Please Don't Treat Me Like A Bank Account
One of the first thing I learned in high school was that the next few years of my life would be spent taking notes and studying for tests with the notes I had taken. Taking notes became crucial, and eventually frustrating for me. I remember saying to my sister, "I see my whole life stretching out before me and it's just one endless stream of notebook pages filled with words that don't mean anything." I began to feel numb at the thought of school, and rebelled at the idea of belonging to a system that expected only consumption and regurgitation of ideas.
Paulo Freire, the author of The Pedagogy of the Oppressed, must have had a similar experience. In the second chapter of his book he describes two different kinds of education: the banking concept and problem-posing.
The banking concept works like this: the teacher is like a banker who presents information to the students, and then expects them to file all of it away as though they were identical bank accounts filing away deposits. The interaction between students and teacher is limited to a one-way exchange of information. Teachers do not realize that their bank deposit method creates people who don't think for themselves. Students, who have been in this rut their whole lives, don't know any other way to learn. Probably the biggest problem with the system is the fact that it does not promote individual questioning, but exalts meek acceptance of the teacher's information deposits.
The other kind of education, which Freire supports, is the problem posing concept. In this scenario, information is given in both directions. The teacher comes prepared to teach, but also prepared to listen to the ideas the studnets may present. Students are invited to ask questions. In this environment, I would describe the teacher not as a banker, but as a problem and question poser. Students must use their creativity and knowledge to solve these problems and answer these questions. They are required to be bold instead of meek. Instead of filing away the new deposits like a bank account, they become conscious of their ability to think for themselves.
Many of us are stuck in the banking deposit rut. I would argue, though, that we instinctively rebel against this kind of learning because it makes us into robots. To quote Freire, "The means used are not important; to alienate human beings from their own deicison-making is to change them into objects." All the classes I loved in high school required interaction and questioning of culturally accepted ideas. I have come to believe any place of learning should help students realize that learning can be a joy, not a chore involving only filing and rote memorization. Students have the right to say, "Please don't treat me like a bank account."
Paulo Freire, the author of The Pedagogy of the Oppressed, must have had a similar experience. In the second chapter of his book he describes two different kinds of education: the banking concept and problem-posing.
The banking concept works like this: the teacher is like a banker who presents information to the students, and then expects them to file all of it away as though they were identical bank accounts filing away deposits. The interaction between students and teacher is limited to a one-way exchange of information. Teachers do not realize that their bank deposit method creates people who don't think for themselves. Students, who have been in this rut their whole lives, don't know any other way to learn. Probably the biggest problem with the system is the fact that it does not promote individual questioning, but exalts meek acceptance of the teacher's information deposits.
The other kind of education, which Freire supports, is the problem posing concept. In this scenario, information is given in both directions. The teacher comes prepared to teach, but also prepared to listen to the ideas the studnets may present. Students are invited to ask questions. In this environment, I would describe the teacher not as a banker, but as a problem and question poser. Students must use their creativity and knowledge to solve these problems and answer these questions. They are required to be bold instead of meek. Instead of filing away the new deposits like a bank account, they become conscious of their ability to think for themselves.
Many of us are stuck in the banking deposit rut. I would argue, though, that we instinctively rebel against this kind of learning because it makes us into robots. To quote Freire, "The means used are not important; to alienate human beings from their own deicison-making is to change them into objects." All the classes I loved in high school required interaction and questioning of culturally accepted ideas. I have come to believe any place of learning should help students realize that learning can be a joy, not a chore involving only filing and rote memorization. Students have the right to say, "Please don't treat me like a bank account."
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