3. The banking of education.
The "banking" concept of
education is a method of teaching
and learning where the students
simply store the information
relayed to them by the teacher. It
was described by Brazilian
educationalist Paolo Freire. The
concept is in contrast to the
"problem solving" concept of
education, in which students
engage in dialogue about the
subject matter with the teacher
and also with one another. The
world is seen as a work in
progress, and students are
encouraged to think about ways
to change it.
Freire elaborated on both
concepts in his famous work
"Pedagogy of the Oppressed." He
describes the banking concept as
oppressive, with no room for
independent thinking.
Freire sees the current system
and refers to it as the “banking
concept” and doesn’t like it. All
that happens in this system is the
professor lectures the whole class
period. The students sit there,
and absorb everything he/she
(instructor)
says
without
hesitation. The professor in a
sense
is
depositing
the
information into the brains of the
students. There is no discussion in
the class, no arguments, and no
debates; just I say, you write and
take in. He believes that this
limits the thinking capability of
the students due to the fact that
the teachers “deposit” their
information into the student’s
mind and the students accept it.
The students in return do not
think for themselves, but as
programmed machines that have
formulas inputted in their system
to operate a certain way.