Coming to Terms with Paulo Freire

This piece, "The Banking Concept of Education" by Paulo Freire, was very thought provoking and required me to look back on my past experience in school with this new critical lens.  Freire writes about this banking concept with such passion and ferocity that, while reading, I found this passion contagious. Reflecting on my past, the teachers that allowed and encouraged curiosity were the only ones I remembered fondly; they treated students as individuals rather than an audience. The more I thought, I realized there were teachers that used this banking model. They taught information for the benchmark test, then moved on. Freire took this banking model one step further than I have ever considered; that this model, set in place by the oppressors, encourages a complacent student.  As an Education major, I am familiar with this kind of impersonal teaching style.  In my world, it is also called the Transmission Model of Education, or Direct Instruction, all of which my professors have advised against.  This leads me to believe that an audience for this passage would include education professionals and future educators. This seems to be a call to action, to make a change in the way we educate our students young and old.  Some educators may not even realize they are using this banking model, and their eyes must be opened.  In the banking model, according to Freire, teacher and student are anything but equal, stating that "knowledge is a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable upon those whom they consider to know nothing. (208)”.  There is a definite power imbalance when students are educated using the banking model, and, like this quote, implies that the students cannot teach the instructor anything.  The exchange of information is less of an exchange and more like a one way street. The solution that Freire suggests is the problem-posing educational method, which encourages students to reflect on their education and utilize their creativity.  A limit that the text includes an inclusion of the standards many countries use to regulate education, this banking model may come from the challenges many teachers face while trying to educate students under these restrictions.