K-12 Literacy Education

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K-12 education is a growing topic of debate for public schools in the United States. Students are becoming—in a sense— depositories that are filled with information to be memorized and reiterated on command at someone else’s convenience (Freire, 136). This observation supports the idea that promotes a lack of critical thinking in students via the banking approach to education. This is a domination that is fueled by an “illusion of acting” that secures submission in its stead (Ferire 139). Students become the figurative ideology of the walking textbook, either knowingly or unknowingly, and conformity is allowed to persevere.

Paulo Freire, a Brazilian educationalist, describes in “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” that the contents of educational materials are becoming lifeless due to the lack of teacher-student relationships (135). There is a separation of reality as teachers present the world in stationary, predictable and controllable terms (Freire 135). Students become unable to draw connections from what they are being taught to what they have personally experienced. This gap between learning and experiencing is ever increasing as the teachers continue to fill the students with futile information.

The teachers within this educational concept show superiority to students. It is a one sided relationship that fuels the arrogant mentality of the people that hold it true. Alienation the teacher’s bestow on students only justifies the teacher’s own existence (Freire 136). Students are deemed unknowledgeable and are subjugated by this conformity supporting system. Teacher’s egocentric nature discriminates the students from themselves and undermines any creativity. By not being supported for their own ideas and needing to adopt the ideas ...

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... how to convert the existing public school systems, we develop a criterion of community involvement within schools. Schools simply do not have funding to benefit all students equally within education. Therefore, more volunteer work in after-school programs, such as academic homework programs, would create the possibilities for promoted critical thinking. I was offered after-school recess and sports programs, teaching me nothing about the world as I see it in the critical sense today. Involvement of both older students and members of the community into programs with the younger would increase self-interest. It would also allow students to learn from each other so they do not simply conform to teaching standards. A greater emphasis on student involvement is what I believe would help to solve conformity issues and better prepare students for life beyond high school.

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