Blog Post #3: Pedagogy and Power

Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire was a book that criticizes the conventional education system. The banking model Freire proposed is that students only receive, file, and deposit what the teacher provides. The only thing students are learning to do is memorizing information that the teacher “deposits” in the students’ brains. The job of teachers is not so the students can memorize as much information as possible but to teach and get the students to think and analyze the work that is given. The problem the students have is never reach full understanding the knowledge because of the lack of context or they don’t have any reason to apply it to anything to appreciate its full value. Freire believes this turns students into better explain as “storage units” while the teachers are the depositing knowledge into, explaining the banking model title. Freire states this is a misguided system of education, where teachers are the oppressors and the students are the oppressed. This model of education greatly empowers the teacher and disempowers the student.

I keep trying to think of when (if) I’d ever experienced the banking model and  I can’t really seem to recall.

 

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