Banking Versus Problem Posing Education

• How does Freire define banking education and problem-posing education? Explain
• In what scenarios does one make more sense than the other? Or do you only support one of these? Explain.

(Use at least two quotes from Freire as well as examples from your own experiences in school to visualize your explanations to the readers.) A sample is attached.

PAULO FREIRE: \"The Banking Concept of Education\" Excerpted from PEDAGOGY OF THE OPPRESSED A careful analysis of the teacher-student relationship at any level, inside or outside the school, reveals its fundamentally narrative character. This relationship involves a narrating Subject (the teacher) and patient listening objects (the students). The contents, whether values or empirical dimensions of reality, tend in the process of being narrated to become lifeless and petrified. Education is suffering from narration sickness. The teacher talks about reality as if it were motionless, static, compartmentalized, and predictable. Or else he expounds on a topic completely alien to the existential experience of the students. His task is to "fill" the students with the contents of his narration -- contents which are detached from reality, disconnected from the totality that engendered them and could give them significance. Words are emptied of their concreteness and become a hollow, alienated, and alienating verbosity. The outstanding characteristic of this narrative education, then, is the sonority of words, not their transforming power. "Four times four is sixteen; the capital of Para is Belem." The student records, memorizes, and repeats these phrases without perceiving what four times four really means, or realizing the true significance of "capital" in the affirmation "the capital of Para is Belem," that is, what Belem means for Para and what Para means for Brazil. Narration (with the teacher as narrator) leads the students to memorize mechanically the narrated account. Worse yet, it turns them into "containers," into "receptacles" to be "filled" by the teachers. The more completely she fills the receptacles, the better teacher she is. The more meekly the receptacles permit themselves to be filled, the better students they are. Education thus becomes an act of depositing, in which the students are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor. Instead of communicating, the teacher issues communiques and makes deposits which the students patiently receive, memorize, and repeat. This is the \"banking\" concept of education, in which the scope of action allowed to the students extends only as far as receiving, filing, and storing the deposits. They do, it is true, have the opportunity to become collectors or cataloguers of the things they store. But in the last analysis, it is the people themselves who are filed away through the lack of creativity, transformation, and knowledge in this (at best) misguided system. For apart from inquiry, apart from the praxis, individuals cannot be truly human. Knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other. In the banking concept of education, knowledge is a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable upon those whom they consider to know nothing. Projecting an absolute ignorance onto others, a characteristic of the ideology of oppression, negates education and knowledge as processes of inquiry. The teacher presents himself to his students as their necessary opposite; by considering their ignorance absolute, he justifies his own existence. The students, alienated like the slave in the Hegelian dialectic, accept their ignorance as justifying the teacher's existence -- but unlike the slave, they never discover that they educate the teacher. The raison d'etre of libertarian education, on the other hand, lies in its drive towards reconciliation. Education must begin with the solution of the teacher-student contradiction, by reconciling the poles of the contradiction so that both are simultaneously teachers and students. 1 This solution is not (nor can it be) found in the banking concept. On the contrary, banking education maintains and even stimulates the contradiction through the following attitudes and practices, which mirror oppressive society as a whole: a. the teacher teaches and the students are taught; b. the teacher knows everything and the students know nothing; c. the teacher thinks and the students are thought about; d. the teacher talks and the students listen -- meekly; e. the teacher disciplines and the students are disciplined; f. the teacher chooses and enforces his choice, and the students comply; g. the teacher acts and the students have the illusion of acting through the action of the teacher; h. the teacher chooses the program content, and the students (who were not consulted) adapt to it; i. the teacher confuses the authority of knowledge with his or her own professional authority, which she and he set in opposition to the freedom of the students; j. the teacher is the Subject of the learning process, while the pupils are mere objects. It is not surprising that the banking concept of education regards men as adaptable, manageable beings. The more students work at storing the deposits entrusted to them, the less they develop the critical consciousness which would result from their intervention in the world as transformers of that world. The more completely they accept