Posing Education versus Deposit Education

New week new blog get ready, 

The educational system follows a pretty standard structure and presents learning in a strict manner more often than not. Pablo Freire gave a name to this concept known as the banking concept of education, which, in my opinion, is accurate in all educational institutions. A prime example of this is seen in classrooms: “Instead of communicating, the teacher issues communiques and makes deposits which the students patiently receive, memorize, and repeat” (87). This statement is so relatable that I immediately saw the truth in Freire's concept. As a student, I partake in this every day at school; it’s known as a simple lecture. You sit with your materials, listen to all the information given, study the information at home, and apply it in the classroom again. However, this system is not effective for cognitive learning and understanding because simply depositing information does not mean there is knowledge being understood and applied to reality. Students are oppressed in the educational system due to the roles of domination and subordination. As it’s obvious, teachers are in authority when it comes to learning, but this system does not truly enhance the knowledge a student is receiving. 

Simply depositing information on students does not allow proper learning, which is why the partnership created between teachers and students is imperative in the education system. There has to be learning done on behalf of the teacher and the student to engage in the process of understanding and gaining knowledge. Freire acknowledges, “Liberating education consists in acts of cognition, not transferrals of information” (93). Rather than having a one-sided learning environment, the system needs to actively engage both parties to gain a deeper understanding of the knowledge being taught and how to apply that to reality. For this to be done, the teaching methods have to change to incorporate true learning. As a student, I appreciate teachers who don’t follow the banking concept of education many of them do but there are a lot of special teachers you’ll encounter who properly communicate, offer extra help, give demonstrations, and provide additional resources and use the problem-posing method when teaching to make students tap into critical thinking challenging them with the knowledge being presented allowing them to take the initiative in actively engaging and learning it and inspiring them to want to know because they took the opportunity and time to learn and communicate with students rather than deposit information from a lesson plan and expect them to obtain and retain the words being lectured to them. 

This quote from Freire explains my approach to all my educational experiences thus far, “Their response to the challenge evokes new challenges, followed by new understandings; and gradually the students come to regard themselves as committed” (94). This quote takes me back to my freshman year in high school when I took my first algebra class and was super discouraged because I felt so underprepared to learn all this new math. My teacher, Mr. Laskorski, communicated that I was not doing well and asked why. I explained that math was never a strong suit of mine and was always a challenge I never faced head-on but rather backed down from, just simply listening to the information I was being taught but never truly understanding it. From there, he explained math to me differently and explained the different ways of learning, and I found mine was learning math visually rather than just hearing it. Mr. Laskorski's drawing out demonstrations and recreating problems in a way I could process and understand helped with my overall comprehension of math. It made me aware of the challenges I was facing in the class and introduced me to different ways I could counter this challenge, which inspired me to create a learning method that would help me gain knowledge from his class. With the practice of freedom and my teacher working with me to approach this challenge, I was able to pass algebra then geometry, and calculus in my high school years, and even now, as I still engage in this method. 

For teachers like Mr.Laskorski who use problem-posing education, a student can only be grateful as they are not oppressed by the general standard banking concept of the education system, but rather in the classroom, they experience a balanced one where the teachers and students work together to understand the knowledge being taught.