...February 2014 The Strength of a Problem-Posing Approach to Education The dialogue over the most effective means of facilitating education has been a hotly debated topic over the last few centuries. There are many different models used throughout history and numerous strategies utilized today to teach people from kindergarten all the way up to the post-secondary education level. One of the many great educators of the 20th century was Brazilian philosopher, Paulo Freire. His excerpt “The Banking Concept of Education,” published in The Pedagogy of the Oppressed in 1970 established him as an important and controversial theorist. He wanted to create an education theory that would benefit the needs of the poor and the politically oppressed. His model rejects the aspect of treating education as a banking system, introduces the problem-posing approach for education, emphasizes the collaboration of the students and teachers in the classroom environment, and explains how knowledge emerges through training and constant patience. Mary E. Boyce wrote a pedagogy on critical teaching that directly supports Freire’s model of the problem-posing approach. Paulo Freire’s model of education directly opposes and rejects the traditional “banking system” model of education. Freire describes this model as “’banking,’ in which teachers deposit knowledge into students’ minds, which are empty until these deposits are made” (62). The banking system can be seen as the professor lecturing for an entire...
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...Understanding “The Banking Concept of Education” People learn by different methods of teaching: visual, auditory or tactile. A visual learner favors reading or pictures, an auditory prefers listening and a tactile person learns by a hands on approach. (The Learning Styles) In Freire’s excerpt “The Banking Concept of Education”, he describes how the relationship between students and teachers suffer from narration sickness (Freire). Freire explains in today’s modern education the teacher has become the depositors of information and the students are the bank receiving the information. This essay will explain the meaning of Freire’s excerpt and provide an understanding of his two concepts of education, banking and problem posing. Although auditory is a method of learning, Freire argued how education today is more focused on memorization rather than a two-way street of communication. In order for a car to run, it needs a tank full of gasoline; this same theory can apply to Freire’s theory of “The Banking Concept of Education”. He describes how students have been turned into “containers” to be “filled” by the teacher (Freire). This was evident while attending the Non-Commissioned Officer’s Academy in February 2008. During the 5 week Professional Military Education course, the instructors stood at the front of the classroom the students were exposed to what we termed, “death by PowerPoint”. Each day was filled with instructor narration of material that culminated...
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...Banking Concept of Education Philosopher and educator Paulo Freire once said, “Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.” In Freire’s work of “the Banking Concept of Concept”, he describes how the education system is failing to help student find success in the real world as well as it provides a framework for the “teachers” to oppress the “students” through the distribution of power. The “banking Concept of Education” describes a system of education in which the teacher’s main goal is to fill their students head with information, much like making a “deposit” at a bank, from which the student are expected to memorize and retain this information such as a bank holds money, ““Education thus becomes an act of depositing, in which the students are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor”. (Freire 2) Evidence in Freire’s work states, “His (teacher) task is to "fill" the students with the contents of his narration—contents which are detached from reality.” (Freire 2) Another point being made in Freire’s writing from this quote is that the information that the students are learning will not help them in the real world. From this the concept of the oppressors (teachers)...
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...1. How would you paraphrase Freire's central argument, his thesis? What key moments, key words, and key phrases in the essay clarify his thesis for you? Make sure to mention specifics from the texts. The central argument that Freire is trying to make is that the educational system is flawed. Teachers are simply putting information into containers (students) and the containers accept. “The student records, memorizes, and repeats…without perceiving” (1) what they are saying. There is no reciprocal learning happening, that you are told information and you regurgitate it back to prove your knowledge and understanding. “The teacher teaches and the students are taught.” (2) “The more completely he fills the receptacles, the better a teacher he is. The more meekly the receptacles permit themselves to be filled, the better students they are.” (1) He considers this to be 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”, which he also deems as incorrect, that there are indeed other ways to educate that produce better people. Freire goes on to argue that the banking concept should be left in the past and teachers should instead use a problem-posing concept. He believes that students must be able to see that what they learn can have an effect on the world thus have the ability to change the world. That, “sooner or later they...