the passive role imposed on them, the more they tend simply to adapt to the world as it is and to the fragmented view of reality deposited in them. The capability of banking education to minimize or annul the student's creative power and to stimulate their credulity serves the interests of the oppressors, who care neither to have the world revealed nor to see it transformed. The oppressors use their "humanitarianism" to preserve a profitable situation. Thus they react almost instinctively against any experiment in education which stimulates the critical faculties and is not content with a partial view of reality, but always seeks out the ties which link one point to another and one problem to another. Indeed, the interests of the oppressors lie in "changing the consciousness of the oppressed, not the situation which oppresses them" (1), for the more the oppressed can be led to adapt to that situation, the more easily they can be dominated. To achieve this, the oppressors use the banking concept of education in conjunction with a paternalistic social action apparatus, within which the oppressed receive the euphemistic title of "welfare recipients." They are treated as individual cases, as marginal persons who deviate from the general configuration of a "good, organized and just" society. The oppressed are regarded as the pathology of the healthy society which must therefore adjust these "incompetent and lazy" folk to its own patterns by changing their mentality. These marginals need to be "integrated," "incorporated" into the healthy society that they have "forsaken." ...The banking approach to adult education, for example, will never propose to students that they critically consider reality. It will deal instead with such vital questions as whether Roger gave green grass to the goat, and insist upon the importance of learning that, on the contrary, Roger gave green grass to the rabbit. The "humanism" of the banking approach masks the effort to turn women and men into automatons -- the very negation of their ontological vocation to be more fully human. ...The more completely the majority adapt to the purposes which the dominant minority prescribe for them (thereby depriving them of the right to their own purposes), the more easily the minority can continue to prescribe. The theory and practice of banking education serve this end quite 2 efficiently. Verbalistic lessons, reading requirements (3), the methods for evaluating "knowledge," the distance between the teacher and the taught, the criteria for promotion: everything in this readyto-wear approach serves to obviate thinking. ...Because banking education begins with a false understanding of men and women as objects, it cannot promote the development of what Fromm calls "biophily," but instead produces its opposite: "necrophily." While life is characterized by growth in a structured functional manner, the necrophilous person loves all that does not grow, all that is mechanical. The necrophilous person is driven by the desire to transform the organic into the inorganic, to approach life mechanically, as if all living persons were things. . . . Memory, rather than experience; having, rather than being, is what counts. The necrophilous person can relate to an object -- a flower or a person -- only if he possesses it; hence a threat to his possession is a threat to himself, if he loses possession he loses contact with the world. . . . He loves control, and in the act of controlling he kills life (4). Oppression --overwhelming control -- is necrophilic; it is nourished by love of death, not life. The banking concept of education, which serves the interests of oppression, is also necrophilic. Based on a mechanistic, static, naturalistic, spatialized view of consciousness, it transforms students into receiving objects. It attempts to control thinking and action, leads women and men to adjust to the world, and inhibits their creative power... [On the other hand] ...The problem-posing method does not dichotomize the activity of teacher-student: she is not "cognitive" at one point and "narrative" at another. She is always "cognitive," whether preparing a project or engaging in dialogue with the students. She does not regard objects as her private property, but as the object of reflection by herself and her students. In this way, the problem-posing educator constantly re-forms her reflections in the reflection of the students. The students -- no longer docile listeners -- are now critical co-investigators in dialogue with the teacher. The teacher presents the material to the students for their consideration, and re-considers her earlier considerations as the students express their own. The role of the problem-posing educator is to create, together with the students, the conditions under which knowledge at the level of the doxa is superseded by true knowledge at the level of the logos. Whereas banking education anesthetizes and inhibits creative power, problem-posing education involves a constant unveiling of reality. The former attempts to maintain the submersion of consciousness; the latter strives for the emergence of consciousness and critical intervention in reality. Students, as they are increasingly posed with problems relating to themselves in the world and with the world, will feel increasingly challenged and obliged to respond to that challenge. Because they apprehend the challenge