Paulo Freire was a Brazilian educator and philosopher that used the term “banking model” to describe and critique the traditional educational system. According to Freire, it is a method of educating where an educator teaches a student and the student must retain that knowledge, for example, the students are empty containers that need to be filled with the knowledge from the educators. This method allows educators to be empowered because they are the ones who can differentiate right from wrong and their teachings are passed down to the students. Meanwhile, the students are the ones that are dis-empowered, due to the lack of freedom of expression and creativity towards these teachings, and being forced to only accept the information given to them by the educator. This comes out of the students expense since they are not able to express themselves through questioning and creativity, while they are only being filled with information from the educator temporarily and will soon forget the teachings once the course is complete.
I’ve had experience with the “banking model” before with my math courses. In my math course, the professor taught a specific way to solve certain questions and equations and they had to be solved specifically to the way the professor taught it in the course. It was quite frustrating considering the fact that there was a much more efficient, quicker, and easier way to solve the problems and use the formulas, but the professor would not allow it due to the way he taught the class. If we were to not solve the questions his way we would not b able to receive full credit for the course. The positives that came out of the experience was knowing that there is a quicker and easier way to solve the problems instead of solving the problems the harder way. The Negatives that came out of the experience was it was a waste of time and could’ve saved a lot of effort and time.