Aubrey Elliott
9 September 2013 The Banking Concept In Paulo Freire’s “The ‘Banking’ Concept,” Freire explains with much detail the differences between “banking” education and “problem-posing” education. Not only does Freire inform his readers of the real problem in the education system, he convinces them of its importance; all the while making it very clear which method he supports. His strong diction supports his deep understanding of the human race, while his analogies give his readers an accurate and easy way to comprehend his real reason for writing and what he’s actually trying to assure us of. His hearty and truthful connotative and denotative languages carry out their job in getting Freire’s suggestive words across. From the very beginning, Freire uses analogies to describe the relationship between teachers and students in a banking education learning environment. He labels the teachers as the narrating subjects and the “patient, listening” students as objects. He explains that in a banking education environment, the teacher, as referred to as the narrator or the subject, presents topics to students in a lifeless, perhaps somewhat boring way, causing students to become uninterested. The students simply become an object to force feed information to. Freire also refers to the zombie-like students as “receptacles” being packed with details completely unimportant to them. Freire clarifies that such teaching methods do nothing for students, it only teaches them how to memorize information and repeat it; whereas, the problem-posing method encourages students to ask questions and almost challenge the teacher.
“Narration (with the teacher as the narrator) leads students to memorize mechanically the content. Worse yet, it turns them into “containers,” into “receptacles” to be “filled” by the teacher. The more completely he fills the receptacles, the better a teacher he is. The more meekly the receptacles permit themselves to be filled, the better students they are.” Freire also supports his argument with strong diction to display his deep understand of humans and their needs. “[Problem-posing education] affirms men as beings who transcend themselves, who move forward and look ahead, for whom immobility represents a fatal threat, for whom looking at the past must be only a means of understanding more clearly what and who they are so that they can more wisely build a future.” Not only does Freire completely persuade us that the problem-posing method is best for student learning, he also proves to us that he actually knows what he’s talking about. Someone who knows nothing of education or how humans learn can’t come up with such a complex, sensible sentence. Freire verifies that he understands that humans are forever-learning individuals with infinite potential to learn. That we are “aware of our incompletion,” which is why we, as human beings, need to learn, why we need to ask questions, why we need to feel fulfilled and successful. Not only does Freire thoroughly support his argument with that one sentence, he also shows us that he is an expert on the topic with an opinion that can be trusted. When speaking on the banking approach, Freire refers to students