PAULO FREIRE: CHAPTER 2 OF PEDAGOGY OF THE OPPRESSED

I felt like this article was trying to point out how students can become robots that can repeat words and/or problems back to the instructor, without knowing the significance behind what they’re learning. They do what they need to so that they (students) can pass their class, but will have problems remembering it because they don’t know how to apply what they’ve learned. This is something that seems to be reoccurring in classrooms and then we (educators) have to reteach them or they have to play catch up.

What we shouldn’t do in the classroom:

• the teacher teaches and the students are taught;
• the teacher knows everything and the students know nothing;
• the teacher thinks and the students are thought about;
• the teacher talks and the students listen -- meekly;
• the teacher disciplines and the students are disciplined;
• the teacher chooses and enforces his choice, and the students comply;
• the teacher acts and the students have the illusion of acting through the action of the teacher;
• the teacher chooses the program content, and the students (who were not consulted) adapt to it;
• the teacher confuses the authority of knowledge with his or her own professional authority, which she and he sets in opposition to the freedom of the students;
• the teacher is the Subject of the learning process, while the pupils are mere objects.

http://faculty.webster.edu/corbetre/philosophy/education/freire/freire-2.html

These ways can cause students to lose their “critical consciousness” and not gain the knowledge they need and deserve in their education. Students won’t be able to learn how to apply what they’ve learned to reality and that’s the real issue with the “banking” method that’s being mentioned.

Our solution:

“Yet only through communication can human life hold meaning. The teacher's thinking is authenticated only by the authenticity of the students' thinking. The teacher cannot think for her students, nor can she impose her thought on them. Authentic thinking, thinking that is concerned about reality, does not take place in ivory tower isolation, but only in communication. If it is true that thought has meaning only when generated by action upon the world, the subordination of students to teachers becomes impossible.”

Let the students “communicate” with each other, and apply the knowledge that they’re learning to a discussion or an assignment that shows that they understand what’s being taught. Why not give the students the opportunity to communicate their understanding in their own way? Let go of some control in the classroom, the students aren’t robots, their human and we can hinder their growth not only intellectually but in the reality of life if we keep holding them back from their true potential.

Closing question: What’s a way you (as an educator) encourage students to communicate?

(This is not me saying that all educators teach this way or that this “banking method” doesn’t work with some students. This is just my personal opinion.)