as interrelated to other problems within a total context, not as a theoretical question, the resulting comprehension tends to be increasingly critical and thus constantly less alienated. Their response to the challenge evokes new challenges, followed by new understandings; and gradually the students come to regard themselves as committed. Education as the practice of freedom -- as opposed to education as the practice of domination -denies that man is abstract, isolated, independent and unattached to the world; it also denies that the world exists as a reality apart from people. Authentic reflection considers neither abstract man nor 3 the world without people, but people in their relations with the world. In these relations consciousness and world are simultaneous: consciousness neither precedes the world nor follows it... ...Once again, the two educational concepts and practices under analysis come into conflict. Banking education (for obvious reasons) attempts, by mythologizing reality, to conceal certain facts which explain the way human beings exist in the world; problem-posing education sets itself the task of demythologizing. Banking education resists dialogue; problem-posing education regards dialogue as indispensable to the act of cognition which unveils reality. Banking education treats students as objects of assistance; problem-posing education makes them critical thinkers. Banking education inhibits creativity and domesticates (although it cannot completely destroy) the intentionality of consciousness by isolating consciousness from the world, thereby denying people their ontological and historical vocation of becoming more fully human. Problem-posing education bases itself on creativity and stimulates true reflection and action upon reality, thereby responding to the vocation of persons as beings only when engaged in inquiry and creative transformation. In sum: banking theory and practice, as immobilizing and fixating forces, fail to acknowledge men and women as historical beings; problem-posing theory and practice take the people's historicity as their starting point... ...A deepened consciousness of their situation leads people to apprehend that situation as an historical reality susceptible of transformation. Resignation gives way to the drive for transformation and inquiry, over which men feel themselves to be in control. If people, as historical beings necessarily engaged with other people in a movement of inquiry, did not control that movement, it would be (and is) a violation of their humanity. Any situation in which some individuals prevent others from engaging in the process of inquiry is one of violence. The means used are not important; to alienate human beings from their own decision-making is to change them into objects... ...Problem-posing education does not and cannot serve the interests of the oppressor. No oppressive order could permit the oppressed to begin to question: Why? While only a revolutionary society can carry out this education in systematic terms, the revolutionary leaders need not take full power before they can employ the method. In the revolutionary process, the leaders cannot utilize the banking method as an interim measure, justified on grounds of expediency, with intention of later behaving in a genuinely revolutionary fashion. They must be revolutionary -- that is to say, dialogical -- from the outset. [Footnote #1: Simone de Beauvoir. La Pensee de Droite, Aujord'hui (Paris); ST, El Pensamiento politico de la Derecha (Buenos Aires, 1963), p. 34.]... (Ironically, in light of the next note, we skipped the section with footnote #2.) [Footnote #3: For example, some professors specify in their reading lists that a book should be read from pages 10 to 15 -- and do this to 'help' their students!] ... [Footnote #4: Fromm, op. cit. p. 41.] Friere, Paulo. Chapter 2. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum Books, 1993. 4 Problem-Posing Education for Critical Thinkers The United States has compulsory education laws that require children to attend school. Nearly all children in the U.S. spend the overwhelming majority of their childhood in schools - typically from the age of five to the age of eighteen. But there is a wide variety in the kinds of schooling students receive. The educational theorist, Paulo Freire, thought deeply about this issue, introducing the concepts of banking education and problem posing education. According to Freire, a banking education is when teachers treat students like bank accounts into which teachers deposit knowledge and from which they make withdrawals in the forms of tests (Freire 1). This stands in contrast to what Freire calls problem-posing education, in which teachers guide students in examining issues in their world and they work together to better understand if not resolve those issues. While there might be a very limited role for banking education, schools in the U.S. and around the world should primarily pursue problem-posing education if they hope to develop students who are true critical thinkers. Freire's concepts of banking education and problem-posing education were sparked by his work in his native Brazil, but his ideas spread around the globe because they rang so true. Most students in the US are familiar with banking education. In banking education, \"[i]nstead of communicating, the teacher issue communiques and makes deposits which