As described by Paolo Freire in “The Pedagogy of the Oppressed,” the “banking model” reflects the current system of education and the specific relationship that exists between the teachers, (subjects) and the students (listening objects in the education system. According to Freire the teacher fills the head of the student with ideas “detached” from reality, meaning ideas that are almost entirely foreign to the student, and in turn the student is then forced into memorizing the ideas mechanically without ever truly understanding why. Freire believes this turns students into receptacles or depositories while the teaches are the depositors, thus “the banking model” title. Freire states this is a misguided system of education, in which teachers become oppressors and the students become the oppressed. He also states that the interests of the oppressors lie in “changing the consciousness of the oppressed,” not [changing] the situation which oppresses them.” This model of education greatly empowers the teacher and disempowers the student. The solution to this misguided model of education does not lie in integrating the students onto the system, according to Freire, it lies in transforming the structure of education so that students can become “beings for themselves.”

I, and I feel like most students in our current system of education, have a greta deal of experience with this “banking model.” All throughout middle school, high school, and even college, most of the information is presented in this way. The teacher or professor presents facts/ information, depositing it into the students heads, then the student is responsible to retain that information for a test/paper/midterm/final and when the test is over, the studied/learned information almost seems to vanish. Instead of studying or learning for the sake of learning and personal betterment it becomes a cold system of memorization for the sake of memorization without that intimate relationship of having learned something just for the sake of learning.

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