Banking Concept Of Education

Written in 1968 by author Paulo Freire, a Brazilian educator and philosopher, the article “The Banking Concept of Education” has become an important literary piece that challenged the education system of Brazil at the time by exposing the automated and monotonous method of its system and introducing a new system which he refers to as the “problem-posing education”. Although Freire raises excellent points in his criticism of the “banking concept”, the solution which he proposes is idealistic and might sound good on paper, but realistically impossible to achieve. The term “banking”, coined by Freire, is used to describe a relationship between a teacher and a student in which the student is treated as an empty container to be filled with knowledge

According to Freire, the only way to liberate students is to allow them to form their own original thought but when teachers are asking students questions with an answer already in mind and willing them towards that answer, can the student’s thought be considered as original anymore? Can anything ever be considered as original anymore? Sure, one could argue that even if an idea had already been created, if we were to come up with that idea without knowing it existed, it’s our own original idea. However, we can never be sure if something we’ve read in the past has subconsciously willed us to form that idea. Much like originality, freedom is also a very abstract concept. What is it really to be free? Is it still freedom if teachers are influencing students to get the answers they want? The only way for students to completely be free of the teacher’s authority is for teachers to pose questions with no intention of swaying their students to a specific answer. That’s a difficult thing to ask for because we as humans have a tendency to be biased and look at different things through different lenses and perspectives. Similarly, it’s improbable that all students will put in the amount of effort required for the “problem-posing education”. This approach requires a much greater amount of commitment as it asks the students to be active participants in the classroom, not to mention the fact that such a drastic change can be hard for students to adapt to. Cases like these can be seen in our very own classrooms where energetic teachers try to encourage their students to be an active member in the classroom discussion but the student remains quiet for variety of reasons like they’re too shy to speak or they have nothing they deem productive to say. Even in debate clubs, an environment dedicated to discussions, students are unwilling to voice their thoughts.