Based on the demands of our educational system, our society is forced to conform to the level of education that they want us to be at. This educational distortion is beneficiary to the educator's realm and the way of governing education . We are seen as merely objects rather than subjects and are fed only facts/information that the educator only wants us to memorize not actually comprehend it or even ask questions or give our opinions to given facts/information. This is what makes the educator the oppressor and us the oppressed. Paulo Freire's "Pedogogy of the Oppressed" deals with the concept of oppression in the school system and suggests an alternative method of education. There is an absolute need for students to "Tear down the wall" (Pink Floyd) of conformity in education and express their individuality.
Education in itself can be a contradiction. The teacher (oppressor), is there to educate/teach the student (oppressed) but is he really? As Freire indicates "Narration (with the teacher as narrator) leads the students to memorize mechanically the narrated content. Worse yet, it turns them into "containers," "receptacles" to be "filled" by the teacher. The more completely she fills the receptacles, the better a teacher she is. The more meekly the receptacles permit themselves to be filled, the better students they are." (67). He also goes on to say "Education thus becomes an act of depositing, in which the students are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor. Instead of communicating, the teacher issues communiques and makes deposits which the students patiently receive, memorize, and repeat."(67), and he refers to this as the "banking system" where the student goes "only as far as receiving, filing, and storing the deposits."(68).
This "banking system" method of teaching, really is not teaching the student(oppressed), but rather they are given facts/information by the teacher(oppressor) that they do not fully understand, and so there really is no learning. Also the "banking concept" holds the student down because he is told what to learn, and he is not allowed to work to his full capacity. It is because if this that the student lacks "creativity, transformation, and knowledge in this (at best) misguided system."(68). If this type of educational method keeps on, then there will be no change, therefore the minds will be filled with fac...
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...critical thinker, and not only that but no longer becomes an object but rather a being who can share ideas with the teacher. In that fashion of education the teacher could also learn from the student and all can give different input on a given subject. This would allow each student to break the mold and become individual thinkers who can express their knowledge in different ways.
Overall the methods used for teaching are very inadequate. Instead of telling the students what is to be memorized, the teachers should apply problem-posing techniques to get the students learning themselves. Once this teaching method can be applied, students shouldn't actually just rely on the facts/information given to them but rather go out and seek and find out for themselves the truth and reality of all things. Everyone
Is able to share their ideas and can learn from each other.
I feel that Paulo Freire does an excellent job in making us aware of the reality of things in our educational system. I agree with the fact that we should have more of the problem-posing method of teaching, because it will not only involve us and make our ideas heard but will actually expand our way of thinking.
“Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.” – Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed [retrieved October 8, 2017 from https://www.goodreads.com]
Herr and Paolo Freire are both influential philosophical authors who understand have somehow looked beyond the lines when it comes to education. Herr has learned more through personal experience while Freire hasn’t exactly discussed how he as acquired such knowledge, but is on the right track because he has similar attributes to Herr. This is why there are little stakes between choosing a theory over the other. However, there are some. While choosing Herr over Freire, students will have more of a wide-broad selection of freedom to explore the greatest depths of their imagination to become successful. However, not every student would be able to handle this well like Herr did in his college experience. If you were to choose Freire over Herr, The student and the teacher would be both in a mutual atmosphere while becoming successful. The student would be able to move on in the world knowing the he/she is not the only one being mentally aided through their college
“Education thus becomes an act of depositing, in which the students are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor. Instead of communicating, the teacher issues communiqués and makes deposits which the students patiently receive, memorize, and repeat” (Freire 213).
