Pedagogy of the Oppressed Assignment

This week's prompt stemmed from the book Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paul Freire.  This proclaimed that the current style of education is not helping students learn.  In the second chapter, he divided education styles into two parts: banking concept and problem-posing.  The banking concept is where teaching are simply inserting their "higher understanding" into the passive students, who, if able to take in a lot of knowledge, are then considered to be good students.  Here the teacher is the authority, chooser, discipliner, and thinker.  The problem-posing style, on the other hand, encourages teachers to work with students and to learn with students.  The job of the teacher is to facilitate the discussion, and although still in charge of the classroom, the teacher doesn't rule over the students.

I do believe that it is very easy as a student to be passive and still considered a "good student."  I do enjoy learning and asking the bigger questions, but I can easily go weeks in a class without saying a word or giving input.  Instead, I can just sit there and let everyone else put information into me.  I have always found discussion-oriented classes to be more enjoyable, because I am able to hear ideas and opinions from people other than the teacher.  Many times, the discussions aren't done as well as they could be, though.  I believe teachers have to be careful in how they approach discussions, because since the education currently has many classrooms using the banking concept system, students will view whatever the teacher says as the "right answer."  Many students do not want to disagree with the teacher, because under the banking concept system, the teacher is seen as the authority and possessor of all knowledge.  I have been in several classrooms where the teachers were very controlling and, I believe, took their authority too far.  They were unwilling to listen to students' reasonings or opinions when they differ from their own.

However, I believe there are some issues with the problem-posing system.  In order to have intelligent and productive discussions, there need to be facts, and if the students do not know the facts, it is the responsibility of the teacher (assuming he or she knows those facts) to present them to the students.  This presentation of facts, especially if done on a large scale, could easily turn into the banking concept system.  In addition, the discussion-based understanding of concepts takes time and has a tendency to deviate.  With the vast number of topics and concepts that a teacher needs to cover in a given year, it is very difficult to use this system to get concepts across to the students in a timely manner.

There is a need for children to take a more active role in their education, but unless the standards are changed, at this point, I believe a careful balance between banking concept and problem-posing ought to be sought by teachers,  who should also try to act as partners in the learning process and not tyrants.