English 1C - Pre-Reading Blog #1

Well, shoot. I can't help but cheat on this blog a little since I read Paulo Freire's Banking essay last summer. I'll see what I can recall...


The main point regarding the Banking Concept of Education involves students acting as nothing more than storage "banks" for information and knowledge rather than critically analyzing and utilizing the information they are taught. In this equation, teachers are the powerful "bankers" that make deposits into their empty-headed students. Although originally I viewed this as an archaic idea, it's still very present in today's world.


It's also very problematic. Simply memorizing data and regurgitating it for the occasional test when required creates quite a dilemma. Students are encouraged to take everything they learn at face value and not question their authority figures. While this is useful for mathematics, it prevents a student from fully understanding the implications of a myriad of other subjects.


Imagine political science, or psychology, or philosophy. If our views and understanding of these subjects was never questioned or critically evaluated would we even have such topics to study? How often does our understanding of the world become challenged over the decades? If we continued to study the same old ideas, never improving upon them, our society would be more than dull - it would arguably cease to function due to its lack of adaptability.


When students question the information they are given, they understand it better. The teacher might even learn a thing or two about how to better describe the subject in the future, or even learn the answer to a question that had been bugging him for some time. This establishes a dialogue with which both the student and the teacher are on equal footing and one with which the student is more likely to succeed in his academic environment.


That was the main point I recall - that the Banking Concept in general is a poor method of teaching in today's world. It has its merits, such as preparing students for standardized testing or teaching them mundane job skills, but we'll save that discussion for next time.