Freire suggests a "problem-posing education" solution to this education epidemic where the relationship between the students and the teachers are evened and each can take on the others roles. Through dialogue one can become more liberated to think and question. Creating thinkers can create world changers, transformers, and more educated
Max Fischer cannot be summed up with a few simple words. A plethora of descriptive definitions is still incapable of summing up such a Renaissance man. Max is such an extraordinary student that he can be compared to Paulo Freire’s idea of a student, as explained in The Pedagogy of the Oppressed. In it, Freire disparages the modern education system, “the banking concept of education,” by noting its destructive abilities of creating complacent students who regard themselves as inferior by those above their educators. This method is based on the idea that the teacher simply force-feeds knowledge to students, only to have it regurgitated back at them (72). Freire is concerned because students are educationally restricted by this method, however
How do teachers attempt to control the way you understand the world? Paulo Freire, author of “The ‘Banking’ Concept of Education”, declares that “Narration (with the teacher as the narrator) leads the students to memorize mechanically the narrated content. Worse yet, it turns them into ‘containers,’ into ‘receptacles’ to be ‘filled’ by the teacher” (216). Freire’s statement implies that teaching utilizing the banking concept shifts the role of students as learners to robots that receive data and execute orders given by their programmers (teachers) but do not actually recognize the significance of the information. I agree with Freire 's interpretations because even though my role in high school was a student, my continuous encounters with banking
The first text, “Pedagogy of the Oppressed,” highlights the importance of liberatory education for students from marginalized backgrounds. Freire points out that oppression dehumanizes both the oppressors and the oppressed, and that liberatory education serves to humanize both. Liberation must come directly from the efforts of the oppressed, as they are the only people that truly understand the nature of their oppression. Education
The banking concept is “ a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable upon those who they consider to know nothing'; (Freire 213). The goal of the ‘banking’ concept is to deposit as much information into the students as possible. This results in disconnected memorization without the real understanding and discouragement of creative thought.They cannot think for themselves. As Marx writes, just as there are two types of learning, ‘banking’ and problem-posing, he explains that society is this way also. There is the upper class and subordinate classes. They both struggle for economic and political power and the primary way the upper class keeps its power is through their beliefs and values. They are allowed to think. The subordinate classes believe they are subordinate due to the upper classes prestige and way of thinking. Like Freire’s ‘banking’ concept, education is the way to keep students down and this works because the students accept all knowledge from the teacher, just like the dominant class in Marx’s ideology, keeps the subordinate classes submissive.
I believe that schooling should enable its students to identify the flaws in society and seek to take action to address these flaws. While I do not believe that society, as is, is terrible, I do acknowledge that there are clear flaws in many social and political systems in this country. Thus, I believe that schools should serve as the educational means for identifying these issues. I believe that society and schooling depend heavily on each other. Schooling should not serve as a mechanism to maintain the current social order – in fact, it should do the opposite. Society should look to schooling to fix its flaws, and schooling should view society as a permanent work in progress. Schooling cannot act as a politically neutral entity, meaning that school should act to advance the political views of its students. Schooling can interrupt social reproduction by being politically explicit and enabling its students to think about these social systems which may oppress certain groups. As Bourdieu
The realm of education tends to shine a negative light on younger generations labeling them as menace to society and ultimately excluding them without fair opportunity. Every child is different; some may require more attention from teachers than others. Schools tend to forget this unique characteristic of human life once standardized testing and grading comes into the equation.
Overall I do agree with Freire that students should have a hand in the discussion to help them learn to think more critically about what they are learning. I think every teacher or professor should try and incorporate the problem-posing model in their classrooms. But, the problem-posing model will not always work for every subject. All students should be able to think critically about what they are learning, express their opinions, concerns, and thoughts especially in the
Many have the belief that in order to know where to go, there needs to be an understanding of where one has been, hence the idea of “Tradition”. The education system that society has become accustomed to having, follows the idea that the teacher reflects how he/she was taught and uses the same process to mold his/her students. In the article “The ‘Banking’ Concept of Education”, (1970), Paulo Freire describes the traditional teaching and names it the “banking-education” system. Freire states that the students have no creativity, they are expected to absorb information, memorize and satisfactorily test to be considered knowledgeable. The 1989 film directed by Peter Weir, “Dead Poets Society”,
Freire, P. (2007). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York, NY: The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc.
Pedagogy of the Oppressed is a nonfiction book by Brazilian author Paulo Freire. The book is best known for its philosophical concepts on oppression as it pertains to education. Since the book 's first publication in 1978 it has become a worldwide staple for educators and activists alike, who strive to conquer the problem of oppression in its many facets of life. Pedagogy of the Oppressed is an eye-opening and life changing book that should be a requirement for all future educators in order to ensure success in creating a liberating and humanizing education system.
... generally accepted that a teacher’s main role is to facilitate learning rather than to be the source of all knowledge” (p.2).