The Banking Concept Of Education free essay sample

The Banking Concept of Education: Destructive or Convstructive? After reading Paulo Frieres essay, The Banking Concept of Education, I have personally come to understand that his argument ultimately states that modern education is the chance for teacher or professors to deposit their knowledge into their students who submissively accept what they are taught without question. Freire believes that there is no shared knowledge between teacher and student; the path to knowledge is a one-way street. In my experiences as a student, I have encountered eachers who perfectly fit the description of Freires teachers (or oppressors as he refers to them). I have also encountered teachers who have proved to be the exact opposite of Freires description of the modern day teacher. These teachers made their classrooms an amazing environment where knowledge is shared between student and teacher, and also made the information being shared easier to retain. A difference in the way knowledge is taught helps many different student understand what type of teaching benefits them the most. We will write a custom essay sample on The Banking Concept Of Education or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page The class that molded my positive outlook on education was my senior English lass that was taught by a brilliant teacher named . She is a young and incredibly bright young woman who graduated at the top of her class with a PhD in secondary education. She was an excellent teacher who had discussion with her class, rather than lectures. Overall, she understood that she could learn as much from her students as they could learn from her. Although Freire lists a number of qualities about The Banking Concept of Education, none of these negative qualities were found in thisclassroom. He states 10 qualities on which he bases his argument. Rather than ccepting these qualities, I believe that we should analyze each quality, interpret the quality, and find a better, more constructive alternative that would help better the students educational career, and the teachers ability to get through to the students in their classroom. The first quality on Freires list is the teacher teaches and the student is taught. This was not the case in my classroom. Every Friday, one student from the class would be assigned a certain reading, and he or she were required to interpret the reading, form questions about the reading, and get a class discussion going. My teacher Jumped in to ask a few questions or to suggest a couple different ways to interpret our reading, but she had little to do with our learning processes. She wanted to hear what we had to say and how we interpreted the reading. By forming our own opinions, questions, and discussions, we not only gained shared knowledge from everyone in the class including the teacher, but we gained self-confidence, independence, and the ability to critically think on our own. Freires argument that the students can only be taught by the teacher was proven wrong in this classroom. Another example to prove Freires fallaciousness about his first quality is my own classroom, I have noticed that my knowledge retaining develops more with having discussions with my peers; students my age with different insight on topics assigned by the teacher. By having discussions with peers, I have learned that I am able to be more open-minded, I am able to understand harder concepts, and I am able to see things from different perspectives. By being in a small group of peers, everyone has the chance to put their insight in and share their knowledge. Knowledge does not just have to come from the teacher. Freires second quality states that the teacher knows everything and the students know nothing. This statement is truer than most of Freires other qualities in The Banking Concept of Education, depending on age. As children, we start our education process very early in life. At around 5 years old, we start preschool; at which point, our general motor skills and critical thinking skills are not yet developed. The teachers are teaching us the alphabet, numbers, days of the week, and months of the year. In our younger school years, it is true that the teacher does in fact know verything, and we are learning from the teacher. At such a young age, we need guidance and rules set in place for us to prepare us for the discipline we will encounter in our later school years to come. Teachers provide both guidance and rules for us because the teachers know better than we do at such a young age. We are not yet able to carry on an intellectual conversation, or retain the amount of knowledge that we are able to right now. Children need the guidance and rules set by the teacher in order to become disciplined, educated and well prepared for their long educational career ahead of them. Freires fourth quality states that the teacher talks and the students listen-meekly. In my personal opinion, this statement could not have been anymore false; not Just for my senior English class specifically, but for most of my current classes now. Our whole class time was based around an in-depth discussion where everyone had an equal say, including the teacher. My teacher made it extremely important that we as her students would be the ones doing the talking while she listened. She would ask some guideline questions here and there, but overall, the class had group iscussions rather than a one-woman lecture.