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...Summary of chapter 2 Paulo Freire has a problem with how education has been conducted since the 19th century. In his essay, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Freire compares two concepts of education that are present today, banking and problem-posing. In banking teachers assume students are passive, take all control, determine what will be learned, and “fill” students with pre-selected information. Problem-posing education allows people to develop their human natures fully because it depends on dialogue, recognizes the relationship between people and the world, encourages discovery and creativity, and leads to transformation. Freire criticizes the banking method throughout the essay and clearly praises problem-posing in more than just an educational settings. From the very beginning Freire creates an urgency for change with his word usage, imagery, and exaggerated examples. For instance, narration sickness is a term used when the teacher talks about a subject as if it were “motionless, static, compartmentalized, and predictable.” Narration also leads the students to be ‘containers’ to be ‘filled’ by the teachers. Necrophilia is another one of Freire’s exaggerated imagery, comparing the banking concept and oppression to the love for the dead. As stated by Freire,”The necrophilous person is driven by the desire to transform the organic into inorganic, to approach life mechanically, as if all living persons were things…Memory, rather than experience; having, rather than being, is what counts...
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...Student: awesome guy Teacher: another awesome guy EN 106/First Year Writing seminar II: Academic Research and Writing An Obstacle in Education as a Practice of Freedom An education that is free of any oppressive qualities, is an education that will foster personal inquiry, group argumentation, and ultimately, social revolution. This would be the ideal model of education for all educational institutions; however, there is a threat looming within our classrooms and it is affecting the way students and teachers approach educational enlightenment. Paulo Freire’s “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” argues about how our current educational system is denying teachers and students the opportunity to develop a dialogue, thus allowing their critical ability to develop. He dubbed this concept “The Banking Concept of Education”: 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 (para. 5). The banking concept of education is affecting current educational systems by guiding both educational patrons and their students in a direction of oppression and conformity. This is being done by taking away any potential interactions between...
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...The “Banking” Concept of Education In Paulo Freire’s essay “The ‘Banking’ Concept of Education, Freire allows us to have a look inside his thoughts on his current education system. Even though this essay wasn’t written for our time period, it still is very applicable to our education system today. Every student can probably say they have had one teacher that treats them like an object, and makes it their mission to stuff as much information into them in one hour as they can. This system is known to be the Banking System. Freire’s definition of the banking system is, “In which the scope of action allowed to the students extends only as far as receiving, filing, and storing the deposits [made by teachers]” (p. 318). This is a system where the information isn’t put into use by the students and they cannot learn to their best ability because of the lack of creativity and communication in the learning process. Freire would say that the student’s agency (ability to act) would be rather low in this system. The students are somewhat useless after this system is used on them because they won’t retain and apply the information to their lives in the future. In this system, the teacher thinks of themselves of having complete dominance over the students in power and knowledge; this leaves the students dehumanized and less willing to engage in learning or asking questions to help them understand the information. The teachers are also looked at as oppressors to the students, looking...
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...In today’s world, children (students) suffer from a host of emotional, mental and physical challenges that effect their behaviour and ability to learn. This is sometimes complimented with their role models encouraging them to treat themselves and others with disrespect. These challenges require abundant reserves of patience. I believe two of the biggest attributes a teacher should have is the ability to show respect towards the students. In his book ‘Pedagogy of the Oppressed,’ Paulo Freire explained that respect and humility foster a condition of trust and communication between the teacher (who also learns) and the learner (who also teaches) (pg23)....
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...Social Education Social education is becoming as an essential academic discipline, which not only does include personal relationships, but comprises of communication, health education as well as understanding of the community and the environment. However it also qualifies people to deliver milieu therapy that is one considered to be one segment of the social education. For instance inhabitation and rehabilitation facilities to individuals with mental, physical and/or societal disabilities with intellectual incapacities signify a key target cluster within social edification (Coffield et al. 2004). The expertise of social educator’s delivers a unique source for interdisciplinary exertion. The amalgamation of health and social attention, pedagogic and psychology empowers the social instructor to view possessions in an interdisciplinary outlook. Acquaintance with the dynamics and practices in innumerable disciplines also provides the social educator a constructive basis for interdisciplinary collaboration with people in other professions, like nurses, doctors, social workers, psychologists and pedagogues. Social skills form the foundation for social proficiency. Moreover, Bremer and Smith (2004, p.11) have defined the social competence as “the point to which students are able to establish as well as maintain satisfactory interpersonal relationships. Along with gaining the peer acceptance, upholding friendships, and terminate negative or maleficent interpersonal relationships”...