the students patiently receive, memorize, and repeat\" (Freire 1). Here, the teacher is not in real dialogue with students; rather, the communication only goes one way with teachers speaking and students listening. According to Freire, \"the scope of action allowed to the students extends only as far as receiving, filing, and storing the deposits\" (1). In this role, students take in the teacher's information and then repeat the information exactly as it was given back to the teacher on assignments and quizzes. This stands in shar contrast to Freire's concepts of problem-posing education. In problem-posing education, teachers might take the lead in pointing out real life issues in the students' world, but then works along with students to make sense of the issue and how to resolve it. Freire explains, \"[t]he role of the problem-posing educator is to create, together with the students, the conditions under which knowledge at the level of the doxa is superseded by true knowledge at the level of the logos\" (7). What Freire is saying here is that the problem-posing teacher's job is to organize learning opportunities in which students and students work together to understand the world at a deep, critical level. Instead of just repeating back facts to the teacher, students are contributing ideas and potentially resolving real life problems that affect them. I believe schools really should focus on problem-posing education if schools are meant to create independent and critical thinkers. For many people, the intensive level of thought involved in problem-posing education might seem like a waste of time for fact-based knowledge like learning the multiplication table. Some might say that 3 times 3 always equals nine; it is most efficient for a student to memorize this without thinking too deeply using banking education. However, students who memorize the multiplication table perfectly, without a real understanding of why it works or where they can apply this information, may get a perfect score on a multiplication quiz, but may not use this information in real life situations due to a lack of true understanding. This kind of education reminds me a \"states and capitals\" quiz that I had to take in fifth grade. Each week, our teacher would distribute a blank map of the United States. My classmates and I had to correctly label each state and capital on the map until we scored 100%. Students who scored 100% were given free time and the remaining students had to re-take the quiz every week until they, too, scored 100%. It took me several weeks to perfect the quiz, and each week, I would painfully look around the room at the students who passed blissfully playing Oregon Trail on the class computer, both of us \"knowing\" who was smart and who was not. What is also interesting is that in this same class, I once asked my teacher a question and she responded with \"Does the sun rise in the east?\". As a fifth grader, I didn't actually know and I tried to play it off, but I could sense her surprise that I didn't know. So each week, I looked at a US map, but made no connection to east and west, had no real sense of where these states were relative to my home in California, nor understood why we had to learn this knowledge. I just did it because my teacher told me to. Instead, my teacher could have used a problem-posing education in teaching us about the states and capitals. She might have brought up issues related to the differences in states, such as in education or health. She might have drawn from students' knowledge of states. We might have discussed California's capital, Sacramento, and learned what happens in state capitals. We might have written letters to governors, which would prompt us to see the value in learning the names of capitals and where they are located. One can see how this would create the conditions for students to be more critical, more independent thinkers. It might have also helped us more quickly learn the states and capitals. It's true that this lesson would likely take a lot of time than a 15-minute weekly quiz labeling states and capitals, but it would also increase the likelihood that students would not only learn the information, but see the value in it and retain it over time, instead of forgetting the information the moment we pass a quiz on it. Considering Freire's exploration of banking and problem-posing education is a valuable experience of current college students. In fact, it is a kind of an example of problem-posing in that it engages students in reflecting on how they are being taught and inviting them to be more informed critiques of their own schooling. I personally see the most value in problem-posing education, while others might prefer a blend of problem-posing and banking education. But taking the time to think about these issues can help us clarify what we believe schooling should be. That can help us to advocate more for ourselves in college and be able to support our thoughts with Freire's research. It might also impact how we participate in how schools in our neighborhoods, including our own children's schools, are organized. Ultimately, our society must consider what we want to develop in our students and ensure that the kinds of schooling we provide them with help us to achieve our goals. Works Cited \"The Banking Concept of Education.\" Pedagogy of the Oppressed, by Paulo Freire, Continuum, 1993