Writing Response to Freire Article - Essay Example

 Writing Response to Freire Article The Brazilian educator, Paulo Freire, has made a tremendous contribution on moving towards progressive practice. Currently, his work, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, is one of the most used educational texts. Freire was capable of weaving together, and draw upon a number of components of taking into consideration practice and liberation. He used the term banking education to critique and describe the conventional system of education. This term depicts students as containers which are empty, and tutors must fill with information and knowledge.

This process promotes lack of knowledge ownership and critical thinking in students, which in turn causes oppression. Additionally, he describes this education as one which the teacher is the subject and students as passive objects (Freire 13). This makes education a course of depositing information to passive students. This paper will look at the banking concept of education. The article brings into focus a number of essential points. First, Freire highlights the notion of dialogue. His emphasis on dialogue has adversely affected those concerned with informal and popular education.

According to him, dialogue should not be based on one individual acting on another, but rather individuals cooperating with one another (Freire 43). He argues that much of education involves the educator depositing knowledge to the on e he or she is educating. Second, there is the issue of praxis. Praxis entails an informed action. Dialogue should not only be about increasing understanding but also to contribute to changing the world. Dialogue should also entail respect. The dialogue process is essential and should promote community and capital, social, and direct people to act in ways that go towards justice and human prosperity.

Freire’s contribution is highly welcomed as popular and informal tutors have for long advocated for action. Third, Freire’s interest of naming the world has been of immense importance to the tutors who have always worked with the oppressed. Building pedagogy of the oppressed and advocating for it has increased the motivation to work. He promoted this by being concerned with conscientization. Fourth, he insisted on situating educational practices in the lived understanding of the participants.

This has brought possibilities in the approach of practice by educators. For example, He was concerned with searching for words that could establish new ways of acting and naming in the universe when working with persons all over literacies (Freire 36). Finally, he also used metaphors derived from Christian literature, for instance, the transcending of the divide between teachers and learners. I agree with the description of the banking system of teaching. A great deal of the banking education is predicated to the teacher-student relationship.

Teachers are perceived to be the authority and students the people who are oppressed. According to Freire, the students are taught, and the teachers teach (Freire 41). This means the students do not know a single thing while the teachers know everything. It is only one way in the banking education system. Students are not assessed for their reflections or opinions on the affair at hand. This brings forward symbiotic relationship. In my case, a teacher introduces a concept in the class but the students are the ones who are to ask questions, find answers, and engross themselves in the conception.

The article demands a lot from the teachers as it perceives them as the owners of knowledge. Adopting Freire’s theories would transform teaching. In order to advance critical and free learning, educators should establish the state for dialogue that promotes the epistemological interest of the student. Freire, in his dialogic action theory, differentiates between dialogical actions that promote liberation, understanding, and cultural creation; and non-dialogic actions that distort communication, reproduce power, and deny dialogue (Freire 66).

In addition, using Freire’s theories, the teachers and student roles turn out to be less structured, and both employ acts of dialogic enhancement to efficiently discover information from one another. Moreover, the adoption of the theories would promote sharing of interpretations, questioning, and conversation by everyone in the classroom. The use of Freire’s methods would change how students are taught. This will also have demands for the students, as opposed to the banking system. The methods will encourage students and teachers to become partners in critical thinking.

Additionally, the methods will turn the focus of education to concepts that have practical application of concepts or theories discovered through education (Freire 101). On the other hand, students should associate what they learn in class with how they can use it in the world. If there is no correct answer, students should employ praxis and critical thinking. The principal argument is that the education system should offer practice and tools in critical thinking, and not answers that are absolute.

Work Cited Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum Publishing Company, 1993. Print.