According to Paulo Freire, the banking model of education can be thought of as students being empty vessels or containers in which teachers/educators must put new knowledge into those “containers” or students. Essentially, the teachers are expected to unload information into student’s brains, and it is then assumed that those said students will intake that information, memorize it, and then be able to regurgitate it. This is how Paulo Freire metaphorizes the education system. This model can be seen to empower the educators or teachers because in this sense, they have the ability to give forth any information that will fill the student’s mind or their empty container. Thus this model can be seen to disempower the student’s since they are not in control of the information that they are being filled with and expected to memorize.

I believe that throughout my academic career, I have experienced this model multiple times in which it had its positives and negatives. For me, one experience of the banking model that I encountered was when I first began to learn Spanish in middle school. In the beginning, for every class the teacher would give us new words to learn the meaning behind and then the different endings. For example, I would be taught that “descansar” meant to rest, and then be given a list of the different conjugations. During this time I was expected to have this information “deposited”, memorize it, and the recite it. I believe that for this kind of course, this model was an advantage because it is important to be able to memorize a word’s meaning as well as its conjugations, and repeat this information…just as one would with a word in English. Although, I think a negative of this learning was that I was never encouraged to memorize proper use or using it in a sentence. There was no critical thinking to the basics of this course, and therefore I personally had a difficult time learning the material. From this personal difficulty, my Mom would have to speak to me in Spanish and use the word in order for me to fully understand the word, and then I would have to create my own sentences; I was not always able to just memorize it and regurgitate it.