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...engages with a wide variety of problems and approaches to “education as the practice of freedom.” Her essays exposed the degree to which our traditional system of education reproduces and sustains structural inequalities. Equally important, these essays offered new ways of thinking about pedagogy, and new strategies for creating a liberatory classroom. The only major downfall I saw in this volume is that the essays often repeated themselves. hooks acknowledges as much in her introduction, saying that since she wrote each essay separately, a certain degree of overlap exists in the collection. I would perhaps recommend that readers space out the essays rather than attempting to digest them all at once; this will allow readers to digest her thoughts before moving on, and will help them avoid becoming frustrated by these overlaps. hooks states that she intends these essays to be “celebratory” (10), and indeed I found that the experience of reading them was often a joyful one. The degree to which she loves teaching and connects with her students is incredibly inspiring. Teaching to Transgress has earned a permanent place on my bookshelf; I anticipate that I will turn to it often as I begin to teach students and create my own pedagogical style. Intro: Teaching to Transgress bell hooks ushers the reader into her collection of essays with a description of the various pedagogies that informed her own education. First, she presents us with the exciting, enlivened learning...
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...Oliver Pringle Professor John Schultz Ethics 2050 22 April 2014 Closing the Gaps in Modern Education The city of Philadelphia has one of the most racially segregated school systems in the United States with the largest performance gap between black and white students nationwide. “Philadelphia’s black population, and particularly its affluent black population, lives in much poorer neighborhoods than comparable whites because they are so highly segregated by race” (Denvir). The average black elementary school student in Philadelphia is reading at the 21st percentile, while his white counterpart is reading at much higher 66th percentile. The disparity experienced within the public education of Philadelphia children is caused by rampant segregation within the school system itself. Through my own experience, as well as the writings of the renowned psychologist Franz Fanon and philosopher Paulo Freire, I have found that the solution to the public education problem begins with a narrowing of the gaps between the haves and the have-nots. The Citypaper article written by Daniel Denvir unearthed a number of unbelievable disparities between the black and white students within the Philadelphia education system. Studies indicate that “Philadelphia blacks are exposed to poverty at a rate nearly three times higher than whites. The average black person in the Philly area lives in a neighborhood with a 24.8% poverty rate, compared to just 8.4% for whites. Chicago, Cleveland, St....
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...New times for education Issues of development & Fairness RUBEN DE FREITAS CABRAL SYMPOSIUM – RICCI INSTITUTE 27 NOVEMBER 2009 MACAU The world is full of people who have never, since childhood, met an open doorway with an open mind. The implication of these words from E. B. White, a famous American writer and winner of the Pulitzer Prize, refers to something that happens to the vast majority of people in the developed and in large segments of the developing worlds, which is schooling. Hardly anybody denies the importance of schooling. At the very least, places must exist where parents can leave their children, especially when both have to go to work for the better part of the day. The relevance, however, of what happens in schools is another matter. Schools are still mired in the predicament of transmitting and withdrawing known knowledge, if that is at all possible. It is the process that Paulo Freire used to call the banking concept of education: The teacher makes deposits in the heads of students which are followed by period withdrawals (tests, quizzes and all other manners of justifying the purpose of supposedly depositing knowledge). Freire goes on to say that For apart from inquiry, apart from praxis, men cannot be truly human. Knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry men pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other. (…) Yet only through communication can human...
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...Philosophy, University of New South Wales Abstract Over the past eighty years or so, some education theorists have repudiated the notion that it is the teacher's role to act as an authority in the classroom, transmitting knowledge to students "who do not know." In English as a second or foreign language education, a notion of the teacher as "facilitator" is considered to be more compatible with students' felt needs and autonomy. This paper argues that there are epistemological flaws in prominent rejections of transmission theories of learning. Drawing on British philosopher Michael Oakeshott's distinction between technical and practical knowledge, it argues for a modified understanding of the English teacher both as an authority capable of transmitting these types of knowledge in language, and as a facilitator of cooperative language learning. Introduction In the teaching of English as a second or foreign language today, the old pedagogical ideal of the teacher as an authority transmitting knowledge to students "who do not know" is in disrepute. The ideal now is for a more democratic, student-centered approach, in which the teacher facilitates communicative educational activities with students. This model reflects in part the influence of communication-based theories of language acquisition. But it also reflects, in large part, the influence of different pragmatist and progressive education theorists ranging from John Dewey (1916) to Malcolm Knowles (1970). Such an approach stresses...
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