Freire's "Banking Concept of Education"

Americans tend to believe that our nation should "invest" in education because it is a worthwhile economic and social endeavor.  Yet, after reading Paulo Freire's, "Pedagogy of the Oppressed," I am left to question what kind of investment society is really making in education.  Frankly, I am shocked by Freire's attack on what he called the "banking" concept of education, in which the student is viewed as an empty account to be filled by the teacher.  I am shocked because he might be on to something.

Friere, I think brilliantly, uses economic and capitalist terms to illustrate the cold and impersonal nature of the "banking" concept of education.  His stark description of students as objects or "receptacles" to be filled illustrates how this model of education is dehumanizing and oppressive.  Freire calls it "necrophilic."

Ultimately, it seems that the banking model's aim is to control thinking and behavior and stifle our creative process.  Instead of encouraging students to focus on social issues that have implications for their lives, the teacher-student relationship maintains the status-quo.  It certainly is not transformative because the banking model does not set up the kind of dialog between students-teachers where students can ask questions and create meaning for their own lives.

Indeed, education is a two-way street, yet, in my experience, both students and teachers fail to realize this synergistic relationship.  Unfortunately, some students are quite comfortable being empty containers waiting to be filled by a teacher's knowledge.  They give up control, for some of them do not even realize that they have a right to be heard. These students have not yet found their voice, or they have never been in a learning environment or a safe space where their humanity was fully acknowledged.  They do not know that is it perfectly fine to challenge and to question.  In 2008, I was  observed.  My observer wrote:

In this evening's 101 class, Prof. Dunn did something impressive: he relinquished control of the class to his students for almost all of the period.  Equally impressive was the way his students rose to the occasion and maturely took charge of their assignment which was to engage in a debate on the question,"Are individuality and non-conformity good for our society and culture?"  The question arose naturally from a class discussion the previous session on Emerson's "Self-Reliance."

By giving students control of the debate, my intention was to give students an opportunity to develop their own "generative themes."  Many of my students deal with issues of conformity and individuality everyday.  For many of them, attending a college is an act of non-conformity. Some of them do not have any real support from family or friends so many of Emerson's ideas really resonated with them in a meaningful way.