direction. However, there should be a solution of the teacher-student contradiction. This can be done by reconciling the poles of this contradiction in order to make both parties simultaneously teachers and students. Education which is suffering from narration sickness should be cured and made beneficial for not only the students but also the teachers as they learn simultaneously. BIBLIOGRAPHY Freira, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. 1970 Read More