Pedagogy of the Oppressed

This article was a very difficult read and I had a hard time understand the points being made because of the language Paulo Freire used; however, regardless of the language difficulty, Freire makes some very good points about how students should be viewed.  He talks about the “banking concept,” which, as far as I’m understanding his description, means students come into the classroom with little to no knowledge and the teacher is the expert expected to fill students’ “piggy band” with everything and doesn’t consider students’ presence in the world.  Freire points out that the banking method is a traditional approach to pedagogy and has an element of oppression because students aren’t considered creators of knowledge, but rather spectators.  He says: “Oppression --overwhelming control -- is necrophilic; it is nourished by love of death, not life. The banking concept of education, which serves the interests of oppression, is also necrophilic. Based on a mechanistic, static, naturalistic, spatialized view of consciousness, it transforms students into receiving objects. It attempts to control thinking and action, leads women and men to adjust to the world, and inhibits their creative power.” (Freire, Ch. 2).  In our education classes, we are learning that students should be treated the opposite of how the banking concept: students are not the same, they are not empty piggy banks begging to be filled.  Students are individuals and everyone brings different knowledge into the classroom. 

Something else that stuck out to me was: “In the banking concept of education, knowledge is a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable upon those whom they consider to know nothing. Projecting an absolute ignorance onto others, a characteristic of the ideology of oppression, negates education and knowledge as processes of inquiry. The teacher presents himself to his students as their necessary opposite; by considering their ignorance absolute, he justifies his own existence. The students, alienated like the slave in the Hegelian dialectic, accept their ignorance as justifying the teachers existence -- but unlike the slave, they never discover that they educate the teacher” (Freire Ch. 2).  This quote stuck out to me because it’s hard to not get upset that the banking concept basically says students know nothing, teachers know everything, and it’s a privilege to receive knowledge from all-knowing teachers because to me, it feels like a backward statement.  Yes, I am the English teacher and I’m expected to know how to teach my students how to read, write, analyze literature, etc., but my students can teach me something too.  If there’s one thing above everything else I have learned from my practicum is that my students have something to teach me even if they don’t feel like they do.  Each of my students brings something into the classroom to share and I love when my students have been able to share and teach me something because it always brings a smile to my face.  Last week, they were doing a survival scenario because we are starting Lord of the Flies; two of my 9^th grade English classes did everything in their groups of four instead of working together to survive but they still understood the point of the exercise in terms of the book.  But my 3^rd period figured out that the whole class should pool all the resources each group had been given so everyone could survive.  Watching the class put aside their differences and work together and build relationships with each other was so amazing to watch.  The best part: I didn’t have to say a word, I didn’t tell them to work together. 

So, I agree with Freire that the banking concept isn’t a fitting pedagogy for our students because I’m not always the expert and students deserve the opportunity to both learn and teach their own knowledge