Compare Freires Education Thoughts to Enders Game - Essay Example

Freire describes these two versions by saying that “whereas banking education anesthetized and inhabits creative power, problem posing education involves a constant unveiling of reality. The former attempts to maintain the subversion of consciousness; the later strives for the emergence of consciousness and critical intervention in reality (Freire 71). While Ender’s education is certainly outward orientated, with his educators trying to pull things from within him rather than deposit things inside of him (resembling problem posing education), there remains a significant imbalance in power and goal between educator and learner (resembling the banking concept of education).

Throughout Ender’s Game Ender is educated by a character named Graff, who is in control of the Battle School that Ender attends. It is clear from the opening of the work that Graff is not a traditional “bank clerk” educator, because he recognizes the astounding ability of Ender and the supreme importance of allowing him to express it, but he does try to maintain a power balance similar to that of a bank clerk educator. Freire describes some of the many features of a bank clerk teacher in his work – things like “the teacher knows everything and the student knows nothing” or, “the teacher thinks and the students are thought about” (Freire 73).

These clearly do not describe Graff – he recognizes Ender has having abilities he does not (Card 29) and encourages Ender to think independently, for instance giving him a test of boys teasing him and not intervening (Card 26). So in these ways Graff does not fit the model of a bank clerk educator. On the other hand, he does try to control he power in the relationship, by doing things like “lying” to Ender (29) and actively manipulating Ender to get the results he, Graff, desires throughout the entire work.

This control and power is a hallmark of bank clerk education. So Graff is something of a hybrid educator – he recognizes the pedagogical weaknesses of the bank clerk educational process, so avoids it to allow Ender to reach is full potential, but he tries to keep deep control on him to determine what that potential leads to. Ender is clearly a creative person, and this creativity seems to come from within rather than from the games. One of the first hints as to the fact that Ender has inherent qualities, such as creativity, that are desirable, is how intensely Graff attempts to recruit him.

He mentions frequently that they “need” him, and refers to potential obstacles to his recruitment as “ruining everything” (37). But there are other cases when Ender’s creativity becomes apparent. But Ender again and again proves that Graff is right in ascribing these qualities to him – he frequently demonstrates behavior that he had never seen, which is the clear definition of creativity. In one battle, he “freezes his own legs” to provide a shield against the opponent, using his own disabled body to his advantage (87).

He then lists the things he had learned, in his time with his first army, which were entirely his own ideas (88). Ender is clearly quite creative, and though the games help him develop this, they do not instill it in him. Much like the commander that controls battle school, Graff, the school itself is something of