Paulo Freire’s “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” Chapter 2

Paulo Freire’s “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” Chapter 2 was quite the interesting read. Freire brought up how teachers will have their classroom learning environment set up in a way that he calls “banking” where the teacher deposits information into the students. While the student may be learning something, Freire rightfully criticizes this method as all it does is have students memorize information. Memorization is important, but students are not really understanding what they are memorizing, what is being deposited into them. Critical thinking is what pushes students to truly understand and think about what it is they are learning and why it matters that they learn what they learn.

The list Freire made which bullet points the problems of baking teaching, were a nice summery of what happens when one uses such a method,

• the teacher teaches and the students are taught;
• the teacher knows everything and the students know nothing;
• the teacher thinks and the students are thought about;
• the teacher talks and the students listen -- meekly;
• the teacher disciplines and the students are disciplined;
• the teacher chooses and enforces his choice, and the students comply;
• the teacher acts and the students have the illusion of acting through the action of the teacher;
• the teacher chooses the program content, and the students (who were not consulted) adapt to it;
• the teacher confuses the authority of knowledge with his or her own professional authority, which she and he sets in opposition to the freedom of the students;
• the teacher is the Subject of the learning process, while the pupils are mere objects.

The teacher is doing all of the thinking and speaking, there is little to no room for a student to really grow or have the freedom to grow. The student needs to be able to take the helm in that students need to be the ones teaching sometimes. And, any good teacher knows that a teacher never stops learning, and they certainly do not know everything. From my experience, this banking method of teaching is disappearing, all the classroom I have sat in and observed have seldom used this strategy, though it is almost certain that many teachers still use this method, I do not plan on being among them.