The banking concept of education

Paulo Freire discusses the concept of ‘the banking system’ in his book Pedagogy of the Oppressed, and relates this existing idea to the structure of oppressive societies. The banking system refers to the structure that exists in educational institution, where teachers have authority over students, the students are assumed to have no prior knowledge about anything and their role is to act as passive listeners in the classroom as teachers “fill” them with information. The students also have no opinion in what they’re going to learn or how they’re approaching the topic, rather, the teacher makes the ultimate decision and often any different opinions from the students are discouraged.

This structure heavily mirrors the structure of an oppressive society. The authority given to the teachers creates an unequal relationship between the teacher and the student; the student is assumed to have no knowledge or opinion and so the authority is given to the teacher. As a result, teachers often abuse the power given to them and use it as a way of controlling how the students think and behave.  Students only act as passive listeners in the classroom and they are taught to think in one way, the teacher’s way of thinking, and so the students are taught to follow rather than think as individuals. This resembles how the  oppressors would control and subjugate the oppressed, by disabling their consciousness of reality and creating the idea that the oppressed are simple-minded individuals who need the oppressors to lead and guide them. The oppressed then seldom question the system that they are in, and even when they do, they are usually too afraid of the oppressor’s authority to take action or speak against it.

As the students follow and store in their heads everything that their teachers have told them, they start to lose their own way of thinking and understanding, thus losing their individuality. Freire mentions in his book that we cannot be “truly human”, and I think that this could be because of the way the system is designed; it is meant to erase our creative and critical thinking skills which results in us being the same and stops us from being our own individuals.

I have experienced this in school and one particular experience that stood out to me was my 11th grade literature class. Our class was reading the book Of Mice and Men, where we would explore the themes and motifs presented in the book, as well as the intention of the author behind his use of symbolism and language and its possible meanings. However, there was no dialogue between the teacher and the student in this class, in fact, our interpretation of the book was disregarded and we would have to learn and memorize our teacher’s interpretation. In contrast, my 12th grade literature class made me realize that there were several ways of understanding the text, and that limiting it to one perspective diminishes the importance of studying literature. My 12th grade literature teacher would define literary concepts and guide us into applying our knowledge of these concepts in our interpretations of the novel, without imposing her perspective on it. She encouraged dialogue and participation in class, and respected our unique ways of thinking. This helped me gain critical thinking skills; I would analyze and evaluate the text, then come up with an explanation and debate it with others in class. These skills have stayed with me, and I have used them in other classes and in real-life situations.

The reason why this class was successful in stimulating these skills within the students was probably because of the teachers approach to the subject, where the teacher would educate the students with knowledge, which is information and understanding about a subject, in comparison to just filling students in with information.