Teacher-Student Relationship

Discussing the teacher-student relationship, Freire (1995) advocates that liberating education consists in acts of cognition, not transfers of information (p. 57). Throughout the text, he classifies two kinds of educational ideologies—the banking concept of education and “problem-posing” education. In the book, he lists several characteristics of banking theory. He argues that one feature of this educational ideology is that the teachers work as narrators in the classroom, which leads students to memorize mechanically the narrated content (1995, p. 53), and eventually turn students into receptacles and depositories. Apart from inquiry, this ideology projects an absolute ignorance onto others (1995, p. 57). As a result, banking theory and practice minimize students’ creative power and to stimulate their credulity servers the interest of the oppressors who neither to have the world revealed nor to see it transformed (1995, p. 58). On the other hand, taking the people’s historicity as the starting point, problem-posing education emphasizes the equal and positive relationship between teachers and students, in which teachers are no longer the ones who teach, but ones who are in dialogues with the students who in turn while being taught also teachers (1995, p. 65).

In line with Freire’s belief, Greene, in 1988, writes from a more specific perspective, suggesting that teaching for “conscientization” is an awareness that might make injustice unendurable (p. 6). He maintains that teachers should overcome internalized oppression, in order to teach not only what they believe, but also teach for the sake of arousing the kinds of vivid, reflective and experiential responses that might motivate students to come together to understand what social justice actually means (1988, p. 3). Providing a more specific situation, he asserts that teaching for social justice demands openings to all sides: to that of persons desirous of telling their stories or picturing them in some fashion; to that of new comers striving to make sense of the very notion of consensus or mutuality; to that of children and young people, familiar with the languages used at home (not standard English) or with the language of the street (1988, p. 16).

This article makes me recall my prior educational experiences in China where people value teaching and guiding base on textbook contents. It is also being used in Chinese family education. Students perceive knowledge by listening to what the parents have told them and by reading textbooks which parents ask them to read.