THE "BANKING" CONCEPT OF EDUCATION
PAULO FREIRE
Paulo Reglus Neves Freire (September 19, 1921 –
May 2, 1997) was a Brazilian educator and
philosopher who was a leading advocate of critical
pedagogy. Freire became familiar with poverty and
hunger during the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Banking education is a term used by
Paulo Freire to describe and
critique the traditional education
system. The name refers to the
metaphor of students as containers
into which educators must put
knowledge. This reinforces a lack of
critical thinking and knowledge
ownership in students, which in turn
reinforces oppression, as well as it
misrepresents Freire's
understanding of knowledge as the
result of a human, creative process.
Freire describes this form of
education as "fundamentally
narrative (in) character", with the
teacher as the Subject (that is,
the active participant) and the
students as passive objects.
Instead of communicating, the
teacher issues communiques and
makes deposits which the students
patiently receive, memorize, and
repeat.
BANKING EDUCATION
POSSIBLE ALTERNATIVE
TRANSMISSION MODEL
Banking education follows the transmission
model of education. This model views education
as a specific body of knowledge that is
transmitted from the teacher to the student.
One possible alternative is the problem-posing
education model, in which students are
encouraged to think and tackle problems
presented to them on their own. This model
views the student as one with prior knowledge
that may be capitalized upon to reach greater
results than a banking model that fails to take
advantage of this capital.
CLAUDIA QUEZADA