Response To Freire's Banking System Of Education

After reading Freire’s essay I was struck with the realization that I support - in his words,’ problem-solving ‘education. The reason being that that was my whole experience with education. As a young girl I changed schools often, soon realizing that all education systems aren’t universally the same. For the first couple of years of my education, I was home schooled by my mother who was adamant that I learn in an environment that didn’t instill fear in a learner, a place in which minds could wander without fear or restriction. She wanted my experience with school to be the opposite of hers. Around the time I was a toddler it was hard to find schools or institutions that weren’t based on a system that thrives on the regurgitation of information

It is an education system that capitalizes on the act of depositing information into willing or more appropriately subdued containers (students). This transfer of information is carried out by a figure of authority (teacher) whose goal it seems is to fill the ‘containers’ to the brim. This system is very popular and widely prevalent in India especially when I was growing up. I was placed in an elementary school that was found with great difficulty to fit my mother’s standards. A school so different in its methods of teaching that for the first couple of years of its inauguration it had a difficult time being recognized by the state government as an education institution. When all the schools in the state if not the country had children wearing uniforms, classrooms with so many children that it was hard to keep track of just numbers let alone take attendance, I was in a school that had twelve children in total, allowed to wear anything I deemed appropriate. My classmates were my extended family, and every individual was a teacher in his or her own right. I learnt soccer from a boy older than me, multiplication tables from the youngest girl in school and spoke to everyone regardless of if they wanted to speak to me or not. I was also given the privilege to work out a timetable of classes for myself, something that was unusual for kids to be able to do before

His point is valid as illustrated throughout history. Tyrannical leaders or oppressors like Hitler relied on gaining a large following because of a ‘banking’ mind, one that is blind with misplaced belief, fooled into not wondering. He also says that the banking system relies heavily on memorization. When teachers simply deliver information, students resort to memorizing the content because they are often unable to comprehend the information. When I was taught the arrangement of elements on the periodic table in the eighth grade, I had to memorize the properties of groups of elements. Later on, when I was taught about electronic configurations of atoms and their structures I discovered that I didn’t need to memorize the properties