Banking Education By Paulo Freire Summary

Thomas Gradgrind, the teacher, repeatedly tells his class that fact is all that matters. Imagination is useless. Dickens makes his problems with the education system very obvious in this part of the novel. It is the small details, however, that really tell the reader what the purpose of the novel is. These acute details, such as the names of the characters, dialogue or statements between characters, and descriptions of the setting, are what can tell the reader exactly what Dickens thinks about the system.

My College Algebra course was the most frightening of all—especially the teacher I encountered. I heard through the "grapevine" that I was sure to fail his course, not because the course itself was hard, but because the teacher was even harder. Despite all of the horror stories, I decided to tackle this course with all of my wits. To my surprise, I prevailed; I aced the class, which is due largely to the magnificent teaching skills Dr. R displayed. He is able to give students a reason to learn mathematics by applying real-life situations to the problems.

Therefore, creativity is destroyed by the fact that it was not even permitted in the first place. Students are not able to express their opinions or solve problems using their own methods because in order to pass the class, students not only need to adapt to the teaching style of their professors but think like them too. Freire’s quote relates to experiences I have had with “banking” teachers throughout my twelve years of formal education. Those teachers only taught using textbooks, therefore, they insisted that the textbook was always right. If I were to solve a math problem using a technique different from the book, then I would not get points for the problem even though my answer was right.

In the beginning I was very nervous that I would never understand the way elementary math is now taught, but after weeks of learning more about it I feel much better. I would like to voice my opinion to the president of William Penn because I believe that this class needs to be two semesters long instead of one. I am not saying that I am the smartest person, but I am an “A” student and this class has been by far the hardest I have had to take out of five college semesters. Since the common core continues to change, it important as future teachers that we know everything there is to know about the curriculum because if we cannot teach it, what good are we as teachers.

Many of us have been a part of the banking concept of education, but what is it exactly? Reading From Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire has taught me about the banking concept of education and what it really means. The banking concept as Freire would define it, “students as containers in which educators must put knowledge into. Instead of communicating, the teacher issues communiques and makes deposits which the students patiently receive, memorize, and repeat. Freire states the banking concept as a broken system used in education where it’s less about communicating and more about “filling” up students with information leaving them to memorize it.

When I came to college, I knew grades were important but I did not realize how challenging it was to get above a 3.0 in college. Studying in college for tests is a completely different concept than in high school. Students have to put everything into studying for tests and not just cram 10 minutes before the test, or start writing a paper 3 hours before it is due. Most people at Ole Miss are doing this, and I do not think they are going to get very far in school. It feels so much better knowing I am trying my best in my classes

Teachers were extremely stressed during this period as well but at the time I didn’t understand why. I remember the reading, writing, comprehension and mathematics testing and then things returning to business as usual after the exam were sent off to be graded. I never really paid this much attention because as a kid you learn to study a subject and then complete the examination to determine your knowledge. Interestingly enough as I progressed as a student I learned how the seemingly long boring timed test determined which courses you placed in. Until more recently I knew little to nothing about the education reform acts which mandated these awful tests.

In high school, we weren’t given breaks. All we had was a half hour to an hour of lunch to relieve ourselves. But it wasn 't too much time to let us lose our train of thought. Due to that, I don 't think our class should be so widely separated. This all leads back to the fact that our professors should take attendance, and make sure their students don 't fall asleep in

It was something we expected, but tried so much to avoid. I wasn’t too shocked, but was still disappointed. He was the first person in my family to ever get left back a grade; someone recommended by his teachers to take special education classes. No teacher seemed to understand Kenneth. I don’t think they ever had a chance to get to know him well.

Brown considers employees as slaves to employers as does Freire believing students are like slaves to teachers; forcing them to memorize the information they are told. Paulo Freire’s, Pedagogy of the Oppressed states that students are told what to do in the classrooms, rather than being taught. Teachers are simply teaching the Banking System to their students, and are to “receive, memorize and repeat” (58). This raises interesting and important questions on the discussion that teachers are not doing their jobs correctly. The banking concept of education weakens student’s creativity by causing theses students to memorize facts or even fiction.