The Banking Concept Of Education

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Personal experience does not dictate the type of human each person is; however, it is a major fact that separates each human from one another. Along with this, the “banking” concept does not “dehumanize” or make a person less knowledgable when compared to another. In fact, if both personal experience and memorization were mixed a whole new world of education would be created. There is no black and white when it comes to the education of the sciences, it is a rather grey area, a homogenous mixture to ensure the student receives the best education possible. In his essay, “The ‘Banking’ Concept of Education”, Paulo Freire discusses two types of education; “problem posing” and “banking”. He portrays students who receive the banking type of education
With this type of education the student is capable of being conscious but is not conscious at all, he has a mind ready to absorb the information being told (Freire 219). This opinion does not correlate to the education a student requires to learn a science. Just because a student needs to memorize a few facts and absorb the information being given to them, does not mean that he is not conscious or one with the world. In order to understand how the world works there is common knowledge that each human comes to learn as young children; common knowledge is simply facts that are memorized. Is a human not one with the world until they achieve this “higher” level of education? What makes a middle aged man any more human than a young child? Stating that this type of education makes people spectators is a disservice to the students and children trying to become a part of the world, they are not less than someone who has only used “problem posing”
A student is in a medical school course that requires the application of facts to real world situations. At first the student is nervous because he has never learned this way and is not sure if it will benefit him. For his first class his professor brought an emergency room doctor to come and speak to the students. Throughout the semester the students, like sponges, gain knowledge from their professor and the guest speakers that is later applied to the lab. At the end of the semester the students have a test where they need to identify an illness based on what the patient tells them. In order to complete this they must know facts about many illnesses and carefully listen to each patient. This is a clear example of education that requires both types,that Freire had discussed, working in

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