Analysis of Paulo Freire's "Banking Concept of Education"A Story by Walker Green Paulo Freire’s dissertation, Banking Concept of Education, is expressed more as a call- to-arms rather than an informative passage. After reading the excerpt of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Freire cautions that the current construct of the educational system is a self-fulfilling prophecy that not only fails to teach students, but ultimately creates automatons that are never able to grasp a sense of reality. Freire frequently criticizes the current teaching method as “becoming lifeless and petrified” as well as being more a “hollow verbosity” than actual content. According to Freire, the process of how students are being taught results in those pupils only being able to regurgitate information without actually perceiving its significance and meaning. Although Paulo Freire brings up some notable points, there were some inconsistencies present. To start, Freire is hypocritical when he claims that teachers exist only to dehumanize, which by saying so he also dehumanizes the teachers. Freire unfairly criticizes all teachers of being oppressive, which cannot be true because all pedagogues alike have different styles of teaching, and all students most certainly have different methods of learning. Furthermore, Freire advocates for a neutral, unbiased method of teaching which is only possible in theory, since teaching by definition involves someone of higher knowledge passing down information through instruction. In an effort to empathize, I can agree with Freire when he describes how dominant elites of a society can carry out mandates in the name of freedom, order, and social peace through violent means. This motif can be attributed to the United States’ military involvement in Vietnam during the 1960’s, which was notoriously known for the ironic tactic of “bombing for peace.” Fast forwarding to current events, Freire’s allegation that students are never fully able to reach self-actualization because teachers don’t promote self-development can be loosely correlated to Walmart employees who are kept at menial entry-level jobs without the prospect of a future promotion because management won’t provide them with the proper training. While reading Paulo Freire’s dissertation, I couldn’t help but relate its message to that of a Pink Floyd music video, Another Bick in the Wall (Part II), which has lyrical themes of disillusionment, exploitation, and oppression. To continue, Freire’s viewpoint on teachers seemed to come from the same perspective as political philosopher Thomas Hobbes from the 1650’s, who was a proponent that people were naturally wicked, selfish, and cruel who act on the behalf of their best interests, rather than that of John Locke (1698), who believed all people were inherently good and righteous. In the final analysis of this reading, Paulo Freire takes it to the extreme when he challenges the groundwork of standard teaching practices. There is a clear disconnect between Freire’s criticism of the techniques that teachers utilize in the classroom to the “David vs. Goliath” notion that society must rise up to the atrocities of scholastic lectures.
© 2013 Walker Green |
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Added on October 12, 2013 Last Updated on October 12, 2013 Tags: paulo freire, banking concept of education, education, criticism, freire Author |