Education in the Bahamas

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As Bill Beattie maintains, “the aim of education should be to teach us rather how to think, than what to think - rather to improve our minds, so as to enable us to think for ourselves, than to load the memory with thoughts of other men.” It is undeniably true that education is needed for students to mature intellectually and adapt to life. However, the educational process should be liberating rather than oppressing. I believe that The Bahamas should shy away from the "banking concept of education" and incorporate the problem-posing method into the school systems; the educational experience should allow students to be able to think critically rather than regurgitate the ideas of the teachers. In his paper The Banking concept of Education, Paulo Freire makes an assertion that people should consider the problem-posing education as oppose to banking education.

Initially, through my pursuit of knowledge in the Bahamas for more than 12 years, I experienced a more liberating education that Freire depicts as problem-posing education. During this experience, where I was given a poem entitled "Dulce Et Decorum Est." in which the object of the assignment was to analyze the poem and interpret its meaning. Rather than the teacher asserting their ideas onto me, I was able to discuss with her and other classmates my interpretation of the poem. The interaction between the teacher, my peers and me created a “liberating education.”(p. 262) Freire would view this as problem-posing education because it stimulates the interaction and consciences of the mind, allowing me to form my own ideas. Problem-posing education is the best style for educating our Bahamian students because “it rejects communiqués and embodies communication.”(p. 262) In my case,...

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... poem, I have realized that death is inevitable and we should spend less time thinking about it. Rather, we should just live in the moment. Also as Freire maintains “they (students) apprehend the challenge as interrelated to other problems within a total text, not as a theoretical question, the resulting comprehension tends to be increasingly critical and thus constantly less alienated.” The educational system in the Bahamas would allow people to express their feelings and be able to control the emotions that affect our ability to make the right decisions.

It is true that academic pursuit of education is rigorous and many systems of education are needed to be incorporated. However, if banking education is consumed over problem-posing education, then we dehumanize the persons in the system when we should in fact driving towards a liberating experience for them.

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